REVEALED AT LAST: What Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh NEVER wanted you to know - the "secret" results of Alba's 2023 internal elections

In October 2023, Alex Salmond took to the stage of Alba's 2023 conference in Glasgow, theatrically brandishing what he claimed was a "black dossier" containing unspecified evidence of unspecified wrongdoing by unnamed individuals.  He insisted this supposed evidence meant he was justified in nullifying the results of the party's internal elections - something he had no authority to do under Alba's constitution.  But his story simply wasn't true, and he later admitted that no dossier ever existed.  There was in fact a very different and much more malicious reason for voiding the election results.  In the video below, I can for the first time reveal in full what those results actually were.  I also have more information about why Gail Hendry, the sister of Mr Salmond, dramatically resigned from the Alba NEC last week.  And there's a fascinating nugget about how Morgwn Davies, who was deselected as an Alba list candidate for Holyrood on the demand of the acting party chair, should now be automatically offered a place on the NEC on exactly the same "lucky loser" basis that Shannon Donoghue got her own place, due to the vacancies caused by recent resignations.  But will the party rules be followed, or will Morgwn be stitched up yet again?  The latter seems much more likely somehow.

REVEALED: It was the Alba Party's acting Chair, DEBBIE EWEN, who was behind the betrayal of the highly-respected Morgwn Davies and the latest trashing of what might laughably be called Alba's "internal democracy"

BREAKING: Alba takes another major step towards total disintegration, as the party's East Lothian branch passes a motion of no confidence in the party leader Kenny MacAskill, after he breaches the Alba constitution by overturning the democratic vote which had installed the highly-respected Morgwn Davies as the lead Holyrood list candidate

It shows you the level of (justified) paranoia within the ultra-Stalinist Alba party that three different people (who as far as I know are all unconnected with each other) have contacted me about a shocking development, which relates to the leadership's betrayal of one of the highest-regarded members of the party, but none of them actually directly mentioned who they were talking about.  One was dropping heavy hints in the hope I could it work it out by myself, but my mind had gone totally blank.  However, I think - touch wood - I have finally been able to piece together that it must be Morgwn Davies, because I've now seen screenshots of an email from the "Convener of Alba East Lothian", and judging from the Facebook page, Morgwn was still the Convener of Alba East Lothian on 26th January.

He is indeed an extremely decent and well-regarded man.  I know him mainly from my time on the Alba Disciplinary Committee in 2024, which was of course ironically curtailed by my own suspension and eventual expulsion from the party on absurd trumped-up charges, meaning the tables were turned and I had to attend a Disciplinary Committee hearing as a "defendant".  Morgwn was literally the only person at that meeting who wasn't a drone following strict leadership instructions to expel me, and if he hadn't been there I would never have known that they had outrageously questioned a secret witness (Hamish Vernal) without my knowledge, and I certainly would never have had any inkling of what Vernal had said.  In the previous committee meetings that year before my suspension, Morgwn had consistently and bravely demanded that due process be followed at all times while Chris McEleny and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh were busily trying to get half the Alba membership suspended or expelled, with the eager assistance of the drones on the committee.

So it's no great surprise that the Alba leadership ended up shafting Morgwn too, although I suspect this may still be the final straw for many people who hadn't yet woken up the basic nature of the party they are members of.  Remember that we know the NEC is now firmly under Kenny MacAskill's control, so unlike on previous occasions this can't be blamed on shadowy figures behind the throne - the buck this time stops at the very top. Unsurprisingly Alba East Lothian, of which MacAskill is still a member (in spite of his NEC-mandated list candidacy in the north-east!) has passed a motion of no confidence in him.

Here is the text of Morgwn's email to East Lothian party members - 

"This is the most difficult email I have had to write as Convener of ALBA East Lothian.  On the 29th of January I felt honoured and privileged when I was informed that the outcome of the members' vote to list candidates for our region had placed me first with 44% of first preferences votes in a field of 4 candidates.

Some of you will have voted for me and I thank you for that.  

However, I will not be a candidate as I was informed, a mere twelve hours before the launch event, that I had contrary to the party's constitution, been deselected; not for anything I had done.

But as far as I can ascertain because two candidates withdrew and said they would not stand if I was the lead candidate.  Also, I was told the Executive of ALBA Edinburgh and some activists in Edinburgh had resigned because they wouldn't accept the democratic result and said they wouldn't work with me.  This was communicated to me a mere 12 hours before, what I had been told was the launch event for our candidates, in fact it turned out to be a secret launch and apart from Glasgow no candidates have been publicly unveiled.

So, because a dozen or so people were unhappy with the result the NEC voted 6 to 4 to deselect me.  

Since that meeting, 2 members of the NEC have resigned in protest, and the National Organisation Convener has resigned.  I don't know if that is linked to my deselection or for other reasons.  Also, one individual stood down as a candidate in their region in protest.  

So since the 13th of January the party has lost its Chair, National Membership Secretary and National Organiser.  Not great fun in the run-up to an election.

I am now considering whether I wish to remain a member of ALBA.  I will take a few days to reflect and think about it.

