"No Due Process Please, We're Alba"?

Iain Cameron posting this publically about Wee Annie, Scotlands hardest working independence fighter. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💪❤

Can @TasminaSheikh list those of us with a lifetime ban on joining the Alba Party please. And maybe explain why Iain Cameron was chosen to make that announcement. pic.twitter.com/XB0aRxalJu

— Leanne Tervit (@LeanneTervit) December 1, 2024

(Note: click on the tweet to read the screenshot in full.)

Nobody held the late Alex Salmond in higher regard than I did, but the above screenshot is concerning, because it speaks to some of the deep-seated problems within the Alba party that I and others have been highlighting in recent months, and whatever else it describes, it certainly does not describe due process.  If people really are going to be subject to lifetime bans, it can't just happen by the decree of one person - there has to be some kind of proper, fair, transparent procedure.  

The provision in the Alba constitution about "public resignations from the party" has been an ongoing problem, because it's been used to conveniently bypass the normal disciplinary machinery.  If Chris McEleny (whether acting on his own behalf or on behalf of the broader leadership) wants to get someone insta-banned from Alba, but doesn't want to bother with the tiresome business of a referral to the Disciplinary Committee and a possible subsequent appeal to the Appeals Committee, all he has to do is persuade the NEC to certify that person as having "publicly resigned", and they instantly cease to be a party member without ever having faced any sort of disciplinary process (even of the sham variety!), and will never be allowed to rejoin without prior permission from the NEC.

This perhaps wouldn't be quite so bad if the people affected really had "publicly resigned", but in many cases that simply isn't true.  You might remember that Alan Harris mentioned in his recent Scot Goes Pop guest post that he had been certified as having publicly resigned even though he had kept his resignation several months ago strictly private.  And I can certainly vouch for the fact that he did that, because at the time of his resignation I searched social media carefully, and there wasn't a trace of a mention anywhere.

But it gets even worse, because during my own time on the NEC in 2021-22, there was an occasion when Mr McEleny asked us to certify someone as having publicly resigned even though she had not actually resigned from the party at all.  One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't challenge that.  The reason I didn't is that the subject came up very suddenly and unexpectedly, and at that point I was still assuming good faith and taking it as read that Mr McEleny's reasoning must have been sound, but in retrospect it really, really wasn't.  The person in question may well have done enough to warrant disciplinary action, but there is no way on God's earth that she had "publicly resigned from the party".

As far as the nasty language about a "group of malcontents" is concerned, that of course is a variant of the "wee gang of malcontents" catchphrase which is such a favourite within Alba's in-group.  It's regularly used to demonise and belittle a number of prominent and highly-respected former Alba members, many of whom were forced to leave the party due to relentless bullying.  The irony is that the people who use that phrase are simply demonstrating publicly that the bullying was all too real, but they're caught in such a bubble of entitlement and groupthink that they seem blissfully unaware of that fact.

When I was preparing my defence submission for my own upcoming "disciplinary" hearing on Thursday (which will be the most surreal hearing ever given that Mr McEleny can't seem to work out what he's accusing me of, let alone supply any evidence for it), I had a look through the Twitter accounts of a number of leading Alba figures to see how the party's social media policy is actually being interpreted in practice.  I found the "wee gang of malcontents" line again and again and again, from several different people, even though that is clearly forbidden by an anti-bullying clause in the social media policy which makes the "targeting of individuals" a "red line".  But of course if you're inside the in-group rather than outside it, you can pretty much do these things with total impunity and no action will ever be taken against you.  Under the current rules, remember, Mr McEleny has an absolute veto over whether submitted complaints ever reach the Disciplinary Committee.

I may or may not be expelled on Thursday night, but even if it turns out through no choice or fault of my own that my political future lies in a party other than Alba, I would still urge Alba members to think very, very carefully about who they elect as their next leader, and to make sure that person is someone who will put an end to this nonsense and re-establish due process.  Alba will not thrive electorally until it puts its own house in order.