Just four weeks ago, Alex Salmond sat on a podium in central London to do what he loved to do most: talk about his belief in Scottish independence. The Foreign Press Association in London had invited Salmond, the former First Minister of Scotland and long-time leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), and Salmond spoke at length about the history of Scotland and the history of the party, which was also the history of his life. A new referendum was possible, said Salmond; until the end, Scotland’s autonomy was far more than a vague idea for him.
Alex Salmond died unexpectedly on Saturday at the age of 69.
Alex Salmond’s place in Scottish history almost became one in the history of the United Kingdom. He, who studied the medieval history of Scotland and became a politician after his time at the Royal Bank of Scotland in the 1980s, convinced millions of Scots that independence from England was right. However, he lost the referendum that he pushed through in 2014 by 45 to 55 percent. The day after, he resigned as Scottish Prime Minister and SNP leader and handed over the reins to Nicola Sturgeon.
He was not a middle man, the Scots either loved him or hated him
The referendum made Salmond a well-known figure beyond Scotland’s borders. A politically left-wing radical, he led the SNP to the only absolute majority of a party in Scotland since the beginning of devolution, which states that although Scotland is part of the kingdom, it is allowed to decide independently on certain issues. At the same time, it was the referendum in particular that cemented Salmond’s polarizing impact. He was never a man of the moderate middle, the Scots either loved him or hated him.
Nicola Sturgeon said on Saturday that she was “shocked and saddened” by the news of Salmond’s death, and current Scottish First Minister John Swinney and British Prime Minister Keir Sarmer also expressed their condolences. But she also doesn’t want to act, said Sturgeon, “as if everything that led to the breakdown of our relationship never happened.”
Salmond was once Sturgeon’s mentor, but after his resignation the relationship deteriorated. Things escalated when Salmond was charged in 2018 over allegations of sexual assault and attempted rape of female employees. Salmond was acquitted of all 14 charges in 2020 and was subsequently convinced it was a conspiracy against him by Sturgeon’s government.
Salmond continued his political life elsewhere. He founded the Alba party in 2021, of which he was leader until his death at the weekend. Salmond was unable to repeat his previous success with Alba; the party hardly plays a role in Scotland. Also because the once marginal fringe party SNP was led by Salmond to become the logical governing party in Scotland in the 1990s and 2000s. It was only at the last election in July in the Kingdom that the SNP lost to the Labor Party for the first time in almost twenty years.
He was expelled from the party in the 1970s, but he returned
Salmond was born on December 31, 1954 in Linlithgow, a small town thirty kilometers west of Edinburgh. In 1973 he became a member of the then conservative-nationalist SNP and was expelled again six years later because he and others tried to transform the party from within into a left-wing socialist party. He returned in the mid-1980s and was elected to the House of Commons at Westminster for the SNP. In total, Salmond led the SNP for twenty years, with one interruption.
Alex Salmond spent the last days of his life at a political conference in North Macedonia, where he gave a speech on Friday. It was, of course, about Scottish independence: If Scotland had decided differently in 2014, said Salmond, everything would have developed differently, and not just for Scotland. David Cameron, the then British Prime Minister, would have resigned and the EU referendum would never have taken place: “Scotland and the rest of the UK would now be partners in the EU.”
Alex Salmond attended meetings on Saturday morning, the organizer said. He suffered a heart attack at lunch. He died at the scene.