Our AGM did not take place on Wednesday evening as when I spoke to Kenny MacAskill about my deselection, he said it would not be appropriate to come and Chair ALBA LACU's AGM.

Instead we had an ordinary meeting and two motions were unanimously passed, one saying that ALBA East Lothian has no confidence in the party leader, Kenny MacAskill, for the role he played in overturning the members' vote.  The second was a vote of no confidence in the National Executive Council (sic) for overturning the members' vote.  

Today, Corri Wilson, the Party's Director of Operations will be informed of the two votes of no confidence.

The party has not been in touch with ALBA East Lothian to inform us of who the final candidates are for our region, for now it is a closely guarded secret.

There is nothing else to say."

Incidentally, I've seen a photo of the "secret launch" of Alba's list candidates (which I'd better not share with you just in case it somehow reveals my source), and in a grim way it is absolutely hilarious.  They all look utterly miserable.  Christina Hendry looks like she's either just witnessed a murder, or committed one herself.  I couldn't see the Crossmaglen Columbo (Chris Cullen) on the stage, which is interesting because I was told he was likely to get a plum spot on the list, but perhaps he just wasn't in the photo for some random reason. 

Morgwn's fate powerfully illustrates the truth of what I said only a couple of weeks ago in one of my videos - that Alba's members have no control over their party, because the leadership will simply nullify the result of any democratic vote they disapprove of.  This is essentially a carbon copy of Alex Salmond's outrageous decision (made under extreme pressure from Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh) to nullify the victories of Denise Findlay and Jacqueline Bijster in two office bearer elections in 2023. 

"The joke is over": Now even the SALMOND FAMILY have turned their backs on the shambolic Alba Party

Today brings the news of the resignation of Gail Hendry, Alex Salmond's sister, from the Alba NEC, and indeed after making the video below I was told that several other NEC members (plus at least one high-profile - but unnamed - Alba list candidate) have resigned with her. This of course follows hot on the heels of Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh's resignation as party chair, and suggests that the end for Alba may well be nigh.

 

Which leader did Anas Sarwar just bring down - was it Keir Starmer, or himself?

There aren't many outlets that report Scottish polling accurately and without unionist bias.  If you value the service Scot Goes Pop provides, you currently have a thrilling opportunity to help with the stopgap fundraiser I am running to keep the lights on during the transitional period while I try to get sorted with a more sustainable funding model (ideally on YouTube but possibly on something like Substack).

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Nigel Farage, so long the favourite to be the next Prime Minister, has slumped to only FIFTH favourite - but here's why that is paradoxically terrible news for Keir Starmer

This video also contains more information about the More In Common independence polling I mentioned yesterday.

   

There aren't many outlets that report Scottish polling accurately and without unionist bias.  If you value the service Scot Goes Pop provides, you currently have a thrilling opportunity to help with the stopgap fundraiser I am running to keep the lights on during the transitional period while I try to get sorted with a more sustainable funding model (ideally on YouTube but possibly on something like Substack).

If you'd like to donate, there are three main options:

PayPal donations can be made directly to my PayPal email address, which is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk 

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"Well, they're certainly keeping quiet about THAT bit!": More In Common poll appears to show 53% support for independence

There aren't many outlets that report Scottish polling accurately and without unionist bias.  If you value the service Scot Goes Pop provides, you currently have a thrilling opportunity to help with the stopgap fundraiser I am running to keep the lights on during the transitional period while I try to get sorted with a more sustainable funding model (ideally on YouTube but possibly on something like Substack).

If you'd like to donate, there are three main options:

PayPal donations can be made directly to my PayPal email address, which is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk 

For bank transfers, just drop me a quick line at icehouse.250@gmail.com and I'll send you the necessary details.  

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My appearance on the "Two Davies" show

Earlier today, I took part in a live stream on the "Two Davies" YouTube channel, and we all answered viewers' questions about quite a wide variety of subjects, including the current polling situation, the Act of Union, Liberate Scotland, and the security of the vote counting process in Scottish elections.  You can catch up with the show via the embedded player below.

Gosh, I wonder if Stew has ever demonstrated quite so unwittingly and vividly that he is NOT a "journalist"?

Quite a number of years ago now, I got into a mildly bizarre email debate with someone who shall remain nameless, but who is widely regarded in Scotland as bona fide journalistic royalty.  Basically the discussion centred on whether or not Stuart Campbell of Wings Over Scotland can reasonably be classified as a "journalist", which is something he self-identifies as, and which his most ardent fans certainly regard him as (in fact they frequently gush that he's Scotland's greatest journalist).  Even though I was no longer on good terms with Stew by then, it may surprise you to learn that I was actually the one defending him - I suppose he and I are both members of the informal "New Media Union", so we still have that in common if nothing else.  The point I made was that even if you regard his political blogging as something that falls short of real journalism, he was in his past life published extremely extensively in the most traditional of formats (ie. print magazines) on the subject of video games.  So in my view you had to regard him as a journalist, even if you qualify that by saying he is a video games journalist only.  

But the person I was speaking to was adamant that "he is NOT a journalist".  She kept repeating those words, without really fleshing out what exactly it was in her view that disqualified him.  I suppose her unspoken message was that she if anyone knows what a journalist looks like, and I should just take her word for it that Stew doesn't fit the bill.

