Trying to figure out WTF is going on I see this article in the Sunday National has prompted some conspiracist drivel from what we must suspect is an SNP loyalist (see below). The reality is that Alba Party has no role. Alba Party has never had a role in Scotland's politics. That is why it has failed to make any significant impact. People just don't know what purpose it serves. They don't understand what it's for.
Alba Party loyalists imagine their party to be a more radical pro-independence alternative to the SNP. But that is entirely imaginary. The party's supporters talk up Alba with all manner of claims about what it stands for and what it will do. But they are battling against a leadership that has signally failed to establish a distinctive identity or agenda. The potential was there when the party was launched into the 2021 Holyrood election campaign by Alex Salmond in March 2021, just weeks before the vote. That was a mistake. But the far bigger mistake was the leadership's failure to differentiate Alba Party from the SNP in a way that would allow it to be perceived as an alternative rather than a rival. It should have been obvious that the initial wave of people joining Alba Party would be almost entirely disaffected ex-SNP members, many of whom were understandably resentful about the way their party had been hijacked by the Sturgeon clique and bitter about the direction in which the party had been taken since 2014. The leadership seemed not to realise the implications of this, however. They allowed the party's public image to be formed by the angry refugees from the Sturgeon Nepotism Party. It was not an image that was ever going to appeal to voters. The Alba Party leadership could - and should - have avoided this by giving the membership something to be for instead of leaving them with only something to be against. Once the tribalism set in, there was no going back. There is no way that destructive genie is going back in the bottle absent some seriously effective management There were opportunities for an intervention which might have turned things around for Alba Party. Ash Regan's defection from the SNP at Holyrood as well as Neale Hanvie and Kenny MacAskill at Westminster could have been 'new brooms' that swept away Alba's image as the anti-SNP image by refocusing its agenda on the constitutional issue and presenting some innovative thinking on the 'route to independence'. Innovative thinking such as had come to be regarded as heresy in Sturgeon's SNP. One of the main reasons so many members quit the party she had made a vehicle for her personal ambition rather than the vehicle for independence. It didn't happen. Neither did anything change with Alex Salmond's untimely death and the ensuing leadership contest. Neither MacAskill nor Regan offered anything new. Both are capable politicians, each in their own way. Regan's ability to raise her own profile is reminiscent of Sturgeon's skill in this area. MacAskill is a man of great integrity but a bit staid and stuffy, He is respected rather than liked If the former had better policy advisors and the latter better personal imaging advisors, either could have been a stand-out leader. As it turned out, neither is. It all comes back to the failure to develop a distinctive identity and radical position on the constitutional issue. They would still have set Alba against the SNP. But the rivalry would have been based on something more meaningful and positive than a mutual resentment that in many cases has escalated to vitriolic hatred. Alba Party now has another opportunity to become the 'party of independence' that the SNP long since ceased to be. The 2026 Scottish Parliament election has the potential to be used as a democratic event that gets Scotland's cause rolling again. As John Curtice's analysis indicates, Alba has nothing to lose by adopting a more assertive and even aggressive approach to the constitutional issue which contrasts starkly with the hyper-cautious conservatism of Swinney's SNP. This would have three effects, all of which would improve Alba's electoral prospects in 2026. Were Alba Party to adopt the Manifesto for Independence, this would make it markedly different from the SNP. It would give the party that distinctive identity and agenda it so sadly lacks. In taking the lead on the constitutional issue, all that stuff about 'holding the SNP's feet to the fire' would become more than empty sloganeering. Finally, adopting the Manifesto for Independence would make Alba Party a disruptor to rival Reform UK - but in a positive way. You're currently a free subscriber to Peter A Bell. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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