How Alex Salmond changed the course of Scotland’s political journey

In Great Contemporaries, Winston Churchill wrote that “one mark of a great man is…to have handled matters during his life that the course of events is continuously affected by what he did”. Was Alex Salmond such a man?  He certainly made waves while his successors only rode the waves he created. But will the course of events be continuously affected by Alex Salmond?

He was by far the most impressive leader in the SNP’s history. He will be remembered for forming the first SNP government, winning an overall majority in 2011 and taking the SNP closer to independence than anyone else. He took a ramshackle amateur party from the fringes of politics, often kicking and screaming, and made it a professional organisation. But for someone leading a party committed to major constitutional change, he showed little interest in the SNP’s formal constitution. He altered the SNP but operated within its formal, unreformed constitution.

His lasting achievement will be his role in the creation of the Scottish Parliament. He knew that devolution required a Labour government with the electoral threat of the SNP lurking in the wings to ensure devolution’s delivery. SNP support was needed in the 1997 referendum if a repeat of 1979 was to be avoided.

It is easily forgotten that the SNP was hostile to devolution when Salmond became SNP leader in 1990. His party was still smarting from the failure of the 1979 devolution legislation and subsequent loss of SNP support. It blamed Labour and saw devolution as a trap, a means of blocking independence. Salmond disagreed and believed that a devolved parliament was an important first step, that Scots were unlikely to vote for independence in one move. His objective was to ensure that the SNP got behind devolution, but he faced strong internal opposition. The party was deeply and bitterly divided. It was haemorrhaging members.

His formative years in the late 1970s and early1980s would influence him throughout his political life. He joined the ‘79 Group, established by break-away SNP members in the summer of 1979, along with many young SNP members. The group assisted the retention of many young members who might have been inclined to walk away.

^{Alex Salmond speaking at a Yes event earlier this year | Alamy}

It was a reaction to the defeats of that year. Its critique was simple. Working class voters had been more likely to support devolution in the referendum. It maintained that the SNP’s ‘catch-all’ strategy had allowed its Labour opponents to portray the SNP as ‘tartan Tories’ and Tory opponents portray it as ‘tartan socialists’. The critique included a view that most of the 11 SNP MPs returned in October 1974 had projected an image that undermined the SNP in urban and central belt Scotland. The ‘79 Group was distrusted by the old guard, seen as a form of entryism despite almost all members having been SNP members prior to its establishment. It was committed to independence, socialism and republicanism.

It may now seem extraordinary but there were many in the SNP who then doubted that Alex Salmond believed in independence. He once said he had reservations about two of these objectives but not the one his internal critics thought. He was amused when a television reviewer referred to him after his first appearance on network television during the 1987 general election as someone who would go far but probably not with the SNP. But there were some in his party who believed he might defect to Labour. Denis Healey, one of his fellow panellists on that television programme, was suitably impressed, not least as Salmond was quite different from SNP MPs the former chancellor had witnessed.

Salmond saw the ‘79 Group more in strategic than ideological terms. The SNP, he felt, needed to place itself firmly and clearly on the left-right spectrum if it were to have any hope of appealing to Labour voters. He was, nonetheless, a classic nationalist and would move with ease across the left-right spectrum as suited his purpose, just as he was capable of speaking to and sounding supportive of a wide range of interests. Independence was his north star, even though it was never entirely clear what independence meant exactly. He knew the direction of travel he wanted to take Scotland in more than the destination itself.

Much has been made of his ‘expulsion’ from the SNP. In fact, it was more a suspension with the threat of expulsion. It followed a decision to proscribe internal groups. The group re-invented itself outside the SNP as the Scottish Socialist Society and its core members, including Salmond, were suspended. It was one of the few episodes from early in his political career that gave him sleepless nights. A deal was done that allowed the suspension to be lifted and marked the start of a slow process of rebuilding. Alex Salmond was key to healing internal wounds and this would inform his leadership thereafter.

