22nd September 1990

Alex Salmond is elected to lead the SNP

“SNP picks Salmond” wrote the Aberdeen Evening Express when “Mr Salmond trounced Moray MP Margaret Ewing in the leadership contest to succeed former Dundee East MP Gordon Wilson.”

Salmond, then 35, took 486 votes against Margaret Ewing’s 186 at the party’s Perth conference. Ewing was the daughter of Willie Ewing, who had been a member of the European Parliament.

Scotland’s place in Europe

Outgoing leader Gordon Wilson’s last speech had also concerned Europe. “He scorned the suggestion that Scotland would never be allowed independent membership of the European Community,” said the Dundee Courier of 22 September. “It was laughable that European nations dependent on imported oil would ever exclude Scotland, the EC’s only large oil producer.”

Salmond remained leader of the SNP until his resignation on 18 November 2014, during which the party became the largest in the Scottish Parliament, and Scotland voted in a referendum on independence from the rest of the United Kingdom. He was succeeded by Nicola Sturgeon in 2014.