Former SNP leader Alex Salmond says it is 'time to move on' as he launches new 'Alba' pro-independence party

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Scotland's former first minister Alex Salmond says it is "time to move on" from various court cases and inquiries after announcing the launch of a new political party to run in the Scottish Parliament elections in May.

The 66-year-old will lead the Alba Party, which will field at least four candidates in the regional lists.

The former SNP leader confirmed he will be standing for the party in May’s Scottish Parliament election, where he will face candidates from the SNP, Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Scottish Green.

Last year Mr Salmond was cleared after a criminal trial of a series of allegations, including a charge of attempted rape.

He insisted on Friday that after the various court cases and inquiries that have taken place he is looking forward not back.

“I have wanted to talk about the future of Scotland for the last three years," Mr Salmond said.

"Now I have got the opportunity thanks to the Alba Party.

“That’s what I intend to do, and I intend to do it in an entirely positive way.”

Launching the new party in an online event, the former SNP leader said: “Today Alba are hoisting a flag in the wind, planting our Saltire on a hill.

"In the next few weeks we will see how many will rally to our standard.”
Among the candidates are an SNP councillor.

In response, the SNP said Scotland must come before the "self interest of someone who shows no sign whatsoever of reflecting on serious concerns about his own conduct."

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The timing of the launch of the party comes amid a turbulent period for current first minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Mr Salmond earlier said in a statement: "Over the next six weeks we will promote new ideas about taking Scotland forward, giving primacy to economic recovery from the pandemic and the achievement of independence for our country.
"We expect to field a minimum of four candidates in each regional list and we're hoping to elect Alba MSPs from every area of Scotland."

Mr Salmond said the aim of the party was to work towards a "successful, socially just, environmentally responsible, independent country".


He said the last Holyrood elections had one million "totally wasted independence" votes on the regional list, but the number could reach 90 with the Alba Party.
Mr Salmond said: “The Alba Party is a list party, we are standing only on the list, we’re not challenging the SNP in the constituency.

“Indeed we are saying vote SNP or for an independence party on the constituency section, we are giving that support.”
The statement arrived after Mr Salmond announced plans to take legal action over the "conduct" of the Scottish government's top civil servant Leslie Evans.
He said the Permanent Secretary failed to take "real responsibility" for failings highlighted in two reports this week about the government's investigation of harassment complaints against him.

It comes after the former first minister was cleared of 13 charges at the High Court in Edinburgh in March last year, after being arrested in January 2019.

"We've seen two court cases, two judges, one jury and I'm prepared to accept all of these," Mr Salmond said.

"So it is time to move on."

Responding to the launch of Mr Salmond's new political party, an SNP spokesperson said: "This is perhaps the most predictable development in Scottish politics for quite some time.
"At this time of crisis, the interests of the country must come first and should not be obscured by the self interest of someone who shows no sign whatsoever of reflecting on serious concerns about his own conduct - concerns which, to put it mildly, raise real questions about the appropriateness of a return to public office.
"The SNP has led the country through the last 12 months of the Covid pandemic, and at this election we offer the experienced, responsible and forward-looking leadership that the country needs."
They added: "Our plans to get Scotland through and out of the Covid crisis, and support a recovery with fairness and equality at its heart, with the opportunity to put Scotland's future in Scotland's hands, will be the focus of our election campaign.
"The only way to secure strong leadership, a referendum on independence, and a positive future for the country is to cast both votes for the SNP on May 6."

Link.

[LadyTevar]

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[Crazedwraith]

Knowing shamefully little about Scotland's system, how badly does this scuper and divide the SNP vote?

I got to say, I'm agreeing with SNP folks here, this feels like a vanity project for Salmond, and I wonder how many canditates he can really field with like 6 weeks to go.

[Bedlam]

At least some area's have proportional representation in the Scottish Parliament so the stated reason why this won't destroy team Independence is that those that want independence can put one party as their first choice and the other as the second and theoretically they may get more seats overall than just selecting one or putting one as first and second choice. How it will work out in real life I don't know. For people who may have more knowledge of stats and proportional representation is there actually any benefit it creating, I guess I'd call then 'Sock puppet' parties to try and game the system or is the effect negligible?

So far 'Alba' has not really laid out what they stand for beyond 'Independence!' and importantly how they differ from the SNP. Given the SNP's campaign isn't often much more than 'Independence!".

