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SNP’s treatment of Salmond ‘pathetic and shameful’, says party MSP

15 Oct 2024 4 minute read
Alex Salmond. Photo Jane Barlow/PA Wire

The SNP’s treatment of former first minister of Scotland Alex Salmond has been described as “pathetic” and “shameful” by one of the party’s MSPs.

Mr Salmond – who died after suffering a heart attack on Saturday in North Macedonia – resigned his party membership following allegations of sexual offences and went on to become leader of the Alba Party in 2021.

He would later be cleared in the High Court of all offences and would accuse figures in the Scottish government and SNP of a plot against him, which was denied.

Stalin

But Fergus Ewing – a long time friend of Mr Salmond and a member of perhaps the most well-known Scottish nationalist family – likened his party’s treatment of the former leader to that of Joseph Stalin.

“Over the past years, the party he transformed and led to victory turned against him and quite literally erased him from their history,” he wrote in the Times.

“They tried to pretend he did not exist. They never talked about him or even uttered his name.

“He made them. They in turn spurned and shunned him.

“In a way it was comparable to Stalin who, after removing ‘enemies of the state’ would wipe all traces of them from official photographs.

“It was, in the true sense of the word, pathetic and it was shameful.”

Lack of contrition

Mr Salmond’s death drew tributes from those he had formerly been close to, including his deputy and successor Nicola Sturgeon, who acknowledged the “breakdown” of the relationship between the two, but praised him as “an incredibly significant figure in my life”.

But Mr Ewing attacked what he said was a lack of “contrition” in the tributes.

“In the so-called tributes from some in the leadership over the past few sad says, not one single word of contrition has been uttered for this ugliest of defenestrations,” he wrote.

“In the past three years, it was my privilege to work with Alex on all sorts of matters.

“By far the most important of all was to obtain truth and justice for the way he was the subject of what I believe was a concerted campaign by some of the ‘top’ people in the land.”

He went on to describe a “malevolent and wicked campaign” which, if it had succeeded, he said could have ended with Mr Salmond having “died in a prison cell”.

Scandal

Mr Ewing concluded that, until “the truth of this scandal is exposed, Scotland as a country is diminished”.

The former first minister had launched a second legal action against the Scottish Government – after a judge ruled the probe into two harassment complaints against him was “tainted with apparent bias” and awarded him more than £500,000 in 2019 – accusing senior figures, including Ms Sturgeon and former permanent secretary Leslie Evans of “misfeasance”.

According to Alba Party acting leader – and a lifelong friend of Mr Salmond – Kenny MacAskill, the action can still be taken forward by the former first minister’s family, a move which he supported.

While Mr Ewing wrote that he will “continue to devote myself to securing that truth and justice”.

Giving evidence to a Scottish Parliament committee holding an inquiry into the botched harassment complaint investigation, Mr Salmond accused those at the highest echelons of the Scottish Government of a plot against him, something then first minister Ms Sturgeon called “absurd”.

Meanwhile, work to repatriate Mr Salmond’s body continues, with a top aide to the organiser of the conference the former SNP leader was attending when he died saying a “special flight” will return him to Scotland.

Boris Josifovski – who works for former North Macedonian president Gjorge Ivanov, told the Associated Press paperwork was “nearly finished” on Monday and the flight would likely take off from the city of Ohrid in the country’s south west.


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Welsh Patriot
Welsh Patriot
11 hours ago

Well, something obviously happened between Nicola and Alex to create the massive rift between them.

hdavies15
hdavies15
8 hours ago
Reply to  Welsh Patriot

Have another go at stating the bleedin’ obvious ! Nicola’s focus was well and truly diverted into non-core issues, things that could have been sorted by adopting a less confrontational collegiate approach. In the meantime the hard core bread and butter challenges were neglected. It can be argued that the diversions were part of a plot loosely guided by London, and they worked. Salmond would never have been taken for that kind of ride.

Y Cymro
Y Cymro
11 hours ago

The SNP was a force to be reckoned with because of Alex Salmond. Those who hung him out to dry but now eulogise him should hang their heads in shame.

Last edited 11 hours ago by Y Cymro
T3DSK1
T3DSK1
2 hours ago
Reply to  Y Cymro

a great loss to humanity and a man of the people hopefully the ones that shafted him will be brought to book

John Ellis
John Ellis
23 minutes ago

Whatever the ins and outs of the murky and, to an outsider, pretty unfathomable schism which suddenly and mysteriously befell the Scottish National Party; it seems to have stymied that party’s electoral prospects for the time being. But hardly at all, it appears from opinion polling, the degree of sentiment up there which still favours independence.

Which suggests that though the cause may now be for a time quiescent, it’s by no means dead.

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