Daily Record Political Editor Paul Hutcheon says the publication of thousands of pages underlines the need for the SNP to move on from the Sturgeon-Salmond wars.
The ghost of Alex Salmond continues to haunt the independence movement.
Salmond died in 2024, but the SNP Government’s botched handling sexual misconduct claims against him by female civil servants is a scandal that keeps rearing its head.
The so-called “Salmond files” – relating to whether Nicola Sturgeon breached ethics rules in how she responded to the explosive claims in 2018 – run to thousands of pages.
Investigator James Hamilton ruled in Sturgeon’s favour, but the interviews with the key players reveal the bitterness at the core of Scottish politics’ most compelling psychodrama.
Salmond wanted Sturgeon to intervene and essentially kill the SNP Government probe into him.
She refused and incurred the wrath of Salmond and his supporters, who believe she helped drag his reputation through the mud.
He believes her allies later tried to frame him for sexual assault allegations he beat in court.
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She sympathised with the women who alleged misconduct and insisted he was on a “revenge mission” to destroy her.
Salmond and Sturgeon were the two most important figures in the SNP’s transformation of Scottish politics.
They were the closest of political allies – she was his loyal deputy first minister – and the pair were laser-focused on the strategy for independence.
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have been described as Labour’s “Lennon and McCartney” and the same can be said of these two Nationalists.
The unlawful SNP Government probe into Salmond shattered their relationship and divided a movement that had been relatively united.
The Salmond files do not contain much that is new, but nonetheless they underline the toxicity of the breakdown.
Publication also raises questions about the SNP Government’s attitude to freedom of information, a law that led to the release of the documents.
The files were finally handed over after a long running legal battle involving the Scottish Information Commissioner.
The Government will say they had to protect the identities of the complainers against Salmond, but the episode is further proof of Ministerial ambivalence towards the right-to-know law.
There are now signs that the independence movement is moving past the Sturgeon and Salmond wars.
Salmond is dead and the party he set up in the wake of the split, Alba, is on life support.
Sturgeon is leaving front line politics in May and the SNP, previously dogged by internal divisions, is more united than they have been for years.
A new generation of SNP MSPs will be elected soon and they will be keen to close the door on the ugliest chapter in their party’s history.