I find it slightly odd to make a personal statement on party politics, because I don't do party politics, but for once I feel it necessary.
As most readers will know I take an interest in Scottish politics. And many readers will also know that I have on occasion appeared on the Alex Salmond Show, which has sometimes offered its own ethical challenges. So I have, of course, met Alex and had discussions with him.
However, for the record I have no link with his new party, Alba. Nor am I planning any link with it. I am always willing to offer advice, usually without ever drawing attention to the fact, to politicians who ask. But whilst it was entirely predictable that Alex Salmond would seek to return to Scottish politics I had not discussed his doing so with him and have no intention of breaking my commitment to not doing party politics. Although that will not, of course stop me commenting on it if I think it appropriate.
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Message received and understood. From the little I have seen of Alex’s statements so far it looks like a Scottish currency soon after independence will be a priority for ALBA.
For any of your readers who are curious about the d’ hont system of voting in Scotland and how it relates to the new party please see below:-
https://internationalscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Facebook-1080.mp4?_=1
Thanks for that. Fascinating, showing that less is more. I wonder if the toryscum are able to work out the threat? Probably not, too bloody dim. If I were Sturgeon, I’d keep very quiet indeed.
Alex Salmond was an economist with a major bank before he became a politician. His apparent uncertainty on the currency issue was a major weakness for YES in 2014. You have met him, Richard. Has his position on currency firmed up since? Does he now “get” MMT?
He is withou doubt a marmite character among Scots voters, and many women find him nauseating.
Thus the Alba party will not necessarily attract enough list section voters th ensure the super majority for pro independence parties, assuming that the voters are wise to the d’hoite system, and how it affects each regional constituency.
Many Indy voters were considering the Green Party for their list vote, but the new entrant has confused matters.
It will be the crime of the century if Salmond’s intervention causes no overall majority for Indy. I am terrified at the prospect of living under an English nationalist government for the rest of my life. A brilliant opportunity ruined by the ego of one man. I’ll never forgive him.
I agree with your sentiment that this does not seem to help the independence cause
Given the voting system voting Green seems to make a lot of sense
Absolutely spot on GerryC. My feelings exactly.
I am inclined to reserve judgement until I see what the Alba Party policies are and what they say about the critical issues of (1) the currency (2) the Constitution (3) banking and financial system reform. I have always voted SNP 1, Greens 2 in Scottish elections but both are hopeless on these 3 most important issues so if Alba have something better to say I will reconsider where I put my 2nd vote. And that’s what everyone else should do unless they really want to continue with the “personality politics”.
I agree Jim, and thank you for your pragmatic comment.
Alex Salmond has said, for the Alba Party, economic recovery from the pandemic is a priority, and has implied a ‘new economic’ structure, rebuilding, the environment and equality are important. We will have to wait to see the actual policies, the proposals, for how they plan to make those things come about. And valid proposals surrounding currency and financial reform are important to me as well – something sadly lacking elsewhere. I think the party is advocating a written constitution, but I’m not sure that an actual constitution would be presented as a policy for this election – would you expect it?
Alex Salmond also made a hard and fast promise that the party would never silence its members and representatives from expressing their own opinions. That is a key principle for me – one that enables transparency and therefore true democracy to take place.
Things will be happening over the next couple of weeks that will hopefully make the party’s stance clearer on all these issues, and reserving judgement is a good attitude to take.
On the face of it, though, it looks like a positive step towards enabling independence, without any detriment to the SNP. The d’Hondt system allows for this (I say this for others not aware, not aimed at you Jim).
That is a staggeringly irrelevant and self indulgent response to the immediate threat which Alec Salmond’s behaviour, weeks before the election, represents to an independence majority, without which you can whistle for a Scottish currency.
It’s dismaying to see this frankly.
I suppose we’ll see just how genuine this all is but it just seems to me that these days politicians are just happy to see politics as falling out with each other even if in the same party rather than doing something collectively substantial for the country.
No wonder our politics has been called ‘inevitability politics’. Picking fights with each other is much easier than taking issue with the dominant faulty orthodox paradigms we suffer under.