The article doesn't go into much in the background of Alex Salmond back in 2017 the Scottish Government led by his successor Nicola Sturgeon carried out an investigation into sexual harassment and misconduct in the government and this lead to Salmond being accused of sexual harassment and attempted rape at the end of criminal proceedings he was found not guilty of one and not proven of the other (Not proven being the third potential outcome under Scottish Law, from a legal stance it means the same as not guilty from a more public perspective it is usually taken to mean guilty but we can't prove it). Salmond then challenged the government on the running of the original investigation on the grounds that basically rather than generally looking for misconduct in the government the review had been to dig up dirt on him to try and remove him from public life. It came to light that Sturgeon had several meetings with him about the investigation which she seemed to have forgotten about or failed to record and that the person running the investigation had previous contact with the accusers so might not be considered impartial. There was also the usual leaks of the details of the investigation and the reports which were released to the public ended up with significant redaction.

After challenging the whole thing Salmond ended up being paid about half a million pounds for his legal charges and there was a vote of no confidence against Sturgeon which she survived fairly easily although there were significant abstentions.

Now a few days later Salmond has decided to start his own party, possibly with Blackjack and hookers.

[Zaune]

Worth noting that the general consensus is that the SNP did the exact opposite of trying to cover any of this up, and in fact were so keen to avoid even the slightest appearance of doing so that they overcorrected a bit.

I wish our ruling party was implicated in a scandal in which they were overzealous in the act of hanging their former leader out to dry for getting drunk and putting his hands where they weren't wanted.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

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I've no idea how the OP got triplicated

Alba is Scotland's Brexit Party, a pet project of a disgraced politician which will probably fail to win a single seat in the next election. If Scotland does gain independence (something Brexit has certainly fuelled) then leaving the EU will have literally destroyed the UK!

[Crazedwraith]

MP Neale Hanvey has become the second MP to defect from the SNP to join Alex Salmond's new pro-independence party.

The MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath said the Alba Party provided "a tonic for our movement".

On Saturday, former justice secretary Kenny MacAskill announced he would also stand as a candidate for Alba.

Alex Salmond launched the Alba Party on Friday with the aim of building "a supermajority for independence" at Holyrood after the election in May.

Mr Hanvey said: "Like so many, I have been angered by our powerlessness in the face of Brexit and share the frustration of many who feel the aspirations of the independence movement are being ignored.

"The Alba Party provide a tonic for our movement with an unashamedly optimistic vision for Scotland's impending transition to an independent European nation."

He added: "The Alba party's growing membership will shape our policy priorities in the coming week. The people of Scotland will always be my priority so it's a very real honour to be standing for Alba and an independence supermajority."

The SNP said only both votes on 6 May "can put Scotland's future in Scotland's hands - not Boris Johnson's".

A spokesman said: "The SNP is focused on tackling Covid and securing a strong, fair and green recovery for Scotland as an independent country in a post-pandemic referendum."

Alba now has more MPs than Scottish Labour who only have Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray.

In February, Mr Hanvey was sacked from his frontbench role as vaccines spokesman at Westminster.

And in 2019 he was was suspended by the SNP for using anti-Semitic language on social media.

He apologised for any offence caused in the days following his suspension.

'Yesterday's war'
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: "Sturgeon and Salmond may now despise each other but they are united by their obsessive determination to rip Scotland out of the United Kingdom.

"All focus should be on the pandemic and our recovery but Sturgeon's SNP and Salmond's ultra-nationalists want this election to be another divisive fight about the constitution.

"With the very real threat of a so-called Nationalist 'super majority', pro-union parties cannot sit on the fence and continuing to do so would be naive in the extreme."

Scottish Labour's campaign co-chairman Neil Bibby said: "The defection of the controversial Neale Hanvey to the Alba Party reveals the utter disarray that the SNP is in. Scotland deserves so much better than this politics of grudge, personality and ego.

"Neale Hanvey and Kenny MacAskill must both stand down and give their constituents the chance to elect politicians more interested in guaranteeing Scotland's recovery than endlessly refighting yesterday's war."

Scottish Liberal Democrat campaign chairman Alistair Carmichael MP said: "Like paint chipping off an old and decaying wall, Neale Hanvey's defection is the latest episode in the Nationalists' bitter, twisted and divided civil war."

Lorna Slater, co-leader of the pro-independence Scottish Greens, said the new Alba Party would not affect her party's chances of doing well at the Holyrood election.

She told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme: "I absolutely don't agree that we are competing for the same voters. Scottish green voters care about the climate, they care about fairness, they care about human rights."

The Alba Party will only be standing candidates in the regional lists in an attempt to boost pro-independence numbers at Holyrood.

So they're getting a couple of disgruntled SNP defectors in Westminster. I'm reminded of that one Tory who defected to UKIP who was the only one they ever had. Of course it doesn't matter so far as Holyrood goes.