Kenny MacAskill | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Official portrait, 2011 | |
| Leader of the Alba Party | |
| Assumed office 12 October 2024[a] | |
| Deputy | Neale Hanvey |
| Preceded by | Alex Salmond |
| Depute Leader of the Alba Party | |
| In office 11 September 2021 – 26 March 2025 | |
| Leader | Alex Salmond Himself (acting) |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Neale Hanvey |
| Cabinet Secretary for Justice | |
| In office 17 May 2007 – 21 November 2014 | |
| First Minister | Alex Salmond |
| Preceded by | Cathy Jamieson |
| Succeeded by | Michael Matheson |
| Member of Parliament forEast Lothian | |
| In office 12 December 2019 – 30 May 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Martin Whitfield |
| Succeeded by | Douglas Alexander |
| Member of the Scottish Parliament | |
| In office 6 May 1999 – 24 March 2016 | |
| Succeeded by | Ash Denham |
| Constituency | Lothians (1999–2007) Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (2007–2011) Edinburgh Eastern (2011–2016) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1958-04-28)28 April 1958 (age 67) |
| Party | Alba[1] |
| Other political affiliations | SNP (1978–2021) |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
| Profession | Solicitor |
| Website | www.kennymacaskillmp.scot |
Kenneth Wright MacAskill (born 28 April 1958) is a Scottish politician who served asMember of Parliament (MP) forEast Lothian from2019 to2024. He previously served asCabinet Secretary for Justice from 2007 to 2014 and was aMember of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) from1999 to2016. A former member of theScottish National Party (SNP), he defected to theAlba Party in 2021 and currently serves as the party's leader, assuming the role after winning theleadership election in March 2025.
Born inEdinburgh and educated atLinlithgow Academy, MacAskill studied law at theUniversity of Edinburgh and was a senior partner in a law firm inGlasgow. He was a long-standing member of the SNP's National Executive Committee and served as treasurer and vice convener of policy, before being elected at the1999 Scottish Parliament election. He was convener of theScottish Parliament Subordinate Legislation Committee from 1999 to 2001.
Following the SNP's victory in2007, MacAskill was appointed asCabinet Secretary for Justice in theScottish Government. In this role, he oversaw the controversial transfer of convicted terroristAbdelbaset al-Megrahi to his nativeLibya. MacAskill left office in November 2014 in the Cabinet reshuffle which followed the appointment ofNicola Sturgeon asFirst Minister of Scotland and stood down from the Scottish Parliament at the2016 election.
After standing down from the Scottish Parliament, MacAskill waselected to the House of Commons as MP forEast Lothian at the2019 general election, gaining the previously Labour-held seat fromMartin Whitfield. In March 2021, MacAskill defected from the SNP to the Alba Party. At the2021 Scottish Parliament election, he stood on the Alba Party'sLothian regional list but neither he nor his party succeeded in gaining a seat.
At the2024 general election MacAskill stood in theAlloa and Grangemouth seat. He received 1.5% of the vote share with 638 votes.
MacAskill was born inEdinburgh and was educated atLinlithgow Academy before studying law at theUniversity of Edinburgh, gaining an LLB (Hons) degree.[2] After completing his training at a firm in Glasgow, he set up Erskine MacAskill.
He came to prominence within the SNP through his activities in theleft-wing79 Group and became a party office bearer. In the 1980s he led the "Can't Pay, Won't Pay" campaign in opposition to thePoll Tax. It was widely known that he often disagreed politically withAlex Salmond, leader of the SNP through the 1990s, and he was at one stage viewed as belonging to theSNP Fundamentalist camp, being perceived to be allied to figures such asJim Sillars andAlex Neil within the party.
After MacAskill became an MSP in 1999 upon the establishment of theScottish Parliament as a regional list member for theLothians he moderated his political position, seeing the development of the Scottish Parliament as the most achievable route for Scotland to become an independent nation state. In this respect he was regarded as having adopted agradualist approach toScottish independence in place of his previous fundamentalist position. He was one of former SNP leaderJohn Swinney's closest supporters.