It’s rubbish.
Mainstream politics dominated by our traditional political parties is populated by cowards and advocates of followership, not leadership. Richard has been quite right to call for a “Courageous State” but a courageous state requires courageous leadership. I despise the crop of so-called leaders who parade their shallow policy proposals which are nothing but electioneering gimmicks. These folk live in fear of “frightening the horses” – but whilst they are scared of frightening the horses they don’t mind in the least misleading them with policy “offers” which are shallow gimmicks rather than well thought out, considered policy. So in the Scottish election campaign we have the SNP offering to “double the state pension” (after independence) and the Greens offering to create 100,000 green new jobs – and neither has a clue how they are actually going to do any of this without addressing the key issues of currency, constitution and banking/financial reform. I will choose a party to vote for but my only choices are actually the least bad options.
Whether Salmon can attract any Green voters will depend on his stance on critical policies such as climate mitigation, nuclear weapons/power and whether he can distinguish himself from the traditional parties who all pursue a policy of ever-increasing economic growth at the expense of nature.
In view of both what has been substantiated about Mr Salmond and the current mood of the nation about the treatment of women, I find it to say the least surprising that he has decided to return to politics.
It seems to me that the best thing he could do for the independence cause would be to retire from politics.
It isn’t Alec Salmonds Party.
It is Laurie Flynn’s – and none of the MSM are actually addressing that fact.
They seem to actually be going out of the way to ignore it or just make a swift passing mention.
There are women who are standing.
There are women who are expressing support and joining up.
The monstering conspiracy is failing and Alba have used it already to publicise its existence- because the oxygen of publicity the MSM provided by immediately launching their attacks. I watched the whole press conference and have read the feather spitting churnilism they coordinated.
That’s judo by Alba. All these who thought they had the Will to Independence under control, with a shoo in coalition, have suddenly found their well planned and executed hopes challenged.
There is absolutely nothing to stop the Scottish voters to deliver a Indy supermajority parliament – a genius argument- if they see fit.
If they want to be swayed by the perjury of most of the complainants so be it too.
If they don’t want to reside all their Indy eggs in the SNP basket they now have a choice for the list vote for any other non – unionist parties that CHOOSE to contest against each other.
It’s upto the voters isn’t it? In 6 weeks we’ll know what they decided.
What an excellent summation DG. I agree entirely.
Haven’t signed up yet with ALBA but will probably get round to it soon.
New members were reported as over 3000 last time I looked and now 2 MP’s in Westminster already.
It is up to the voters, but that won’t stop the MSM doing their best to thwart any deviation from the norm. It’s already clear from the Guardian and Independent’s coverage of Alba, that they are fitting Alex Salmond up for the Corbyn treatment. He must represent a threat to the establishment.
Really Jim? AS has had the Corbyn treatment and worse most of his political life. Please pay attention.
NONE of the principles and policies the Indy parties stand for (including the SNP, the Greens, and now Alba) will get implemented, if the Indy vote fails in May.
Currency, constitution, transparency, environmental issues? None of these will matter a jot if we end up stuck with a Westminster Tory government for the forseeable future. These Tories are already moving to ensure that Scotland, as a partner country within the UK, will longer exist if we lose this election. They aren’t bothering to love-bomb us this time. They outvote us, 10-1. If we don’t leave, we will lose everything that matters, including our Parliament and/or any real powers it may have.
I don’t know what Mr Salmond thinks he’s doing here, but this grandstanding is not going to convert No voters to Yes. This is simply going to divide the indy vote that’s already there. Unionists must be laughing their heads off.
Maybe Mr Salmond fancies being the hare, in this hare-and-tortoise race, but he might do well to remember who won that race. And how they won it.
Jan,
First the Greens are NOT an Indy first party. Are they?
Apparently on Marr this morning, reported on Guardian site :
‘ Lorna Slater said: “We are not competing for the same voters”.
“Scottish Green voters care about the climate, about fairness, human rights, the kind of policies we’ll be bringing forward … ’
With massive adhom at potential Alba voters thrown in at end of that quote, which I ignore on purpose.
