What is the row between Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon about?

Could the first minister be forced to resign in the middle of a pandemic, asks Sean O'Grady

The pair used to be political allies (PA)

There can be few cases more complicated and tortured than the war by proxy between Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. The pair, once political allies and firm friends, are now engaged in mortal political combat.

If the latest explosive claims made by Salmond against Sturgeon and others are upheld, it will mean that, among other things, she lied to the Scottish parliament, broke the ministerial code and she will have to resign. Resign, that is, in the middle of a pandemic during which she has mostly been held to have acquitted herself well, with crucial parliamentary elections in a matter of weeks, and little public clamour for her to go.

It is an extraordinary state of affairs. It might have been better, all round, if their differences, profound and vital though they are, could have somehow been resolved in the purely political domain. Instead, they have been, and are continuing to be, fought in legal and quasi-legal arenas, with procedure taking precedence over substance, and bewilderingly so.

There are currently two inquiries into the way that allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of Salmond were acted on within the Scottish government. The most high-profile one at the moment is that convened by a committee of members of the Scottish parliament. A second, arguably more independent, inquiry is being conducted by James Hamilton QC, a former director of public prosecutions for Ireland. That was set up by Sturgeon, when she referred herself to the authorities because such serious allegations about breaking the ministerial code were raised.

There is some overlap between the work of the two inquiries, and naturally their respective remits have been the subject of bitter argument between the Salmond and Sturgeon camps. The reality is that both inquiries have the ability to follow the evidence. The parliamentary committee splits along party lines, with the SNP members tending to back Sturgeon.

The latest twist is that the testimony of Salmond that had been published on the Scottish parliament website has now been taken down and redacted, on legal advice that it might be prejudicial to third parties and the general conduct of the inquiries.

Salmond was due to give evidence on the basis of his written submission. The gist of his case is that he was the victim of a conspiracy to destroy him politically, and was thus treated unfairly in earlier internal investigations into his conduct. He contends that Sturgeon, his successor, was too closely involved in the process, and that she has not been fully transparent about meetings and dealings between them and their apparatchiks after the allegations of Salmond’s behaviour came to the attention of Sturgeon in 2018. The accusations related to incidents dating back to 2013.

The wrangling is thus an extreme version of “who knew what when”, and specifically what Sturgeon knew about the allegations against Salmond, and when. Sturgeon refutes Salmond’s claims and argues there is insufficient evidence. She too is due to give public evidence to the committee, next week.

The fundamental fact that frames the entire row is that Salmond was in March 2020 acquitted of all charges of sexual assault against him. Certainly to that extent he has been vindicated, unless the legitimacy of the court’s judgment is challenged. That fact of innocence gives Salmond enormous leverage to press his claim that the initial investigation was flawed and so compromised that it constituted a plot to undermine him and even to imprison him. Despite winning his first judicial review and then the criminal case, Salmond has since been seeking justice through other means. It looks as though he will not be satisfied until he has forced Sturgeon to resign, and possibly other players as well.

Before that criminal prosecution, Salmond had already launched a judicial review into the way the Scottish government had handled the allegations against him. In January 2019 the Scottish government basically conceded defeat and admitted that the internal inquiry had not been properly run. Salmond received about half a million pounds to cover his legal costs.

The timing could hardly be less propitious. Elections to the Holyrood parliament fall in May, and after that the long struggle with Downing Street to secure a second referendum on Scottish independence. Salmond led the first campaign for independence in 2014, and lost. The universal expectation has been, and in many circles still is, that Sturgeon will lead the next campaign, with a better chance than in many years of winning an SNP landslide majority in the Scottish parliament and a mandate for another referendum on independence, and indeed of winning that historic prize. Thus far the coverage of Salmond has had no visible impact on the SNP’s popularity or Sturgeon’s approval ratings, and yet the possibility of her having to stand down at such a critical juncture cannot be discounted entirely.

Opposition leaders in the Scottish parliament have repeatedly asked Sturgeon whether she would stand down if the parliamentary inquiry finds she acted inappropriately, and/or the separate Hamilton inquiry holds that she broke the ministerial code and misled parliament. The first minister has refused to give any undertakings about what is still hypothetical, and Salmond’s aim is seemingly to put so much evidence and argument into the public domain that her position becomes untenable, even among her own party.

The chances are that both the parliamentary inquiry and the Hamilton inquiry will probably fall short of the level of criticism that would push an otherwise popular first minister and party leader out of her post, though her reputation would suffer.

The very fact that Scottish independence can be glimpsed by the SNP, and the lack of any suitable replacement leader, will act in her favour. Above all, Sturgeon can draw some satisfaction from the fact that her unionist opponents are in disarray – Labour doesn’t even have a party leader in Scotland, while the Downing Street union unit is currently unstaffed. Salmond, though, is a far more implacable foe, and he’s not done yet.