Alex Salmond was 'shunned' by SNP leadership who tried to 'erase him from history', claims MSP

Veteran Nationalist Fergus Ewing lashed out at what he described as a "Stalinist" attempt to airbrush the SNP's former leader from history.

Alex Salmond was "spurned and shunned" by the SNP leadership in the last years of his life, one of the party's senior MSPs has claimed.

Fergus Ewing said there was an attempt by some Nationalists to pretend their former leader "did not exist". He blasted: "They in turn spurned and shunned him. In a way it was comparable to Stalin who, after removing "enemies of the state" would wipe all traces of them from official photographs."

Salmond died from a heart attack aged 69 while attending a political conference in North Macedonia. Discussions between local authorities and the Scottish Government are continuing over when the former first minister's body can be repatriated to Scotland.

Calls for the RAF to fly the late politician home are unlikely to happen due to costs, it was reported last night. Holyrood is reportedly considering chartering a private plane instead.

It comes amid a backlash from some of Salmond's friends and political allies over how he was treated in later life by the party he helped build into an election-winning machine.

"Over the past years, the party he transformed and led to victory turned against him and quite literally erased him from their history," Ewing wrote in The Times.

"They tried to pretend he did not exist. They never talked about him or even uttered his name. He made them. They in turn spurned and shunned him. In a way it was comparable to Stalin who, after removing "enemies of the state" would wipe all traces of them from official photographs.

"It was, in the true sense of the word, pathetic and it was shameful. Yet in the so-called tributes from some in the leadership over the past few sad says, not one single word of contrition has been uttered for this ugliest of defenestrations."

Salmond resigned his SNP membership in August 2018 after he was the subject of a Scottish Government investigation into complaints of sexual harassment by two civil servants, dating back to his time as first minister.

He denied wrongdoing and later successfully sued the Government over its handling of the complaints process, which a judge ruled to be bias.

Salmond was then arrested and charged by police in January 2019 after facing multiple allegations of sexual assault from several women. He was cleared of all charges following a trial in March 2020.

Ewing said his former SNP colleague had remained determined to clear his name following what he claimed was a concerted effort to discredit him.

He added: "In the past three years, it was my privilege to work with Alex on all sorts of matters. By far the most important of all was to obtain truth and justice for the way he was the subject of what I believe was a concerted campaign by some of the "top" people in the land.

"It was a malevolent and wicked campaign to discredit him, get him charged, prosecuted then convicted and jailed. Had they succeeded, he would, I fear, have died in a prison cell.

"It is not at all a matter of clearing his name. His name was cleared when he trounced the Scottish government in his judicial review and then when he was acquitted of the charges that were brought against him. It is about justice. This is an endeavour of such importance that, until the truth of this scandal is exposed, Scotland as a country is diminished."

Alex Salmond dies age 69

• Alex Salmond dies hours after speech
• Scotland and political world reacts
• Salmond died of 'suspected heart attack'
• Nicola Sturgeon's tribute to "mentor"

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