The experience would significantly affect his attitude to internal party politics. He was reluctant to have members expelled, unlike the cavalier and inconsistent approach of his more insecure successors. He did draw a firm line when it came to Anglophobia. He consciously and actively developed the SNP’s support for what many would call ‘civic nationalism’. Asian Scots, New Scots and a welcoming attitude towards immigrants were pushed hard by Salmond. A progressive nationalism emerged under his leadership. And his leadership on this contributed greatly to a consensus across all of Scotland’s parties on immigration.  Public attitudes remained much less liberal than many nationalists like to claim, but there must be a high probability that more populist public attitudes in this area were stifled – there was no temptation to play that card. He had once toyed with the idea of altering the name of the SNP to the Scottish Independence Party because of the negative connotations often associated with nationalism, but recognised that it was easier to change the nationalism’s content than the name.

Salmond supported independence, but what did that mean? The SNP had long rested on a simplistic legal definition invoking ‘sovereignty’ to evade the multitude of questions on what independence meant, what kind of independence. These questions could not be entirely avoided during the independence referendum. The key question has always been Scotland’s external relations. As the SNP was not in favour of economic or other forms of autarky, then what did independence mean? Relationships are always complex and contextual, whether referring to individuals or polities. It is unlikely that Alex Salmond had a destination in mind. He had a keen enough understanding of Scottish history to know that this was pointless.  But he certainly knew his direction of travel. Political success is invariably relative. Much depends on the goals set, what the leader inherits and the context. One of the most significant SNP leaders was James Halliday, someone few have heard of because he led the party in the 1950s, probably the most inauspicious time in its history. It was no mean achievement that the SNP survived as a political party. And it is easy to succeed with limited ambition. These points need to be taken into account in any assessment.

Salmond’s opposition to the SNP decision to boycott the Constitutional Convention a few years before he was elected leader left him isolated amongst senior members of his party. He was not consulted on the decision, despite being deputy leader, and found himself in an uncomfortable position. He decided to stand loyally with his leadership colleagues rather than attempt to reverse the decision. His contribution to the party debate on the issue at a meeting in Port Glasgow was ill-judged. Seeking to evade being completely marginalised by hardliners, he rounded on Isobel Lindsay who had made a robust and principled case for involvement in the convention. He had felt the need to burnish his nationalist credentials but succeeded in losing sympathy and support on both sides of that debate. It did not augur well for his chances in the SNP leadership contest after Gordon Wilson stood down.

^{With Margaret Ewing in 1992, against whom he'd won a decisive victory for leadership two years prior | Alamy}

Against the advice of some supporters who thought he would be defeated and ought to wait – he was only 35 – he stood against Margaret Ewing, one of the party’s most popular figures, in the 1990 SNP leadership election. His campaign team consisted of many who would later become fixtures in the party hierarchy but were then largely unknown. Ewing had the support of party grandees and the advantage of forewarning from Wilson of his decision to resign. Salmond’s decisive victory, along with his supporters winning all but one of the many senior positions in the SNP at the same time, ought to have made his leadership secure. But within minutes of his election some internal critics were predicting he wouldn’t last a year in the top job and set out to try ensure that happened. There were moments between 1990 and the 1997 devolution referendum when he was tempted to give up and return to a lucrative career outside politics, especially when his party kept asserting its fundamentalist fears of devolution and making efforts to undermine him. The road to transforming the SNP was far from easy but he stuck with it.

He took the SNP on a remarkable journey during his first period as leader between 1990-2000. The European cause played its part with key figures in earlier bitter internal battles uniting around the notion of ‘independence in Europe’. The SNP had long been a Eurosceptic party. Support for devolution and European integration marked a change that was far more remarkable than often appreciated. SNP sovereigntist thinking was discarded in favour of inter-dependence, even if the language of classic nationalism remained intact. These were major achievements, more so given how embedded and unquestioned the changes became. But the most significant development in the move towards acceptance of the modern world – acknowledging, accepting and embracing inter-dependence within the United Kingdom – was never achieved. The SNP had not done enough thinking on this crucial area by the time of the 2014 independence referendum. The problem was that it would take two to constitutional tango and an independent Scotland’s potential partner was not for dancing when the SNP was asking. The context of a referendum was never going to be conducive to developing UK wide inter-dependent thinking. It simply was not in the interests of Better Together to play that tune. It might seem unlikely, and certainly irrational, that a UK Government would refuse to work constructively and seek common ground with an independent Scotland but that was not going to be admitted in the course of an independence referendum. This remains unfinished business for the SNP. It looks no closer to addressing this now. Indeed, it has drifted backwards since the 2014 referendum, with assertions of old-style fundamentalist nationalism.

