Why I stay in Alba

On last night's thread, I was asked by an anonymous commenter why I stay in Alba when I have concerns about the scale of the party's intervention in a first-past-the-post general election.  Which brings to mind the Katy Perry lyric "you change your mind like a girl changes clothes".  We do not in this country have an American system of casual registration of party supporters, and therefore moving between parties is not something to be done lightly or without an exceptionally good reason.  

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a party that is a perfect fit for them.  While I disagree with the Alba leadership on some points of strategy (and indeed policy), I also still have profound disagreements with the SNP leadership.  They're in a better place under Swinney/Forbes than they were under Yousaf, but they still have no serious or credible strategy for independence.  So whichever party I was in, I would have to be getting involved and arguing for change, which of course is one of the most common and valid purposes of being in any party.  But the value of Alba is that for as long as the SNP's independence strategy remains woefully deficient, Alba could have a key role to play by winning list seats in 2026 and using that as leverage to move the SNP onto the right path.  Their ability to do that may be contingent on them avoiding doing harm in the meantime at this year's general election.

I was a bit frustrated to fall 0.5% short of being elected Alba's Membership Support Convener last December.  If I had been elected to that position, I would have had an automatic place on the NEC, where I could have argued for a more limited intervention in the general election, narrowly targeted on a few key constituencies (and thus broadly in line with what Denise Findlay said on the previous thread would have been her proposal if she had remained Organisation Convener).  I would have been heavily outvoted but at least the case would have been made and heard.  However, even having narrowly failed to get back on the NEC, I was elected a month later to the Disciplinary Committee, the Finance & Audit Committee, and the ad hoc Constitution Review Group, and I'm trying my level best to do some good on those bodies.  On the Disciplinary Committee I can try - as I promised to when I stood for election - to ensure that party members are protected from the Grouse Beater-type episodes that became far too commonplace in the SNP, with members being disciplined for 'wrongthink' rather than for genuine wrongdoing.  (Obviously I'm only one committee member out of eight, but all I can do is try my best.)  And on the Constitution Review Group, I can put forward the case for thoroughgoing democratisation of the party in the hope of putting the members firmly in charge.

So in a nutshell, my answer to the question "why do you stay in Alba?" is "because it remains the closest fit for me in an imperfect world, and because I can try to do some good within the party and push for change".  I hope that makes sense.  What I would say, though, is that I was told by a very senior person in the party just after I was voted off the NEC eighteen months ago that they would never have any problem with me expressing dissenting views in public as well as in private.  I hope that will always remain the case, because it hasn't necessarily been the experience of others recently.