My personal tribute to Alex Salmond

Make Alex’s death a call to duty and unity. Accept the baton he has passed. Re-affirm the belief we all share on the necessity of gaining independence. Recognise that a divided movement cannot win.

The Lothian skyline bade Alex Salmond a bonnie fareweel after his memorial service in Edinburgh on St. Andrews Day, 2024. Below are the thoughts of Jim Sillars, who attended the  service in St Giles' Cathedral.

Alex Salmond and I had episodes in our political journey of agreement and strong disagreement. Neither of us was perfect or free from error in our judgements. It is probably the case that I was Alex’s most severe critic, not on policy, but in the way he allowed the party to focus too much on his personality, a practice his successor took to levels injurious to the character of a democratic organisation. However, when those he had elevated persecuted and abandoned him, I had no hesitation in standing by him. Also, in the last few years I was happy to link arms with him, as we found again our shared companionship, and friendship, speaking together on the same platform pursuing the same objective. At those meetings I watched and listened to a man at the height of his powers.

Since he died, not all, but certain persons in the media have sought to turn Alex inside out, seeking to lay bare his imperfections. These people are of little account, minor figures in Scottish life, and will long be forgotten whereas he never will.

There is no chance of Alex Salmond fading away. His ability, his achievements, are too great for that. This was a man who transformed a political party and took it from fringe to dominance, and wrought permanent changes for the better in how our nation sees itself. Alex Salmond breathed confidence and a new level of self-regard into the Scottish people, both by the way he demonstrated leadership, and his imaginative, successful, competent government from the nation’s new base of Holyrood.

He was head and shoulders above every other politician in Scotland, and in the first rank of politicians in the UK, Europe and internationally.

I can say that with confidence, because Alex was tested in what was then, I repeat then, as distinct from now, one of the internationally recognised big league legislative and debating chambers – the House of Commons.

When I first went there in 1970, an old Labour member took me aside and advised me to sit in the chamber and just listen. “There is a great deal of talent here” he said, “in all parties” – “There are heavyweights, light heavyweights and dross.” He also told me that “the heavyweights would measure me, to judge whether I was one of the dross, or someone who demanded respect, and would be listened to. How wise that advice was came home to me when I heard Enoch Powell, in his typical way of dismissing the lower intellectual orders, remarking of one prominent MP, who happened to aspire to be a be a party leader, that no one could empty the chamber faster than he when he stood up to speak.

It was into that big league that Alex entered in 1987, populated by some of the biggest political personalities in that Chamber’s history. Margaret Thatcher at the height of her powers. Nigel Lawson, Michael Foot, Tony Benn, Denis Healey, Michael Heseltine, Robin Cook, Norman Tebbit, John Smith. Gordon Brown, Kenneth Clarke, John Biffen, Geoffrey Howe, Ted Heath, Chris Patten and that merciless destroyer of reputations Dennis Skinner.

It was there that Alex, one of a tiny minority of SNP MPs, was tested, measured, recognised and accepted as an addition to the team of big politicians and parliamentarians. It was in the House of Commons, long before there was a Holyrood, that the quality and talent that was Salmond first shone its light. Those formative years brought forth a debater who could master, translate, and communicate complex issues to any audience; a politician who could deploy tactics to achieve a well thought out strategic objective; someone with gravitas whom the prime minister of the UK, leading up to the Edinburgh Agreement that set the rule of the 2014 referendum, felt compelled to deal with as an equal.

No wonder Kenny MacAskill said at his funeral that we are unlikely to see his like again. I hope we do, for we need such as he. But I doubt it.

Let me be clear, this was no ordinary man. This was one of our greatest patriots. A Wallace of our time. The comparison is apt. For it was a Scot, Sir John de Menteith who handed Wallace over to be persecuted and destroyed, just as it was the present-day Menteith’s who sought the destruction of Alex Salmond. Both failed in their aim of elimination. Wallace continues to inspire, and so will Alex.

What he did in life was inspire this nation to get up off its knees, and take off the cap in hand. He took the idea of independence from a low 14 per cent to 45 per cent, and anchored it as the platform from which to make the final advance. So embedded in our nations’ life has that 45 per cent become, that even with the wasted damage-laden years since he left office, those who constitute it haven’t flinched, with their desire for and determination to achieve independence, as strong as ever. That is the main component of the Salmond legacy. His priceless gift to our nation and movement.

When Alex died I grieved. I have been saddened by the deaths lately of some of our comrades in arms. But not since Margo died have I been so affected. I almost broke down when the Rowan Tree was played and sung at his funeral in Strichen, because it gave us an insight to the inner Alex. Like the song, Alex was deeply rooted in Scotland and its people.

Alex wouldn’t see us as owing him a debt. He did what he believed any Scot who loves this nation would do – seek to elevate it to full statehood for the purpose of creating a better Scotland in which its people would be free, prosperous and take our place with pride in, and contribute to, the international community. But we do owe him a debt of gratitude.

Make Alex’s death a call to duty and unity. Accept the baton he has passed. Re-affirm the belief we all share on the necessity of gaining independence. Recognise and acknowledge that a divided movement cannot win, and heal the divisions. If we do that, and do that we must, then sooner than many are now aware, we shall in our everlasting tribute to him deliver what he most desired:let us dedicate ourselves to making his Dream become the reality of independence.