In 1999 MacAskill was detained inLondon before theEuro 2000 second leg play-off match between Scotland and England on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly.[3] As he was not charged with any crime the incident did not affect his position within the SNP and he won re-election at the2003 election.
In 2004, afterJohn Swinney stood down as SNP party leader, Kenny MacAskill backed the joint leadership ticket of Alex Salmond andNicola Sturgeon. He had initially intended to stand for deputy leader himself on a joint ticket with Nicola Sturgeon, who would have sought the leadership. He gave way when Salmond reconsidered his earlier decision not to seek re-election to the leadership. Upon their election as leader and deputy leader respectively, MacAskill was selected to be Deputy Leader of the SNP in the Scottish Parliament. He served in the SNPShadow Cabinet asShadow Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning from 2001 to 2003,Shadow Minister for Transport and Telecommunications from 2003 to 2004 andShadow Minister for Justice from 2004 to 2007.
MacAskill authored a book,Building a Nation – Post Devolution Nationalism in Scotland, which was launched at the SNP's 2004 annual conference in Inverness. He has since edited another bookAgenda for a New Scotland – Visions of Scotland 2020, and has co-authoredGlobal Scots – Voices From Afar with former First MinisterHenry McLeish.
For the2007 Scottish Parliament election, MacAskill was top of the SNP's party list for the Lothians region. He stood in theEdinburgh East and Musselburgh constituency, winning that seat fromScottish Labour with a 13.3% swing to give a majority of 1,382. This was the first time the SNP had ever won a parliamentary seat in Edinburgh. After the SNP's victory at the2007 Scottish Parliament election, MacAskill became theCabinet Secretary for Justice.
One of MacAskill's first acts as a cabinet secretary was to lift the ban on alcohol sales at internationalrugby union games held atMurrayfield Stadium.[4]
MacAskill also said that the2007 terror attack on Glasgow Airport was not committed by 'home-grown' terrorists, in that the suspects were not "born or bred" in Scotland but had merely lived in the country for a "period of time".[5]
MacAskill won election to a redrawn constituency ofEdinburgh Eastern in the2011 Scottish Parliament election.[6] Despite notionally facing a deficit of 550 votes,[7] MacAskill won by over 2,000 votes.[6]
On 19 August 2009, MacAskill rejected an application by Libya to transfer to their custodyAbdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of thePan Am Flight 103 bomb that killed 270 people, acknowledging that "the American families and Government had an expectation or were led to believe that there would be no prisoner transfer."[8] The following day, on 20 August, MacAskill authorised al-Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds. Megrahi had served 8½ years of a life sentence, but had developed terminalprostate cancer.[9][10] The Justice Secretary has discretionary authority to order such a release, and MacAskill took sole responsibility for the decision.[11][12] Megrahi died on 20 May 2012.
