OPINION

Alex Salmond R.I.P.

Alex Salmond, a towering figure in Scottish politics, has died unexpectedly in North Macedonia, leaving a profound legacy. His transformative leadership championed Scottish independence, reshaping Scotland’s political landscape indelibly.

Wee Ginger Dug

Oct 15, 2024 — 5 min read

Credit: Flickr/Scottish Government

TL;DR | Highlights from this story

● Alex Salmond’s sudden passing in North Macedonia shocked Scotland, ending a transformative political era.

● As a Scottish political giant, Salmond mainstreamed independence, reshaping Scotland’s political landscape permanently.

● His achievements include making the SNP the dominant Scottish party, initiating the 2014 referendum.

● His vision for independence lives on, inspiring Scots to pursue self-governance amid shifting UK politics.

I n news which has shocked all of Scotland, Alex Salmond has suddenly passed away while on a trip to North Macedonia.

Whether you support Scottish independence or not, he was without doubt a giant of Scottish politics who transformed the Scottish political landscape for good, a truly monumental individual, and as such he leaves a legacy which will live on for many decades. Alex Salmond changed politics, changed Scotland and changed the SNP. Even his political opponents had to acknowledge that he was a class act, a shrewd political operator who was in a different league from the minnows of Westminster. He was formidable and determined. His sudden death has numbed the entire Scottish independence movement.

Alex Salmond was not just a hugely significant figure in Scottish politics but in British and European politics. His greatest achievement was to transform the SNP into the natural party of Scottish Government and to drag the issue of Scottish independence from the margins of Scottish politics not only slap bang into the middle of the Scottish political mainstream but to make it the fulcrum of Scottish politics, the defining issue around which the entirety of Scottish politics revolves. A figure like him comes around once in a generation and his loss will be deeply felt. I am sure all the readers of this column will share with me in passing our sincere condolences to his wife, Moira, and his family.

After winning victory in 2007, he changed the name of the Scottish Executive as it was then known, to the Scottish Government, a simple move but one which holds so much significance and importance to this very day.

In the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections, under his leadership the SNP achieved a feat hitherto believed impossible, winning an absolute majority under an electoral system designed by the Labour and Lib Dem parties to prevent any party from winning a majority and to keep a Labour-Lib Dem coalition in power in perpetuity. That unexpected election result – in the days before the polls were predicting a Labour victory – paved the way for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

It is widely agreed that during the negotiations with the Westminster Government about holding that referendum, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron was completely trounced and out-played by Alex Salmond, who succeeded in getting everything he wanted. My favourite Alex Salmond moment was when David Cameron joined him at St Andrew’s House to sign the Edinburgh Agreement with a strategically placed map of Scotland showing SNP dominance in the background.

Although the referendum did not deliver the result that Alex Salmond and the Yes movement campaigned so hard for, it was a transformative event which changed Scotland forever, normalising the idea of independence in the Scottish psyche and boosting Scottish national self-confidence in a way never seen before. Never again could anti-independence politicians lazily assert that Scotland was too poor, too small, or too stupid without being challenged.

The unquestioned British nationalist dominance of Scottish political and cultural life had been broken for good. That and making the question of independence the pivotal issue of Scottish politics we owe to Alex Salmond more than any other single individual. He showed us another Scotland is possible. He shaped an entire nation and gave us a vision of a confident and self-governing Scotland taking it rightful place amongst the nations of the world as an equal, a Scotland which does not need its relations with the rest of the world to be mediated by a Westminster with no interest in the well-being of Scotland or its people.

That vision is still motivating and driving us to this day. Given all that has passed in the years since 2014 in Westminster, the contempt for Scotland and the trashing of the promises made by the Better Together parties, Brexit, the chaos and corruption of the Tories and Starmer’s lies and his submission to corporate interests, Scottish independence is not just a political and economic necessity, it is a moral necessity too. Given the demographic realities of Scotland, independence is inevitable. Tragically for Alex Salmond, he did not live to see it. Alex Salmond has gone, but the torch of independence that he caused to shine so brightly will be passed on and enthusiastically taken up by younger generations.

I wrote some weeks ago that the Scottish independence movement needs to move on from the era of Salmond and Sturgeon. I never for a second imagined that might come to pass due to Alex Salmond passing away. His death was shocking, sudden and unexpected, and he is gone before his time. 69 is no age at all in this era of modern medicine.

CREDIT: FLICKR/SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT —

— Andy Murray and Alex Salmond.

I am not going to talk about the controversies, legal issues, and the fallout with Nicola Sturgeon, which dogged his later years. Neither am I going to discuss the political consequences of his passing on the Alba Party, the SNP, and the wider independence movement. All of that can be discussed another day once we have collectively processed this shocking news. This is not the time for that. Those discussions are for another day. This is a time for celebrating the achievements of a titan of the Scottish independence movement and marking a sudden, untimely, and tragic loss which all of us will feel deeply, irrespective of our politics.

Like many in the Scottish independence movement, I had my own personal interactions with him. In the days after my stroke in October 2020, while I lay paralysed and afraid in a hospital bed, he sent a personal message of support and encouragement, which was a huge emotional boost at a time when I was at my lowest and for that I will be eternally grateful.

Alex Salmond was a flawed man, but he was a great man, a man who loved Scotland, and he will go down in history as part of the pantheon of flawed but great champions and heroes of Scotland, taking his place with Robert Bruce, William Wallace, and Robert Burns. It’s the end of an era for the Scottish independence movement, and the start of a new one. It’s time to finish the work he started.