Euan McColm: Alex Salmond's conspiracy theorist supporters are helping to undermine women's confidence in our courts

At the time of his passing, former first minister had become the figurehead of the ‘angry’ nationalism he once though would damage the independence cause

Alex Salmond once achieved something that had long seemed impossible. He united the SNP.

For decades, the Scottish nationalists lingered on the fringes of Scottish politics. Its elected politicians were loud, yes, but they were few in number. And those who made it either to the House of Commons or Holyrood were never happier than when they were disagreeing. Often viciously so.

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On one side of a seemingly perpetual split in nationalist ranks were the fundamentalists who demanded “independence, nothing less” and viewed devolution as a cop-out. On the other side were the gradualists, those who thought independence would be achieved incrementally.

Salmond – whose body was returned to Scotland on Friday from North Macedonia, where he died of a heart attack last Saturday – was king of the gradualists and when, in 2004, he began his second stint as SNP leader, he brought the fundamentalists into line. Suddenly, a party that had never looked like a serious contender for power became an election-winning machine. SNP politicians who had, during previous years, briefed against Salmond found new respect for a man whose gifts as a campaigner secured their positions in parliaments north and south of the border.

But what Salmond created, he also helped destroy.

After stepping down from power in 2014, following defeat in the independence referendum, the former first minister switched focus. Instead of putting independence first, he prioritised Alex Salmond.

How else are we to explain his decision, in 2017, to sign a contract with Russian propaganda channel, RT? Did Salmond think that taking the Kremlin’s rouble would enhance the reputation of the “Yes movement”?

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While the former FM’s stint as a presenter on RT may have infuriated former colleagues (his protegée, Nicola Sturgeon, for example, was terse in public about his decision but livid in private), they continued to indulge him right up until the point in 2018 that he was accused by a number of women of sexual assault.

Salmond walked free from court in 2020, found not guilty of 12 charges. The jury returned a verdict of not proven on a 13th charge of sexual assault with intent to rape.

During that trial, it was conceded by Salmond’s then QC, Gordon Jackson, that the politician’s behaviour could have been better.

But that did not matter to the former SNP leader’s most devoted followers who supported his claim that he’d been the victim of a monstrous conspiracy.

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Angry (a default setting for Salmond) at the refusal of Sturgeon to stand by him when those allegations first surfaced, Salmond then set about trying to destroy his successor. She was too timid, too bogged down by fashionable and unpopular policies such as reform of the gender recognition act, and too inept to to advance the cause of independence.

There was an enthusiastic audience for this line. But those buying apples from Salmond’s party weren’t the gradualists he’d once relied up but the fundamentalists he’d previously deplored.

By the time of his passing, Salmond was the figurehead of an angry Scottish nationalism that he once judged would damage the cause of independence.

Perhaps it truly was the case that, having spent years fighting for the SNP to adopt a gradualist approach, Salmond underwent a Damascene conversion but, I’m afraid, the more plausible explanation is that he preferred the support of those he’d previously disdained to no support at all.

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In the hours after the death of the leader of Alba – the party he founded after leaving the SNP – supporters of Salmond vowed to “clear his name”. The Tory MP Sir David Davis, a great friend of Salmond, intends to campaign for reforms in Holyrood which would afford MSPs absolute privilege for remarks made in the debating chamber.

The former Brexit minister calls these “the Salmond reforms in his memory”.

Meanwhile, former SNP MP Joanna Cherry KC said she was confident that Salmond would be “vindicated”.

Many others share the desire to restore what they consider to be a good name besmirched by liars.

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But what, precisely, do these Salmond supporters believe they will achieve?

The former First Minister was “vindicated” as much as he could have been by the failure of the prosecution against him. Nothing, however, can erase the fact that he behaved appallingly with female staff members.

Supporters of Salmond’s point to the verdict in the criminal case as proof he was the victim of the dreadful behaviour of others.

But people walk free from courts every day of the week. This doesn’t mean they were victims of conspiracies but that juries were not persuaded of the cases against them.

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That Salmond was not convicted doesn’t prove he was conspired against. It merely shows that the jury system works.

If one does not accept the suggestion the former FM was a victim, then the words and actions of his friends – sincere though they may be – are disturbing indeed. Salmond’s champions may believe they are engaged in righting a wrong but, to those of us who believe he was a flawed man, they are engaged in a campaign that can only undermine women’s confidence in our courts. Why would anyone make a complaint of sexual assault if friends of the accused might go on to trash their evidence as concocted or confused?

It is to be hoped those now committed to clearing Salmond’s name take time to consider the implications of their campaign.

The death of Alex Salmond is, obviously, a matter of great distress to those who loved him but we must not allow emotion to cloud the truth about the kind of man he was.

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