He once bestrode the political scene — a swaggering figure who took Scotland to the brink of independence. When Alex Salmond resigned as first minister, following the failed referendum of 2014, he anticipated standing behind his successor, Nicola Sturgeon, ready to offer advice when needed. But she gave him the cold shoulder. For once, he was not needed. Then, when he faced charges of sexual assault in 2020, despite his acquittal on all counts, she disowned her erstwhile political mentor altogether.
Now all has changed. The SNP is in crisis and Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrell, await the outcome of a police inquiry into the party’s finances.
And while Salmond’s breakaway independence party, Alba, failed to win a single seat in the Scottish local elections, despite fielding 111 candidates, he is not deterred. He has, he says, a plan that could bring independence for Scotland within five years — and could also save the SNP.
In the aftermath of Sturgeon’s resignation as leader, the SNP faces deep divisions and the possibility of electoral defeat. Salmond sees himself once again centre stage, albeit on a rather smaller platform, and is delighting in the nightly show he fronts on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, appearing alongside David Davis, the former Tory minister.
Sitting in the drawing room of a mansion in north Edinburgh, booked for the duration of his show, Salmond, who will turn 70 late next year, is in expansive mood. “The great thing about politics, and perhaps life, is it is always changing,” he said. “Everybody has darker moments, but I think I have less of them than most folk. I’m very happy with life at the present moment in all sorts of ways. I have this show, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s all about politics and Scotland and the future. You ask me if I have a role to play, and that’s it.”
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That is not a view widely shared in the SNP. For all the bravado, most in the party ranks still regard Salmond with distaste — a tainted figure, whose creation of his party was seen as deeply divisive, and whose more recent calls for unity fly in the face of his frequent attacks on the way the party is being run. Alba, they say, has yet to make any impact on political life in Scotland.
But Salmond believes he can rescue the SNP from almost certain defeat in the crucial Rutherglen by-election, and in next year’s general election. He offers Sturgeon’s successor, Humza Yousaf, a deal: change the direction of the party, drop its coalition with the Greens and commit itself to a full-blown campaign for independence at the general election, and he will consider standing down his Alba candidates in marginal seats. That way, he said, independence could be won within five years.
“We’ve written to them,” he said. “If the SNP put forward a unity candidate, we believe the other independence parties should withdraw in their favour, as long as that is carried forward to the general election. That unity candidate would be the SNP candidate, because it’s an SNP-held seat.”
No one is holding their breath. The chances of the SNP agreeing to a deal with Salmond and his Alba renegades are not strong, particularly as he does little to conceal his disdain for the direction the party has taken under Sturgeon. He is especially scathing about her decision to challenge the Westminster government at the Supreme Court over the right to hold a referendum.
“That was an act of great self-harm,” he said. “Any court, particularly the Supreme Court, is going to be leery about overturning legislation that has gone through a democratic parliament. Never go and say, ‘Please, can I ask the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom if I can dissolve the United Kingdom?’ Why on earth would you do such a thing?”
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He accuses the SNP of incompetence in the way it has dealt with matters such as building island ferries, and running the day-to-day business of government, while being diverted by divisive issues such as its gender recognition bill.
“Even if you believe that gender recognition is the most pressing argument of the day, it is not something that a leader of a national movement should be doing,” he said. “It is deeply divisive in society, it is a difficult argument at the best of times, and no society has resolved it satisfactorily.”
He says that Yousaf, to whom he gave his first political job, is “a seriously nice guy”, but needs to develop leadership qualities and not be overinfluenced by people around him. Also, he should spend more time thinking about the direction he wants to take the country.
“Instead of beetling round Scotland as the first activist, he would probably have an extra half hour in the bath in the morning to think about things. It doesn’t matter how bright you think you are, a moment of reflection is always worthwhile.”
He has a higher opinion of the woman who came a close second to Yousaf in the leadership contest — Kate Forbes. “I’ve no doubt that if she had become leader of the SNP and first minister you would have a totally different complexion and environment around the various forces for independence,” he said. “Kate was much more interested in uniting in some form the parties of independence into a national movement. That is called leadership. It’s too early to judge whether Humza has it.”
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Looking back on his life since 2014, Salmond wonders why he resigned so precipitately in the aftermath of the referendum.
“I don’t have a satisfactory explanation,” he said. “If I’d known then what I know now, clearly I would not have done so, I would have waited for someone else to emerge to take forward the mantle. I thought Scotland was quids in for independence. As for Europe, after Brexit I didn’t see how Scotland could lose.”
For that he blames Sturgeon and Murrell, who never forgave him after he told them it was a bad idea for Murrell to be chief executive of the party while she was first minister. “I told Nicola, I told Peter, individually, then told them both together that I didn’t think it was tenable,” he recalled. “While it might be OK in the good times, sooner rather than later it would not be OK. It was the last time I spoke to Peter Murrell — 2014. The look on his face was a combination of hurt, resentment and hate, I would say. It was visceral.”
The campaign against him in the SNP started almost at once, he said. “I found it quite difficult to be called [to speak] at SNP conferences,” he said. “It was just petty, pathetic things like that. When I stood for the national executive, I got more votes than anyone else combined, and Nicola called me and asked why I had done that. Looking back I recognised her problems, and it’s her problems.”
Since standing down, Salmond and his wife, Moira, have been living in their detached period home, a converted former mill in Strichen, Aberdeenshire. She is now 85, 17 years older than him, and remains firmly out of the public eye.
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He has spent the past year criss-crossing the country, promoting his party, Alba. He reckons he has done 69 visits, or more than one a week. Salmond stopped appearing on his controversial RT show when Russia invaded Ukraine, and has began a new show, Scotland Speaks, produced by his friend Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, a former MP who is a candidate for the Alba party, that is broadcast on social media platforms.
His position on key issues, such as the monarchy, has changed radically. Once a keen monarchist, he now proclaims himself a republican. “I’ve always been an advocate for the Keynes dictum, when the facts change I change my mind, what do you do?” he said. “The [monarchy] argument changed with the Queen’s death. I like Charles, I’ve always got on well with him, I’m not arguing let’s depose King Charles, I’m just saying this is the moment to consider an elected head of state, which is a better proposition.”
Salmond’s grasp of Scottish history is impressive. As he got to his feet to rejoin his fringe show partner Davis, and head off to the next show, he quoted the 14th-century abbot, Bernard of Kilwinning, who is said to have drafted the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320. It includes the words, “It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”
“Just think,” he said, “a 14th-century Scottish abbot composed the first draft of what would be the American Declaration of Independence. Not bad.”
