Salmond: Scots nationalism '˜not violent due to no oppression'

Alex Salmond has spoken about some of the similarities and differences between Irish and Scottish nationalism and why the latter was never violent.

Alex Salmond arriving for the funeral of Northern Ireland's former deputy first minister and ex-IRA commander Martin McGuinness (Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire)

The Scotsman’s sister title The News Letter in Belfast spoke to Scotland’s former first minister after the funeral of Martin McGuinness at St Columba’s Church Long Tower in Londonderry (Derry).

We asked the one-time Scottish National Party leader and now Westminster MP about the different heritage with Irish republicanism and why there had never even been a trace of violence in Scottish nationalism.

Mr Salmond replied: “Different traditions. Scotland was never oppressed, or at least not all of Scotland. There were parts of Scotland obviously had a rough time within the Union, the highland clearances.

But Scotland wasn’t an oppressed nation. “It was a partner in Union as opposed to being colonised or planted so it is a different history and different experience.

“And Scotland always had, and has, a ballot box opportunity, and that is difference as well, but of course the Union in Scotland is much more recent.

“Times were relatively more civilised. Relatively more. So, for all these reasons, it is different experience but there are common threads.”

Mr Salmond said he had first got to know Mr McGuinness in 2007 when he was Scottish first minister and the Sinn Fein MLA became deputy first minister of Northern Ireland.

He had known the DUP leader and first minister Ian Paisley for long before that, when they had both been MPs after Mr Salmond was first elected to Westminster in 1987.


He said: “One of the reasons that I got on so well with Martin and Ian is that obviously they recognised in me both traditions that they represented.”

The Newsletter also asked Mr Salmond about the row over a SNP politician’s comments about the IRA murder of three Scottish soldiers in 1971 in Belfast.

Earlier in the year John Mason MSP said: “...you say Irish murderers. Others say Irish freedom fighters. I support Scottish soldiers if they do good but not if they do bad”. He later apologised.

Mr Salmond said it was a row “to do with remarks as attributed to one MSP in Scotland”.