Of all the thousands of tributes paid to Alex Salmond since his untimely and premature death the one that best sums up Alex is that from Adam Boulton, the former Sky News political editor. Adam wrote: ‘He was a world class politician, whether you liked him or not.’ There aren’t many objective observers of the Scottish and UK political scene who would disagree with that astute observation.
Alex Salmond was the first and only politician in over 300 years since the 1707 Act of Union who came anywhere near to taking Scotland to the brink of regaining its status as an independent country. Between February and September 2014, support for independence rose from 28 per cent to 45 per cent on referendum day. That was despite the massive campaign carried out by ‘Better Together’, the Labour/Tory/Liberal coalition of unionist parties opposed to independence.
While Alex ran a positive, upbeat, optimistic campaign, the unionist camp focussed on trying to scaremonger the Scots into voting ‘No’ to independence. Although they didn’t realise it at the time, Alex’s ‘Good Morning Scotland’ strategy far outsmarted ‘Better Together’, whose portrayal of what an independent Scotland would look like was, in some instances, straight out of the Donald Trump school of politics. Incidentally the identical scaremongering strategy that failed in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum was copied by the Tory-led ‘Remain’ campaign in the 2016 EU referendum. This time it resulted in defeat rather than a narrow victory.
But Alex Salmond shouldn’t just be remembered for the independence referendum. When he became SNP Leader in 1990, the SNP was very much on the fringe of Scottish politics, with only three MPs at Westminster and a total membership of well under 20,000 people. In no way was it seen as a serious threat either to the Scottish or British establishments, or to the existence of United Kingdom which incorporated Scotland.
Alex Salmond was the first and only politician who came anywhere near to taking Scotland to the brink of regaining its status as an independent country.
Alex changed all that. He took the SNP back to the centre stage of Scottish politics, where it had been for most of the 1970’s. He transformed the SNP from a ‘heather and haggis’ type of outfit into an effective, modern political machine. He redefined the SNP as a movement for ‘civic nationalism’. He transformed the SNP into an avowedly ‘moderate left-of-centre’ social democratic party which could appeal to the whole country, including the Labour stronghold of the central belt of Scotland.
In 2000 he suddenly resigned as the SNP leader, exhausted by 10 years of what had been a long, hard slog. Yet after four years of setbacks under his successor, Alex returned to the top job. This was a different Alex Salmond, who was determined to make the SNP the natural party of government in Scotland, as his political hero Harold Wilson had done with the Labour Party in the 1960s and 70s. In his victory speech as the new leader, he made clear his intention to be elected by the Scottish people as the First Minister of Scotland at the next Scottish Parliament elections in 2007. He then led a minority SNP Government for the next seven and a half years.
The first thing he did as First Minister was to change the name of the ‘Scottish Executive’ to the ‘Scottish Government’, to help give Scots the confidence needed to make Scotland an independent country. He introduced a range of progressive policies, striking a balance between wealth creation through incentivising enterprise and investment whilst bringing about much improved social justice. He abolished university tuition fees, bridge tolls and prescription charges. He initiated a green energy revolution. He invested heavily in Scotland’s NHS. He devised innovative financial policies to increase investment in new housing and roads. He brought radical reform of Scotland’s colleges and the police. He got the equal marriage bill passed. And much, much more.
His government is widely seen in Scotland as the most competent government we have ever had. Unfortunately, after the defeat of the Yes movement in the independence referendum, Alex decided to resign as First Minister – a decision he came to regret once given the failures of succeeding years. He went back to Westminster as an MP, but lost his seat in 2017 in what was a huge loss to the Commons and politics more widely. After losing his seat he built up a new and successful television career and formed a new independence party, Alba. Had he lived, I have no doubt he would have continued to play a major role in Scottish politics and to help advance the independence cause. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.
We have lost a political giant. A decent man who was the most consequential politician of his age, not just in Scotland but in Britain. I doubt we will ever see his likes again.
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