Alba Party will continue following death of Alex Salmond, confirms Kenny MacAskill

Alba was launched by Salmond ahead of the 2021 Holyrood elections but it has struggled to make an electoral breakthrough.

Alba will continue to fight elections following the sudden death of its founder Alex Salmond, the party's acting leader has said.

Kenny MacAskill wrote to members today to insist "the dream he cherished so closely and came so close to delivering will never die".

Salmond died from a heart attack on Saturday aged 69 while attending a political conference in North Macedonia.

MacAskill was a lifelong friends of the former first minister and served as a Cabinet minister in both of his administrations at Holyrood.

He chose to quit the SNP and follow Salmond into Alba when the breakaway pro-independence party was launched in 2021. But it has struggled at elections since.

"Of course, the party continues, we owe it to Alex, ” MacAskill said today. "It was never the Alex Salmond party, it was Alex Salmond’s inspiration and Alex Salmond’s driving force, but the party is made up of thousands more and, as I say, that legacy will continue.”

Salmond was recently locked in a legal battle with the government he formerly led, winning more than £500,000 in court after it was found an investigation into harassment complaints against him was “tainted by apparent bias”.

In November 2023 the former SNP leader announced he would be taking further action - warning a “day of reckoning” for the Scottish Government was coming as he named former first minister – and political protegee – Nicola Sturgeon and ex-permanent secretary Leslie Evans in the case, accusing both of “misfeasance”.

At the time the case was launched, then-first minister Humza Yousaf said the Government would defend itself “robustly”.

That action could continue if his family took the decision it should, MacAskill said, a move he would support. “It’s a matter for the family to decide,” he said.

“My own position is that I will respect whatever the family decide, but I would certainly hope and I believe that they are likely to continue this, because that court case will expose, I believe, malfeasance amongst individuals and institutions that really has to be brought out to allow history to properly remember Alex Salmond.”

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