I think I would have to concede at this stage of the evening that she probably had a point.  After all, one key characteristic that distinguishes professional journalists from enthusiastic amateurs is that they do tend to at least do some basic checking on the subject at hand before shooting their mouths off about it.

Stew has boasted in the past that he does not watch my videos, including the ones he has commented on at some length and mysteriously managed to produce screenshots from, because he claims he cannot bear to listen to me "droning on".  It was previously unclear how literally that boast should be taken, but it's certainly not hard to believe it tonight, because with the tweet you see above he's walked rather deservedly into a trap of his own making.  As anyone who actually watched the video he's commenting on will know, practically the exclusive subject of my commentary on Ash Regan's failed bill on prostitution law was how demonstrably wrong and toxic it is for Stew's fellow travellers to base their angry rhetoric on the wild assumption that any male who opposes the Nordic Model must by definition be a client of sex workers who is motivated by the ugliest of self-interest.  Here is a quote of some of what I said in the video:

"There was one [comment retweeted by Stew] that said that this demonstrates that lots of MSPs must be paying to abuse women abroad or something like that, which is an absolutely despicable thing to say. And it's despicable probably because some people will take that literally and think that might be a fair point. Well, let's look at the facts.  First of all, the Scottish Parliament is relatively gender balanced. It's I think about 55% male, 45% female. And the figures show consistently probably around about 10% or 11% of men at some point in their lives have paid for sex, which is obviously a significant number, but it does mean the vast majority of men, almost 90%, have not. So, it's reasonable to assume that probably around about 6% maybe of MSPs have at some point in their lives paid for sex.  That's based on the figures also showing that only a very tiny percentage of women, maybe about 0.1% of women, have paid for sex at some point in their lives. So, you know, a parliament composed of 94% of people who don't have any sort of vested interest in this subject, there is no reason why a parliament like that wouldn't pass a bill if the case had been made. So there's no point lashing out and thinking there's some sort of dark motive when the case hasn't been made to the satisfaction of the 94% of people in that parliament who do not have that kind of vested interest."

Now, it may well be that Stew disagrees with the point I'm making there and genuinely believes that any man who opposes the Nordic Model is automatically a sexual predator and can be reasonably denounced as one.  He may also truly believe that any man who then pushes back against that notion is further giving the game away in the Mandy Rice-Davies sense of "well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"  If he does believe that, he's marking himself out as suffering from the same type of immaturity fused with mindless rage that once led a group of vigilantes to attack the home of a paediatrician, simply because of the first four letters of the job title.  And OK, if that's the way Stew wants to live his life, that's up to him and it's not our place to try to talk him down.  

But by failing to engage with my arguments and explain why he thought they were wrong, and by even failing to acknowledge that those arguments were made at all, and by instead posting a tweet that implied it hadn't yet occurred to anyone but him that men who express opposition to the Nordic Model may instantly be subject to these infantile suspicions, he might as well have just had "I haven't watched the video I am criticising or even read the transcript" (and thus by extension "I am not actually a journalist") tattooed on his forehead.

He has previous form on this, of course, because a few months ago he claimed without bothering to check (I suspect simply because his mate McEleny whispered it in his ear) that I was on the Alba NEC when support for the Nordic Model became party policy, when in fact that happened before I was elected to the NEC.  Indeed I had made no secret whatsoever of my own position on the Nordic Model while that election was taking place.

I am extremely happy with the points I made in the video, and I would encourage anyone to watch it and make their own minds up.  I'll embed the video once again below - the relevant section starts at around 6:34.  It's a low bar, admittedly, but I certainly believe that what I said was somewhat more thoughtful, measured and considered than anything Stew or his fan club have managed in their shrieking comments about the subject over the last few hours.

Incidentally, I have reported the comment from "WSMMorag" as the unacceptable personal abuse that it undoubtedly is, and I have blocked her.  Reporting pretty much anything to Twitter is a complete waste of time in the Elon Musk era, but I tend to feel in situations like these that at least going through the motions of making the report is a matter of basic self-respect.

Why is YouGov under-representing Yes-voting Glaswegians in its independence polling?

Towards the end of this video, I also give my reaction to the Scottish Government's welcome announcement that they will not be supporting Ash Regan's private member's bill, which seeks to introduce the Nordic Model on prostitution law in Scotland.  This should make it very unlikely that the bill, which would have been extremely harmful, will pass. 

There aren't many outlets that report Scottish polling accurately and without unionist bias.  If you value the service Scot Goes Pop provides, you currently have a thrilling opportunity to help with the stopgap fundraiser I am running to keep the lights on during the transitional period while I try to get sorted with a more sustainable funding model (ideally on YouTube but possibly on something like Substack).

If you'd like to donate, there are three main options:

PayPal donations can be made directly to my PayPal email address, which is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk 

For bank transfers, just drop me a quick line at icehouse.250@gmail.com and I'll send you the necessary details.  

Card donations can be made at the GoFundMe crowdfunding page HERE.  

A million thanks to everyone who has donated so far.