Secondly you say (again not fully quoting)
“[Alba are].. not going to convert No voters to Yes. This is simply going to divide the indy vote that’s already there. “
That is a misrepresentation.
There is NO claim of wishing to convert No voters to Yes is there?
The claim is to stop these Yes voters votes being discounted in the List seats because of their success in the Constituency.
THAT is the declared aim of Alba.
So the ONLY possibility is of gaining more Indy seats and a reduction in the number of non Indy seats if the SNP voters want their Indy vote to count in both setups.
That is the simple, straight forward, declared aim of Alba and I think it is genius and a checkmate move against unionists.
I urge you to look at the potential outcomes which may result in at most not even a handful MPs fewer for SNP from their lists seats where they don’t win the Constituency. But a LOT more Indy seats to join them in parliament against a hugely decimated unionists MP’s who have only got their seats by the discounted SNP voters.
It is win-win for Indy MP’s.
Marx observed that history repeats itself; once as tragedy and once as farce. We had an example of tragedy almost exactly one hundred years ago when the Irish national movement split and we had a bloody civil. We have the farce now with the split in the Scottish national movement. Well, at least there seems to be no likelihood they’ll start shooting each other – though I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t the odd bout of fisticuffs when tempers are frayed. But I never had Salmond and Sturgeon reprising the roles of De Valera and Collins.
It seems to happen to almost all national movements. And it almost always prevents the emergence of a functioning competitive democracy when the objective of the national movement is achieved. Despite the emergence of an ostensibly functioning polity, politics south of the border in Ireland has been mangled, polluted and distorted ever since the civil war.
If you want to know what is happening in the Scottish colony today it might be worth listening to this.
https://www.barrheadboy.com/?p=4586
I’m surprised that someone (Dungroanin?) has not already provided a link to this web post which includes a clear description of the strategy behind starting the Alba party, which is to exploit the constituency list/regional list voting system to maximise the number of pro-independence MSPs without damaging the SNP representation.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/03/what-a-week/
All the comments on here about it being driven by Salmond’s personal issues are disappointing but this suggestion will obviously be pushed hard by the mainstream media.
Or to put it another way, to take advantage of a weakness of the Scottish electoral system, which gives a penalty in the list part of the election to parties that do well in the constituency part of the election. Giving voters different constituency and list votes, and allowing “list only” parties, means that canny voters get two bite of the cherry, potentially doubling their representation. It also means that people who vote for the same party in both part of the election are penalised, so their preferred party (whether that is Green or Labour or Conservative or whatever) is not given the additional representation their support deserves.
This sort of tactical game-playing can go wrong: for example, there is an assumption that the SNP will win as many constituency seats as last time, which is not a foregone conclusion. If they don’t. this sort of tactic would mean they would lose twice – both the constituency and the list.
I doubt there is any benefit in the Conservatives and Labour trying to counter this sort of tactic with pop-up list-only “Unionist Party” to pool their list votes.
What is the experience of such tactical voting in the German federal elections, for example, which as I understand it uses a similar system? Are there “list only” parties to mop up support of parties that win lots of constituency seats?
Andrew,
Firstly, this was the voting system that was imposed on us, not chosen. It has an element of proportional representation, which is good, and there are electoral rules governing how it works.
There is no allowance in the rules for any voter to get ‘two bites of the cherry’ – because no one party can split into a constituency party and list party. You mix up voting along constitutional lines with party political votes. If your choice is along constitutional lines – you have a few pro-Union choices of different party already, but up until now no choice of pro-independence except supposedly the SNP and Scottish Greens.
List only parties standing under a firm pro-independence banner is not only allowed, but is desirable – the unionists get a wider choice, so should we.
The unionist parties already ‘game’ the system and have done for years – I have no sympathy for the poor dears – not by producing list-only parties per se, but by the other parties only standing ‘paper candidates’ on the constituency when the other party has the best chance of winning. The paper-candidate parties then hoover up the list votes (with real list candidates). Your assertion that the unionists have no counter to what is,,, effectively their own strategy is bewildering. Pro-independence campaigners have complained about this for years (because it implies collusion – something that isn’t allowed under the rules).
