Power-crazed McEleny pushes Alba to the brink of destruction by launching yet another bogus "disciplinary" action - this time against the party's ACTING LEADER

As you've probably seen, The National have published a dynamite exclusive from which only one conclusion can be drawn.  Chris McEleny has recognised that he made a potentially career-ending blunder by betting the house on Ash Regan winning the Alba leadership contest, because the Salmond family's backing of Kenny MacAskill makes it almost a nailed-on certainty that MacAskill will win.  As the pound-shop Machiavelli that he is, McEleny now knows that only a major disruptive incident can rescue Regan's campaign and therefore his own career, and has decided to engineer one by yet again abusing his own powers as General Secretary.  He has launched another bogus "disciplinary" action - this time against the acting party leader himself.

As can be easily discerned from the National piece, the charges of "bullying and harassment" McEleny has lodged against Mr MacAskill are totally bogus.  They amount to nothing more than special pleading on behalf of the Regan campaign because they didn't like the implications on social media that they were flirting with fascism by aping Reform UK rhetoric.  It looks like Mr MacAskill has seen off the bogus action for the time being, with him commenting - 

"An unauthorised and unconstitutional attempt was made to allegedly suspend me, Kenny MacAskill, by an individual acting outwith the limits of their powers."

However, those words create a massive problem for MacAskill too, because the words "unconstitutional" and "acting outwith the limits of their powers" have a specific meaning here.  McEleny did not suspend Mr MacAskill's party membership pending a disciplinary hearing (which he would have had the power to do under the Alba constitution) but instead sought to suspend Mr MacAskill from attending Alba committee meetings (which he has no constitutional power to do).  He specifically said he was empowered to do this due to the precedent of the action he took against me in September, when he initially did not suspend my party membership but instead suspended me from attending meetings of the Constitution Review Group, of which I was an elected member.

By definition, then, if MacAskill is saying that the action taken against himself is unconstitutional and exceeds McEleny's powers, he is confirming that the action taken against me in September was also unconstitutional and exceeded McEleny's powers.

I would suggest it is now incumbent upon Mr MacAskill to clarify whether he voted for or against the unconstitutional action against me when McEleny took it to the NEC.  If he voted in favour of it, I would suggest that in all good conscience he should now be considering his own position - not only for knowingly breaching the party constitution, but also for sheer hypocrisy.  At the very least, he should be pondering the old verse - 

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

McEleny, for his own utterly selfish ends, has now driven Alba to the brink of either civil war or total destruction, and those who have sat back and allowed him to abuse his powers for the last four years, simply because they were not personally affected at the time, must accept a large share of the blame for that.  Morgwn Davies, Alan Harris and myself all did our level best as members of the Disciplinary Committee last year to stand up to McEleny as he maliciously sought the expulsion and suspension of numerous Alba members who had done absolutely nothing wrong - and what support did we receive from senior people in the party who should have been both protecting us and speaking out against McEleny's abuses?  None.  Absolutely none.  We were hung out to dry.