“Who’s afraid of Gillian?” Alex Salmond remarks, spotting my Virginia Woolf notebook sitting on the desk between us as we sit down for our interview. The former First Minister of Scotland maintains this sharp wit throughout his book, The Dream Shall Never Die: 100 Days That Changed Scotland Forever. The book pays tribute to the campaign for Scottish Independence that shook the UK to its core, tracing Salmond’s lifetime passion and fight for the cause right up until September 2014, when it was so brutally pulled from beneath him. The daily diary takes readers into the heart of the Yes Scotland campaign, documenting the daily struggles of a political movement that ultimately ended with the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader resigning from his position as First Minister. I sat down with the current MP to discuss the journey that has reinvigorated Scottish politics. I wanted to look beyond the NO vote to questions of British politics against the backdrop of a quest for Scottish Independence that, in Salmond’s mind at least, is far from over.
It is hard to imagine the First Minister of Scotland sitting down after a day’s campaigning to write an account of the daily tribulations he has encountered. When asked about his writing process, Salmond happily revealed the actualities of being a political diarist in the midst of a chaotic campaign: “Every iota, everything I did in every moment of every day is in the first ministerial diary, and all I have to do is annotate to remember what I was actually thinking and to remember what was actually going through my head at the time. So that bit was easy.” It was the autobiographical elements of the book that at times proved more of a challenge for Salmond. These pieces are a culmination of the diary, as it was infused with Salmond’s own reflections that he later turned into the book. When asked if there were any political diarists that he had taken inspiration from, a relaxed Salmond quickly noted that there are few political diarists that trace a campaign, such as he did with Yes Scotland.
Whilst admitting to being a great fan of the writings of former Prime Minister of the UK, Harold Wilson, Salmond revealed that he thought a great deal about the way in which he reacted to different events. Reflecting on prominent political diarists, Salmond remarked: “A lot of diaries are actually a lot about internal party politics. This is next to nothing about internal party politics. It’s about a much bigger thing.”
“A lot of diaries are actually a lot about internal party politics. This is next to nothing about internal party politics. It’s about a much bigger thing.”
Writing about such a big thing was “therapeutic” for Salmond, who noted with a smile that he “wasn’t best pleased after the referendum, you see”.
In discussing the campaign, one is struck by Salmond’s resounding belief that Scottish independence is inevitable. Speaking of Scotland’s independence, Salmond was asked to consider how it could potentially hasten political changes in Northern Ireland. He observed that, although it could be influential, the relationship of Scotland with Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would not necessarily change. For him, the greatest influence on political happenings in Northern Ireland would always be the people of Northern Ireland, people who are capable of change. Salmond reflects on how the idea of the SNP government making its way into parliament at the beginning of his political career in the 1980s would have been ridiculous. Furthermore, an independence referendum would have been off the cards. Similarly, the idea of the DUP sharing power with Sinn Féin at Stormont would have been ludicrous. “The fact is that political change takes place. But the motivation for political change is what the people of Ireland think, or what they cease to think about the past, as they start to address the future.”
With the impending Brexit referendum, drastic political change looms over the UK. In discussing the potential exit of Britain from Europe, Salmond was happy to divulge his position on the sensitive issue of currency. Salmond told The University Times that he believes his position on currency during the campaign had been correct, noting the number of structural difficulties that the euro carries with it. He commented that these difficulties are not necessarily a bad thing for Ireland, stating: “the actual relationship between Irish productivity and the value of the euro is quite a favourable one for Ireland, whereas it is almost an impossible situation for Greece”.
With regards to Scotland, Salmond recalled the helpful admission of former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, who said: “Well of course you can’t be stopped from using sterling”. In acknowledging the international tradability of the pound, Salmond notes: “If we want to use it, then we can use it. I think that’s at least a good transitional position to be able to bank on.” This policy was what he believed to be best for Scotland at the time, and his faith in it still remains. “The policy of adopting a currency which is best for your economy was the best. Currency, to me, is not an article of faith or estate, you don’t have to have your own currency to be a self-governing country. I think that’s an illusion to believe that.” With this in mind, Salmond then proceeded to consider the significance of Irish currency, and what the transition to the euro had meant for Irish nationalism: “There was a ferocious debate… about whether or not opposing to enter the euro was going to sacrifice the essential tenets of Irish nationalism that people had fought and died for”. Although the pound will remain within Salmond’s programme for independence, it is not for want of Scottish nationalism. Indeed, this very programme illustrates the separate entities that are autonomy and currency, for both Scotland and Ireland alike.
The envisioning of Scottish independence is a notion that Salmond as a writer very quickly draws his readers into. With this in mind, I was keen to consider the position of a hypothetical independent Scotland in the humanitarian crisis in which the world is currently engulfed. Although an independent Scotland would currently remain in the negotiating phase of independence, Salmond ambiguously stated that a different refugee programme would have been adopted. When asked about Scotland’s position on taking in refugees, Salmond noted: “Scotland is probably going to end up with more than the UK proportion of refugees just because we are more willing to take them, but it’s a very small contribution and I think it should be far greater”.
“Scotland is probably going to end up with more than the UK proportion of refugees just because we are more willing to take them, but it’s a very small contribution and I think it should be far greater”.
This hypothetical greater contribution is a proposition that we are forced to accept, unsure in the knowledge that it could ever actually come about.
For Salmond, independence is an inevitable outcome, an outcome that will not be fazed by a defeat such as that of 2014. The Dream Shall Never Die compellingly asserts that independence is a fate that Scotland rightfully deserves. In the final few moments of the interview, as we were both ushered along, Salmond opened his book on the last page. He read aloud the final line, a quote from a monk at Deer Abbey in Aberdeenshire, during the tenth century: “Be it on the conscience of anyone that reads this little book to say a prayer for the soul of the poor wretch who laboured so long in writing it”. With a laugh, he closed the book and made the same plea as the scribe to Ireland – “to say a prayer for the poor wretch who laboured for a while in writing”. He writes about his dream of Scottish Independence, one that he refuses to give up on.
