Alex Salmond cemented his place in British political history in May 2011, when he and the Scottish National Party did something extraordinary.
They won a basic majority at Holyrood, under a proportional system designed to promote coalitions, not one party dominance. With the SNP winning 69 of Holyrood's 129 seats, the result revealed two things that defined Salmond's legacy.
It established the SNP as a formidable political force, forged largely by what John Swinney described on Sunday as Salmond's “absolute determination” to win. And secondly, it established that a referendum on Scottish independence was inevitable.
However, questions later emerged about the side effects of the power Salmond was allowed to accrue within the party and the Scottish government.
Did he prevent some of Salmond's colleagues from seeing or acting on disturbing evidence about his private conduct, actions that later led to his sexual assault trial and the bitter row with Nicola Sturgeon that defined his final years?
Within months of the 2011 election, the then Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government led by David Cameron quickly agreed to Salmond's demands for a referendum. At that time, support for independence was around 32%; Cameron and his close allies were confident of victory and on 19 September 2014, the No campaign won by 55% to forty five%.
Salmond resigned, paving the way for Sturgeon to be anointed unopposed leader of the SNP. But in that defeat Salmond had managed to normalize independence as a popular position, thanks to the depth and quality of his association with Sturgeon. He attracted younger, left-wing urban voters, complementing his appeal to rural and suburban middle Scotland.
Since then, support for independence has fluctuated between 45% and 50%. The yes vote is now the firm will of a majority of younger voters.
It also groomed the SNP to become one of the most dominant political forces in recent British political history. Until July this year, the SNP had not lost an election in Scotland since its first narrow victory in 2007.
Buoyed by the notable surge in SNP support that emerged from the referendum defeat, when party membership soared to 120,000, the SNP won an extraordinary landslide election in 2015, winning 56 of Scotland's 59 Westminster seats with the 50% of the votes.
However, in retrospect, that turned out to be Sturgeon's high point. The EU referendum in 2016, when Scotland voted to remain but was expected to accept Brexit because of England's vote to leave, briefly accelerated support for independence.
His attempts to leverage a second Brexit independence referendum failed in the 2017 general election. Voters felt alienated by his rhetoric and the SNP lost a large number of seats, including Salmond's. He had never lost a parliamentary race before and lashed out.
To Sturgeon's frustration, Salmond ignored advice from her closest aides to choose a dignified exit by setting up a foundation or choosing international roles. Instead, he launched a talk show on the Kremlin-funded RT television channel.
In August 2018, it emerged that Salmond had been investigated by Scottish Government officials for alleged misconduct towards female officials. Although a court later threw out the findings due to procedural flaws, including apparent bias, that internal investigation had confirmed five complaints from two women.
In March 2020, Salmond was charged with 13 counts of sexual assault, including sexual assault with intent to rape. He was acquitted of all charges, but at trial some of the complaints were dealt with quietly by some of Salmond's officials; Some complainers admitted they downplayed their experiences at the time to avoid undermining Salmond's independence campaign.
Even his lawyer described Salmond's “smart” behavior as “inappropriate.” A confidant suggests that he was unwilling to reflect on his involvement in this and still firmly believed that the charges were the result of a conspiracy.
By then, Holyrood had launched its investigation into the government's mishandling of the internal review, entrenching a now-open dispute with Sturgeon.
By spring 2021, Salmond's popularity had plummeted: open polls showed just 8% of voters favoring him; 75% didn't like it. The popularity of sturgeon had skyrocketed, especially during the first year of the Covid crisis.
Salmond had left the SNP in anger and created a rival party, Alba. It became an outlet for a handful of SNP politicians and those activists irritated by Sturgeon's progressive, identity-focused policies and her alliance with the Scottish Greens.
With Salmond's unexpected death, Alba is unlikely to survive as a political force. Its only MP, Ash Regan, is unlikely to win a seat in the next Holyrood election; In the general elections in July, Alba obtained only 0.5% of the national vote.
Salmond's death also raises a subtler and more significant question for the nationalist movement as a whole. With Sturgeon now a largely inactive MP who may not run for Holyrood again, Swinney is the only established nationalist leader left.
There are a handful of potential candidates among the younger generation – Swinney MP Kate Forbes and the party's Westminster leader Stephen Flynn are the most mentioned – but until the next Holyrood election in 2026, Swinney will be last. veteran standing.
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