So openly creating a list-only party is just a more transparent way of going about it – and there can be no doubt that Alba is very separate from the SNP, as much as the Tories and Labour are separate.
Of course tactical voting can go wrong – anything can go wrong, in fact – but the assumption isn’t that the SNP will get as many seats as last time: current polling shows they will get MORE seats – that is, a lot more wasted votes if people vote SNP on the list too. Then we have Alba already promoting SNP on the constituency vote, and a renewed vigour of the pro-independence movement to actually go out and vote, and now the SNP may have no choice but to form a majority government – current seat prediction is at 70, I think. The total collapse of the constituency vote for the SNP at this stage would be remarkable and unprecedented. This is a strategy, not tactics, anyway, just to be pedantic – tactics are what people will do in each region and constituency (which is where things will get interesting). The overall strategy is sound: tactics to apply to each region will be customised.
The Scottish Greens have always bemused me – they insist on standing in constituency seats, so making it a direct challenge to the SNP (from a constitutional point of view), but only ever picking up list votes. They were already in negotiation there with the SNP to form a coalition government – a strange move (and I’m not sure entirely above board) when you plan to directly challenge seats in the constituencies when an alternative is available. But I don’t expect too much from Patrick ‘no debate’ Harvie.
No harm in ‘gaming’ the system anyway – if its within the rules – you have to work with what you’ve got, and I’m not sure why people feel the desire to put some kind of high bar of puritanical standards on it – it’s within the rules and hardly on par with illegally paying for dark ads on Facebook, paying Cambirdge Aalytica to rig the system, importing dark money from foreign sources – or even simply overspending during an election & paying the fines after as Theresa May seems to think is absolutely fine. Standing paper candidates (a member’s name is used but they don’t campaign – in some cases they aren’t even told!) to allow an ideological very different party to win a seat, while pretending otherwise to the voters, is hardly a moral standard of purity either.
We can tell the strategy is a good one by the level of negative, howling at the moon, contradictory, reports the – entirely unionist – news outlets are currently producing.
The strategic aim is independence – via a second independence referendum. The electoral tactic to achieve that a supermajority of independence-minded MSPs, over and above the percentage of votes that independence-minded parties achieve. Call it grand tactics if you prefer, although it is splitting hairs.
I commend the SNP and Alba on their manipulation of the voting system. It may very well be in accordance with the electoral rules, but if you end up with a very large number of electors whose choices are not properly represented on a broadly proportional basis in the Scottish Parliament, you risk winning the battle but losing the war if the parliament loses its legitimacy.
It may be unthinkable today, but I suspect the current UK government is not beyond legislating to terminate the Scottish Parliament and return to direct rule from London. Just look at Catalonia.
I think that is possible
Andrew,
The strategic aim isn’t what you describe. The strategic aim is to allow the people of Scotland the ability to make the choice on whether or not Scotland should become an independent country.
It is that democratic choice that is being denied to us. This need not necessarily involve a referendum, and there are plenty of other legal and democratic routes to allow people to choose this path. The reason for bringing about a ‘supermajority’ is not to impose a democratic deficit of policy, but is a means to allow people that choice constitutionally – with a supermajority, the parliament can vote to hold an early plebiscite election, and give people a choice by those means, as one option. It will make other options available – if you investigate how other countries became independent from Britain, you can find some of them. By no means is a supermajority of pro-independence (of a wide variety of political origins and opinion) MSPs going to instantly impose independence.
Constitutional and policy issues are separate.
The Project Fear style arguments – ‘it’s a risk! You’d better do nothing!’ Is hardly likely to bring about independence – and the insistence that we need Westminster approval for everything likewise.
The ‘unthinkable’ as you put it, has already being put into motion – the new ‘uk in Scotland’ office in Edinburgh has been built and is already being staffed, and will have upwards of 3000 new civil servants – why, you might ask (if you knew about it) would this be required for such a small population as ours, one with already such a lot of governance? Especially when so much of England suffers a deficit of resources.
The urgency of bringing about a supermajority, and giving Scottish people a choice as soon as possible, is there for quite a few reasons.