Salmond understood well that asserting and demanding greater autonomy without any means of its achievement only highlights weakness, as demonstrated all too obviously over the last decade. Political power exists not just in raw form but in convincing others of its possession. Alex Salmond knew that it was the SNP’s electoral potential that gave it power. Winnie Ewing would frequently remind her party that the 30 per cent who had voted SNP, returning 11 of Scotland’s 71 MPs in 1974, had not been enough to frighten Labour. It was the threat of further support that provoked Labour into supporting devolution. Salmond took that on board. During his first period as leader his problem was convincing his opponents that the SNP was an electoral threat when it was in the electoral doldrums. He behaved like the French Legionnaire in that classic old film Beau Geste, running around the ramparts to give the enemy the impression of greater strength than actually existed. It worked remarkably well.

As leader he was keen to bring on talent and gave many, especially younger members, opportunities to shine. He would test aspiring nationalist politicians robustly. Some came away hurt and unforgiving, but he knew that if they could not withstand his challenges, they would not last long in front line politics. His approach to policy development was similar. He tested ideas, preferring robust exchanges with people he disagreed with to polite consensual deliberation. He would return to people who fundamentally disagreed with him. His interlocuters could be equally robust. Being told he deserved to lose his parliamentary seat during a robust exchange of views did not put him off seeking opinions in future. He may not have agreed with what he would be told but he was always willing to listen. It was often difficult to know whether a conversation had an impact until much later. His antagonist might be convincingly defeated in debate but might find that Salmond had been influenced, even completely, by what he would subsequently say and do.

He was thick-skinned and never appreciated that others might be thin-skinned. He could be irascible and did not put up with fools. This proved a major problem after he left office. Many fools never forgave him for some sharp comment, or even some slight. He was impatient with lazy journalism, unprepared officials and did not hide it though it might have served him better had he tried. We can still see the consequences in some of the obituaries and commentary that reveal more about the writers than the subject. There was glee amongst sections of the commentariat when rumours circulated at the time of the Commons’ expenses scandal when it appeared that parliamentary monies had been spent somewhere in the South West of England for childcare. The records appeared to suggest Salmond had a secret love child. It turned out to be an administrative error and the expense claim had no link whatsoever to Alex Salmond. On another occasion, the press had hacked his bank statement and found a payment to ‘Fun and Games’. As Salmond explained in his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, the shop’s title titillated excitable journalists only to discover it was a Linlithgow toy shop where he had bought presents for his nieces. The disappointment in each case was almost palpable in some quarters and not just because a big story had been lost. It was also all too evident when the criminal case against him was rejected in a jury trial.

Despite being a classic nationalist, he was seriously interested in public policy. He saw the economic case for independence as key. He believed that the SNP needed at least to score a draw in debates on whether an independent Scotland would be economically viable. His problem was that few of his colleagues were economically literate, and he struggled to build expertise inside the SNP in this area. He developed close links with John Swinney, despite earlier differences, over the course of his first term as leader. He saw Swinney as likely capable of building on the economic case for independence but would later conclude that he ought to have given support to Alex Neil as his first successor. He may have been a master tactician and strategist, but his judgement of people was less sure-footed and extremely poor when it came to succession planning.

After 10 years as leader, he had grown tired and was suffering from debilitating back problems that were later resolved after surgery. Over the years he had intimated a concern that he might end up going on and on, and feared emulating what he saw as such an error amongst Plaid Cymru leaders.  Ten years was enough. But he came under intense pressure from within the SNP to return after John Swinney’s uninspiring leadership. He initially tried to kill this off with his Shermanesque statement: “If nominated I’ll decline. If drafted, I’ll defer. And if elected I’ll resign.” But the pressure intensified, and he relented. In announcing his decision, he stated: “Let me be clear, from today I am not just launching a campaign to be SNP leader. Today I am launching my candidacy to be the first minister of Scotland.” Jim Murphy would pay a compliment to Salmond when he announced his decision to stand for Scottish Labour leadership by using similar language. The difference was that Salmond became first minister.

He rejuvenated the SNP. Labour’s unpopularity linked to the Iraq war helped. When the SNP won one more seat that Labour in 2007, he was quick to describe this as victory and that the SNP should form a government. It was conceivable that Labour could have carried on in office. But, as Salmond announced: “It is very clear indeed which party has lost this election, and the Labour Party no longer has any moral authority left to govern Scotland.” It was a view shared across Holyrood, but minority government had not been tested and there were mutterings from inside Labour that he’d be out of Bute House by Christmas.

