Alex Salmond is to become the SNP's foreign affairs spokesman at Westminster, party sources have confirmed.
The former First Minister looks set to lead, alongside group leader Angus Robertson, the party's approach, among other things, to the EU referendum, due to take place by the end of 2017; an issue likely to dominate much of the UK Parliament's proceedings for the next 18 months.
The Herald has also been told that Stewart Hosie, the deputy leader, will resume his role as Economics Spokesman while Joanna Cherry, the new MP for Edinburgh South West, will become the spokeswoman for justice and home affairs. Ms Cherry is a QC and human rights lawyer; one of her first tasks look set to be opposing the Conservative Government's plan to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.
It is also believed Pete Wishart, the MP for Perth and North Perthshire, is in line to become chairman of one of two Commons Committees the SNP will be entitled to as the new third party. One possibility is for the party's former Chief Whip to head the Scottish Affairs Committee.
Only yesterday, Mr Robertson said, after being re-elected leader, that Mr Salmond would have a "significant role" to play in the SNP, noting how he was "one of the best well-known politicians in Europe".
However, the ex-FM's appointment will raise eyebrows, particularly among his critics given some of his more controversial remarks have been on foreign affairs; from his declaration in 1999 that it was an "unpardonable folly" for Nato to launch air strikes against Serbia, which was accused at the time of perpertrating human rights abuses against ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo, to the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, which he insisted was done for the "right reasons", and more recently, last year, when he was accused of "sucking up" to Vladimir Putin after the ex-SNP leader revealed his admiration for the hardline Russian leader.
His comments were made more contentious as they were made just days before Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
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