Have no doubt, a Holyrood, as toothless as it is now, will be much more toothless before long. BUT that will NOT be something that will happen in response to maximising the pro-Indy vote: it already IS happening.
There is no need for you to be so coy about it. The SNP and Alba have both made it perfectly clear that their strategic aim is independence. As it happens, parties in favor of the union won over 50% of the constituency votes last time around, and more or less 50% of the list votes. Perhaps they won’t this time around. Who knows.
Yes, nations have the democratic right to make their own mistakes, but be careful what you wish for. Making any such decision on the basis of a one-off bare majority of electoral opinion is fraught with danger, as we have seen with Brexit (even more so without any such majority, as your suggestion of “other options” suggests – what do you have in mind: UDI? armed insurrection?). How are you going to bring everyone else along with you?
You can contemptuously dismiss it as “Project Fear” if you like, but people who were warning of the negative implications of Brexit were bang on the money, as we are finding out to our cost.
Andrew,
*democracy*
People being given the choice. Constitutional issues are separate from policy – unless an election is held along constitutional lines – that election’s statistics do not tell you how someone would vote constitutionally.
The population of Scotland swings around 50% either way, in regular polling. Being independent is NORMAL, and we have the full weight of the British State acting against us – it won’t be an accidental slip of the pen that brings about independence, or a one-off bare majority. That is, even with a 50% +1 majority, it will have been attained against the odds. There is only about a 20 – 30% core unionist (or independence) vote that would never consider voting the other way – and that’s not a majority. It needs to be tested in a plebiscite to ensure the consistent opinion polling for independence above 50% over the past 6 months is actually a true desire for independence.
And I said ‘other legal and democratic options’, I didn’t mention any of your mad, hysterical ideas or even imply them. There is only one side in this that even considers violence as an option, and it ain’t the pro-Indy side.
I think we might find that the biggest fear people have is having to stay in the uk while brexit unfolds and the destruction of devolution. These are real, and presently happening – not ‘what ifs’ – but let’s give the entire population the chance to decide that eh?
Anyway, it’s been nice chatting.
First with the “project fear” now with the “mad, hysterical ideas”! Clearly the “other options” I mentioned where not the ones you had in mind. So what are you proposing?
As it happens, I support the right of the Scottish population to determine their own future (and indeed the peoples of England and Ireland and Wales) but if the population swings around 50%, that indicates there is not yet a clear majority for a change.
So I’ll say it again: how are you going to bring everyone else along with you? How are you going to avoid a situation like Catalonia? Or indeed Brexit, with the democratic and legal tyranny of the 52 majority trampling over the 48 minority, and leaving everyone to regret at leisure?
As an SNP member my current feeling is that Alex Salmond is serving up a cold dish of revenge (apologies to Talleyrand). He was always guilty of hubris but I liked him for what he did for Scotland. Now I fear what he might be doing to Scotland.
Of course, it is a gamble that may work, and he was always one for a gamble. He may just possibly draw all the pop-up independence parties together and unite the second votes. Or he may just have added one more (albeit major) pop-up party to the list and dilute the second votes to allow the unionist parties in.
What is certain is that it has now been done and will not be undone, so I’ll just have to live with it and keep my fingers crossed as I have done for the last 50+ years.
A lot to agree with there
Salmond and Sturgeon are two dodgy politicians. Awful to have to choose between such poor options
You call them dodgy but on what basis? Alex Salmond has admitted to some faults but none of them were criminal (a court trial should have settled that but the media continue to try him almost daily). Nicola Sturgeon was exonerated from knowingly misleading Holyrood and Mr Hamilton cleared her of breaching the ministerial code. How many senior politicians could emerge from such scrutiny with their reputation unblemished? Certainly none in Westminster come to mind.
To become a politician of any sort generally requires an extraordinary dedication and conceit, and to reach the top usually involves leaving some failed competitors in your wake.
I joined the SNP only after the referendum in 2014 and I am mighty glad someone of Nicola’s calibre was there to take over from Alex.
