- Alex Salmond, former First Minister of Scotland who championed Scottish independence, has died at the age of 69.
- Tributes poured in from across the political spectrum, including from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who called Salmond a “monumental figure” in British politics.
- Salmond served as First Minister from 2007 to 2014 and was leader of the Scottish National Party for two separate periods.
Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland who for decades advocated for and came close to achieving Scottish independence from the United Kingdom, has died. He was 69 years old.
Salmond, who was one of the most divisive figures in British politics at the turn of the century and who, as then leader of the Scottish National Party, brought Scotland to the brink of independence in the 2014 referendum, died in Lake Macedonia. North. -resort town of Ohrid, local media reported.
“Unfortunately, Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland who was one of the panellists at the cultural diplomacy forum held yesterday in Ohrid, died suddenly today,” according to a statement from the office of the former president of North Macedonia. Gjorgje Ivanov.
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Tributes came from across the political spectrum, led by King Charles III and his wife, Queen Camilla.
Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party, pictured on April 14, 2005. Salmond, Scotland's former first minister who for decades championed and came close to achieving Scottish independence from the United Kingdom, has died. He was 69 years old. (Maurice McDonald/PA via AP)
“My wife and I are very sad to hear of the sudden death of Alex Salmond,” the king said. “His devotion to Scotland fueled his decades of public service.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the Labor Party called him a “monumental figure” in Scottish and British politics.
“He leaves a lasting legacy,” Starmer said. “As First Minister of Scotland, he cared deeply about Scotland’s heritage, history and culture, as well as the communities he represented.”
Salmond was First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014 and was leader of the Scottish National Party twice, from 1990 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2014. Salmond led the independence campaign in the 2014 referendum, but he lost and won. he won 45% of the vote and subsequently resigned from the top job and was replaced by his former ally, Nicola Sturgeon. Their subsequent split dominated Scottish politics for years.
“Obviously I can't pretend that the events of recent years that led to the breakdown of our relationship didn't happen, and it wouldn't be right for me to try,” Sturgeon said after learning of Salmond's death. “However, the fact remains that for many years Alex was an incredibly significant figure in my life. “He was my mentor and for over a decade we formed one of the most successful partnerships in UK politics.”
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In 2019, Salmond was accused of sexual assault and attempted rape following allegations by nine women who had worked with him as first minister or for the party. Salmond called the charges “deliberate fabrications for a political purpose”. Salmond was acquitted after a trial in March 2020.
A year later, he created a new party called Alba – the Scottish Gaelic word for Scotland – which made little progress in Scottish politics and sought a new independence referendum come what may.
Alex Salmond is at Stirling Castle to mark the start of the party's campaign in Mid-Scotland and Fife, ahead of the Scottish parliamentary elections on 13 April 2021. (Andrew Milligan/PA via AP)
The current SNP first minister, John Swinney, said he was “deeply shocked and saddened by the untimely death” of Salmond.
“Over many years, Alex made a huge contribution to political life, not just within Scotland, but across the UK and beyond,” he said. “He took the Scottish National Party from the margins of Scottish politics into government and brought Scotland so close to becoming an independent country.”
Salmond had said he learned to dream of an independent Scotland at his grandfather's knee, and decided to join the SNP at university in 1973 when his English girlfriend made too much fun of his separatist sentiments.
Salmond's academic and professional background prepared him to become Scotland's most visionary and economically optimistic politician. At the University of San Andrés. He double-majored in medieval history, reflecting his love of a lost Caledonia, and economics. When he was 20, he worked as an economist, first for the British regional government in Scotland and then at the Royal Bank of Scotland, where he analyzed the country's most dynamic industry, North Sea oil.
Alex Salmond speaks at the SNP conference in Glasgow on October 14, 2016. (Jane Barlow/PA via AP)
He won a seat in the United Kingdom Parliament in 1987 and three years later was leader of the party. He supported Tony Blair's Labor government in the late 1990s to create a devolved Scottish parliament in Edinburgh, a reform that fell short of independence but gave his homeland a sense of self-government for the first time since its union with England in 1707. Under that new agreement, which was ratified by referendum, the Scottish Parliament has had a wide range of domestic powers, including health and education policies, but not on foreign policy issues.
Salmond then had a very public forum to push his dream of complete independence (his government had a number of powers, especially on social issues) and managed to convince Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's government to call a referendum. Until the results were known, it had been considered a close decision.
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Although the independence campaign lost, Salmond's SNP managed to capitalize on his support and has dominated Scottish politics ever since. The SNP has been the Edinburgh-based government ever since, although it suffered a huge setback in this year's UK-wide general election, when it lost a large majority of the seats it held in the House of Commons to Labour. . The next Scottish election will take place in 2026.
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