^{Salmond with the SNP group in 2011 - celebrating the first ever outright majority | Alamy}

Salmond has been described in many obituaries as a great ‘disrupter’. His disruption of the 1988 budget speech comes to mind. But this is too simplistic, too trite. He knew when to disrupt and when to govern. And it was vital to prove the SNP was not intent on disrupting devolution. The perception of governing competence lay behind the overall majority won in 2011. He transferred from opposition to government with ease, much more so than many expected. He proved more impressive in government than opposition, though campaigning overshadowed governing after 2011.

The independence referendum came too early for the SNP. The weaknesses in its prospectus were exposed. Responses were populist, evasive and ultimately unconvincing. There was, however, a remarkable increase in independence support, especially towards the end of the very long and intense campaign. Salmond had decided to stand back from the daily campaigning to avoid accusations of neglecting running the Scottish Government until towards the final months. This was the point when the polls started to shift significantly. He would never claim credit but maintained this occurred because it was only then that voters started to really concentrate on the choice, but it’s difficult to dismiss his personal impact.

Salmond knew that there was a mountain to climb, as Dennis Canavan expressed it, and sought a third option on the ballot paper. Some under-defined middle option was likely to win, and he could claim to have advanced his cause. In the event, the Yes vote surpassed what almost everyone had expected at the outset and ensured that Scotland’s constitutional status remained an issue. Some close colleagues pleaded with him to carry on as first minister, indeed there were tears, but he decided to stand down. When asked why he had decided to stand down a week later, he explained that calls for his resignation from opponents would not dim and had the potential to undermine the momentum achieved. He added impishly that many Scottish historical figures had failed in some endeavour but were remembered for trying.

He had already turned his attention to the next general election within a week of the referendum. He wanted the SNP to stand aside and allow a wider range of candidates to stand as ‘Yes’ candidates to maximise the prospect of translating independence support into parliamentary representation. His successor disagreed. She had waited long enough and was not about to lose control. There was little doubt that this was a power struggle, and she was not one for sharing power.  Relations between Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon – very poorly represented in a recent television documentary – had never been as close as each presented them. There had been tensions as far back as 2004 when a deal was struck that she should stand down as a candidate to succeed John Swinney and stand on a joint ticket as Salmond’s depute. The SNP needed a leadership contest, needed a serious debate on the post-referendum situation. Though Nicola Sturgeon was all but certain to win, a more open debate might have taken place. Instead, the SNP indulged in self-congratulatory rallies, behaving as if it had won the referendum rather than having to reflect on failure. Under Sturgeon, the SNP headed back into the old debilitating politics of grievance. That was easier than addressing its shortcomings. Any interest in policy was either performative or subsumed in the grievance politics. Salmond was never likely to sit quietly while his legacy was being eroded. He was not averse to selfies and self-promotion, but he knew that hard work was needed on making the case of independence. He was always quick to see opportunities to advance his cause – the classic purposeful opportunist. As a senior opponent of independence privately remarked, it was fortunate that Salmond was no longer SNP leader after Brexit. He might not have turned that opportunity into independence, but Westminster and Whitehall would have required political smelling salts had he remained first minister. He knew how to mobilise support and political power.

Alex Salmond was predisposed to being an outsider with a hankering for the good life and the limelight. He could be a disrupter but also a responsible first minister. He frequently referred to the independence cause standing on the shoulders of giants. None have been as gigantic as Alex Salmond. The course of events has been continuously affected by what he did.

He did not achieve independence but then very few politicians ever achieve all they wanted. Independence was a pipe dream when he first entered the Commons and Scotland has travelled a long way since then. But whether he left a lasting legacy in this – “handled matters during his life that the course of events is continuously affected by what he did” – remains uncertain. He bequeathed the most astounding legacy to his successors, but they have shown no understanding of what to do with it. Perhaps he will remain the heroic failure of so many figures in Scottish history. Perhaps he was hinting at this – Salmond the Myth, the symbol of hope – in that conversation a week after the independence referendum. He would often quote James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose. These words sum Alex Salmond best of all:

He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To win or lose it all.