Alex Salmond says cheerio – with a challenge for Nicola Sturgeon
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Version 0 of 1. On the rain-lashed day on which he gave up the leadership of the Scottish National party to Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond set his party two ambitious goals and gave the distinct impression in his farewell speech that he intends to stick around a bit longer to play a big part in achieving them. In his farewell speech to the SNP conference at Perth after leading the party for 20 of the last 24 years, Salmond said the SNP should set a target of winning a majority in Scotland in the 2015 UK general election. He then called on the party to set a goal of raising its membership from its current 85,000 to 100,000 by the time of the election, a total which would confirm the SNP as the third largest party in the UK. On that basis, he then added, Sturgeon had to be a participant in any UK-wide televised election debates. Although he was careful to emphasise that he accepted that Scottish voters had rejected, not endorsed, independence in September’s referendum, Salmond made clear in his final speech to his party as first minister that he did not regard the issue as settled. “As a democrat, I respect that decision, but conference let me tell you this. If the Westminster gang reneges on the pledges made in the campaign, they will discover that hell hath no fury like this nation scorned.” “We have never been an ordinary political party,” Salmond told his audience. “Now we are an extraordinary one with a great task to be completed.” That mood of renewed optimism is palpable in Perth. Although the SNP and the yes campaign were defeated in the referendum, the party has soared in the polls in the two months since the defeat. Almost every speaker throughout the day, Salmond and Sturgeon included, has looked ahead to the possibility of a second referendum at some future date, many of them explicitly. Salmond finished his own speech with a “forward to independence” cry, before returning to the rostrum after a standing ovation to declare that “the dream shall never die”. The impression that Salmond has not quite adjusted to a more modest role in Scottish politics was reinforced when he made the kind of announcement that party leaders in government like to do — promising £1m over the next three years to help to secure the Scottish Youth Theatre’s future. To be fair, Salmond is still first minister, so he will be entitled to make such announcements until Tuesday, when he is due to resign officially. Alastair Campbell famously advised Tony Blair to quit while his supporters were still wanting more. So, when Salmond announced his departure on 19 September on the day after the defeat in his Scottish independence referendum, some may have thought he was taking a leaf from the Campbell playbook. After seven years as Scotland’s first minister, Salmond still, after all, enjoys ratings in Scotland that any UK party leader would die for. What better time for a man who will be 60 on Hogmanay to slip quietly from the stage? Salmond didn’t actually say in his speech that he himself intends to be a big player in and after the general election next year. Yet it is almost an open secret within the SNP and among Scottish political observers that Salmond intends to run for the House of Commons in the Gordon seat currently held by the Liberal Democrat Sir Malcolm Bruce, who is retiring at the election. If he does, and if he wins, it seems inconceivable that Salmond would become anything less than the de facto – and quite possibly the de jure – leader of the SNP at Westminster. Since all the main UK parties are committed to devolving further powers to Scotland, it is a role that Salmond would relish and for which his talents ideally equip him. If Sturgeon sees a downside to Salmond’s continuing high profile role within the SNP, she was not admitting it on a day when she officially became the party’s new leader before taking over as Scotland’s first minister next week. Sturgeon will make her first leader’s speech in Perth on Saturday, in which she is expected to put her own stamp on the party. Perhaps the biggest question she faces is whether to commit the SNP to a fresh referendum on independence in its 2016 Scottish manifesto. Sturgeon knows better than anyone that there is a potential back-seat driver not very far away. |