Kenneth Wright MacAskill (born 28 April 1958) is a Scottish politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Lothian from 2019 to 2024.

MacAskill left office in November 2014 in the Cabinet reshuffle which followed the appointment of Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister of Scotland and stood down from the Scottish Parliament at the 2016 election.

In 1999 MacAskill was detained in London before the Euro 2000 second leg play-off match between Scotland and England on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly.

In 2004, after John Swinney stood down as SNP party leader, Kenny MacAskill backed the joint leadership ticket of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.

He stood in the Edinburgh East and Musselburgh constituency, winning that seat from Scottish Labour with a 13.3% swing to give a majority of 1,382.

One of MacAskill's first acts as a cabinet secretary was to lift the ban on alcohol sales at international rugby union games held at Murrayfield Stadium.

[4] MacAskill also said that the 2007 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".

Political figures including President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out against it,[13][14] and families of the victims expressed indignation over the decision.

[15][16][17][18] FBI director Robert Mueller, who had been a lead investigator in the 1988 bombing, wrote a highly critical open letter to MacAskill.

"[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 President Nelson Mandela.

[33] After MacAskill won re-election to the Scottish Parliament in 2011, an SNP supporter said that the decision had been mentioned by very few voters during the election campaign.

[36] In April 2020, MacAskill called for the office of Lord Advocate to be split – similarly to the English and Welsh system of Attorney General for England and Wales and Director of Public Prosecutions – in a response to the trial of former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond, to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

[38] In the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, he stood on Alba's Lothian regional list but neither he nor his party succeeded in gaining any seats.

[40] On 13 July 2022, Speaker Lindsay Hoyle ejected MacAskill and his Alba colleague Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) from the House of Commons for disrupting the start of Prime Minister's Questions.