You have a reasonably influential platform Richard. I would have hoped that you would have used to say that regardless of what you think of his views on ( say) an independent currency his personal behaviour and lack of contrition about it makes him utterly unsuitable to retain a role in front line politics.
I have made clear my concerns, I think
Peter,
Can you tell us what this personal behaviour is that makes Alex Salmond unsuitable, and what it is he needs to be contrite about?
I have a fair amount of knowledge on recent events, and so if you have further knowledge of something Scottish voters should be concerned about, it would be of benefit for us to hear about it. There shouldn’t be any problems, legally, stating anything specific – all his dirty laundry has already been aired in public after all.
If Mr. Salmond is such a threat to women why has the former SNP’s woman’s convenor Caroline MacAlastair just joined the Alba party? Of the candidates announced so far half are women. Judging by several righteous comments posted above they ought to be running a mile from him.
There are a great many misconceptions and myths surrounding the Additional Member System and I fear Mr Salmond is promoting one of them: that there are millions of wasted votes cast for the SNP in the List vote. This myth is built on the supposition that a party that gains a lot of seats in the FPTP Constituency vote is “penalised” on the List, therefore you are better casting your vote for another party on the List. There are several problems with this. For example, how do you know how many seats a party will win in the Constituency vote? You don’t, so how can you say your List vote will be wasted on the SNP?
2016 seems to be touchstone that proves this myth when they won “only” 4 List seats. But they forget that in 2011 the SNP won 16 List seats and fewer Constituency seats, but gained an overall majority. The reason was that their Constituency and List percentage votes were much closer together in 2011 than in 2016 when they haemorrhaged nearly 5% fewer on the List.
Even James Kelly of Scotgoespop (a pollster and blogger), who says he going to vote Alba admits that new party may achieve nothing. It’s a gamble, with odds stacked against new parties.
Personally, I think they will be lucky to get more than one seat. They will have to score above 5% in each Region to pick up a good number of seats which seems a tall order, and I wonder if many Independence minded voters are willing to take the gamble.
Talk of a “supermajority” by voting for Alba is more sloganising than reality. On the other hand, the lesson of AMS history is that a supermajority could be attained by voting SNP in the Constituency vote and the List vote as in 2011.
There is much more analysis and worked examples and further debunking (eg Breaking the System) here: https://listvotesense.medium.com/constituencies-lists-the-whole-truth-d0612b229bca
I am sick fed up giving my second vote to SNP to see it wasted with the like of Murdo Fraser and Jackie Ballie getting apparent jobs for life with a smattering of votes. if i change my second vote to Alba it won’t affect the results for the green party or SNP, those who vote green on the regional vote will most likely continue to do so, where i live a vote for SNP on the regional vote is worthless and only helps the unionist candidates. My second vote is wasted voting SNP anyway so please tell me, what have i to lose by giving my second vote to Alba? right now the thought of seeing Jackie baillie getting her jotters fills me with joy. I say that as a former card carrying labour voter and member.
Wow! Someone looks very worried about all this.
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2021/03/29/tories-predict-snp-alba-greens-to-take-70-of-seats/
Agreed
”Ross calls for an alliance with the other British Nationalist parties to ‘game’ the system too.”
All this shock-horror talk about ‘gaming the system’ only serves to highlight how political parties of all colours have always gamed the system i.e. made the most of their options (mostly) within the legal constraints that they operate under. Someone above even describes practices as innocuous and widespread as standing paper candidates as an example.
Anyone who has had enough of Tories running the UK as if it is their own private sweet shop ought to be inspired by Alba’s cunning strategy, and come up with some gaming of their own: all the opposition parties cooperate to form a UK-wide anti-Tory supermajority that will get this motley crew out in, or by, 2024. The fate of democracy in the UK, and the prospects for a sane response to the climate emergency depend on this.
Let’s not beat about the bush.
Eck Salmond has seen an opportunity to lever himself into the position of broker.
Mr Galloway seems to have researched the current situation and thought it through very carefully. Hopefully it will percolate through to the Scottish voters during the next 6 weeks.
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2021/03/29/galloway-dares-to-question-the-infallibility-of-the-prof/