In the United States, where 180 of the 270 victims came from, the decision met with broad hostility. Political figures including PresidentBarack Obama andSecretary of StateHillary Clinton spoke out against it,[13][14] and families of the victims expressed indignation over the decision.[15][16][17][18]FBI directorRobert Mueller, who had been a lead investigator in the 1988 bombing, wrote a highly critical open letter to MacAskill.[19] Former Labour First MinisterHenry McLeish was critical of Mueller's attack on the decision.[20]
In Britain, reaction was divided. Scottish Labour leaderIain Gray, former First MinisterJack McConnell, and former Scottish Office ministerBrian Wilson criticised the decision,[21][22][23][24][25] while ScottishFirst MinisterAlex Salmond, former Labour MPTam Dalyell and former British ambassador to LibyaRichard Dalton publicly supported it.[26][27] Ian Galloway andMario Conti, representatives of theChurch of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church respectively, also spoke in favour of the release.[28]
John Mosey, a priest who lost a daughter on Pan Am Flight 103, expressed his disappointment that halting Megrahi's appeal before it went to court meant that the public would never hear "this important evidence — the six separate grounds for appeal that theSCCRC felt were important enough to put forward, that could show that there's been a miscarriage of justice."[29]Saif al-Islam Gaddafi reiterated his belief in Megrahi's innocence commenting that the Justice Secretary had "made the right decision" and that history would prove this to be the case.[30] A letter in support of MacAskill's decision was sent to the Scottish Government on behalf of former South African PresidentNelson Mandela.[31]
TheScottish Parliament was recalled from its summer break, for the third time since its creation, to receive a statement from and question MacAskill.[32] The opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament passed amendments criticising the decision and the way it was made, but no motions of confidence in MacAskill or the Scottish Government were tabled.[33]
After MacAskill won re-election to the Scottish Parliament in2011, an SNP supporter said that the decision had been mentioned by very few voters during the election campaign.[34]
MacAskill was chosen as the SNP candidate forEast Lothian at the2019 UK general election.[35] He was subsequently elected, overturning a 3,083 majority and defeating Labour'sMartin Whitfield.[36]
In April 2020, MacAskill called for the office ofLord Advocate to be split – similarly to the English and Welsh system ofAttorney General for England and Wales andDirector of Public Prosecutions – in a response to the trial of formerFirst Minister of ScotlandAlex Salmond, to avoid potential conflicts of interest.[37]
In February 2020, MacAskill authoredRadical Scotland – Uncovering Scotland's radical history – from the French Revolutionary era to the 1820 Rising, published byBiteback.
Following the launch of theAlba Party in March 2021, in advance of the2021 Scottish Parliament election, MacAskill announced that he was leaving the SNP to join Alba,[why?] making him their first sitting representative. He was reported as planning to stand for election to Holyrood in a regional list seat.[1] The SNP called on him to resign and trigger a by-election, describing his defection as "somewhat of a relief".[38] In the2021 Scottish Parliament election, he stood on Alba'sLothian regional list, as their lead candidate, but neither he nor his party succeeded in gaining any seats.[39] Later that year, at the party's inaugural conference, he was elected as depute leader.[40]
On 13 July 2022, SpeakerLindsay Hoyle ejected MacAskill and his Alba colleagueNeale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) from theHouse of Commons for disrupting the start ofPrime Minister's Questions. The two had been protesting about the refusal to grant consent for a second referendum on Scottish independence.[41] As both Members were named by the Speaker, by convention MacAskill and Hanvey were handed five-day suspensions from the House of Commons.
At the2024 general election, MacAskill switched constituencies to instead stand for the newAlloa and Grangemouth seat, which was won byBrian Leishman of theLabour Party, amidst a large swing towards Labour across Scotland. MacAskill received 638 votes, (1.5%), finishing second-to-last.[42]
Following Alex Salmond's death on 12 October 2024, MacAskill became acting leader of the Alba Party.[43][44] Under the provisions of the party constitution, the depute leader of the party becomes its acting leader whenever the leadership becomes vacant.[45] He announced his candidacy for the2025 Alba Party leadership election on 20 January 2025.[46] On 26 March 2025, he was elected at the party conference defeatingAsh Regan 52.3% to 47.7%.[47]
MacAskill lives inMoray, where he has a house, and he also maintains a flat inEast Lothian.[48] He has two sons.[2]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forEast Lothian 2019–2024 | Succeeded by |
| Scottish Parliament | ||
| New constituency | Member of the Scottish Parliament forEdinburgh Eastern 2011–2016 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of the Scottish Parliament forEdinburgh East and Musselburgh 2007–2011 | Constituency abolished |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Cabinet Secretary for Justice 2007–2014 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Scottish National Party Vice Chairman (Local Government) 1985–1989? | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Treasurer of theScottish National Party 1994–1999? | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
