There's also been an alternative view that members shouldn't want or need to lead the party or have any democratic control over it, because they've elected a leader and should just sit back and passively trust that person to make the right decisions on their behalf. It sounds like that won't be the path Alba goes down either, and I think that's the right call. If Alba is going to have enough members to survive and thrive, it needs to be able to offer both new recruits and existing members a meaningful say over both policy and direction. Hopefully now we can move forward, at a minimum, to a National Executive Committee that is elected on a one member, one vote basis, rather than the current system of restricting the franchise to a small subset of members on a sort of "pay-per-vote" basis. Clearly a party will only be truly member-led once the members are allowed to choose who sits on its governing body.
In the meantime, though, do go along to Perth tomorrow if you're free and express your views on strategy for 2026.
Very encouraging update.
ReplyDeleteIf this is true, the SNP could learn from Alba. They must reform fast.
ReplyDeleteSadly, from Kate Forbes' article in the National, it looks like they're digging in and not going to bother. Devolution devolution devolution and, errr, in... ind... ah, got it. Indecision.
Deletehttps://archive.is/MYPYc
I may be wrong, but I suspect James is being slightly tongue in cheek here. McEleny has been expelling members rather than empowering them. "Member led" had proved to be a hollow promise.
DeleteThe SNP started expelling members because they had a different opinion to the strictly enforced one. The SNP are as bad as Alba.
DeleteThe members left, they weren't expelled.
DeleteThe whole thing is goosed. We had a golden chance when everyone was on the same page. Wings, Salmond, Sturgeon, bella, Sheridan, Greens, Pat Kane, Fergus Ewing etc etc
Too many egos and too many facile arguments since then
There were certainly expulsions and there's no point pretending otherwise.
DeleteOkay a few but the 6000 members weren't expulsed. They moved.
DeleteIt's sad where we've ended up.
DeleteThings like "Independents for Independence" candidates which don't have any hope of gaining traction as without existing strong name recognition in a constituency there's no hope of competing against the political parties.
When there's a proper Yes campaign it's helpful to have lots of different organisations and methods to reach voter's but for elections we're far too divided.
There's a large segment of Yes supporters disillusioned with the SNP, don't find Alba appealing and don't find any other available option to be credible. How do we progress from that?
"Okay a few but the 6000 members weren't expulsed."
DeleteAre you talking about 6000 Alba members? Many of them were not SNP members prior to the split.
Okay so only about 4500 of them then
DeleteDoesn't actually matter anyway. The thing needs unity, not talking about who was expulsed 4 years ago.
DeleteBetter get the SNP to lift the expulsions, then, I s'pose.
DeleteYeah they prob should if that's the case for some.
DeleteI have to say though, we're up shat creek at the moment. Recriminations will get us nowhere. Some things are simply the result of political balance shifting over time, familiarity breeds contempt. The SNP are seen as on the way down, I don't think a new leader even changes that. Too many, enough anyway, want "change" at HR.
It may come again but Labour need to be seen to fail and a new wave
As sad as it sounds the most probable thing to happen atm is probably the SNP losing power in 2026 and then it hopefully reflects, reforms & rebuilds over the next 5 years to make the 2031 election similar to 2007 with a fresh new SNP coming to power.
DeleteAye so says the Brit nats. Still ALBA and ISP could merge to get 1.75% of any vote. The earth shook.
DeleteMate, literally right up until election day people were laughing at the idea that the SNP could get less than 20 seats (never mind less than 10) calling it a Brit nat fantasy.
DeleteThere surely needs to come a point of realisation at some point of "Oh shit, we could actually lose"?
I'm curious, Alba gets a lot of mention but do we have any idea what the Independence for Scotland Party (ISP) are doing?
ReplyDeleteIsn't it about time that they stop flying so far under the radar that most people aren't even aware of their existence?
Everyone has their right to put forward their views in a democracy but struggling to see what IFS is for
DeleteI hope there's some ISP members or supporters reading this blog who can answer that I'm struggling to understand their purpose as well.
DeleteIFS supports them but his posts stopped shortly after the catastrophic effects of the give the SNP a bloody nose approach advocated by him started to occur. He and his pals were warned but they knew best. Now strangely silent.
DeleteIFS job was to put voters off voting SNP and he did that every day, now he's happy because he feels his work is done
DeleteAs soon as the SNP look like winning IFS will begin attacking them all over again, as he will with any party that looks like making inroads into moving Scotland towards independence
Why haven't you figured this out yet?
Note to the tossers at 7.18pm and 8.32am (DrJim ) - been on holiday in sunny Majorca.
DeleteDr Jim. You are seriously ill get help. I told you and all you other WGD numpties 4 years ago that Sturgeon was a charlatan and a crook who would never deliver independence. Your big dug knew Sturgeon was a crook but conned you numpties as well. If you still cannae see the fools you have been and still are then you have cognitive dissonance. Seek help.
It is people like you two numpties who have failed Scottish independence by supporting Sturgeon and her gang so no I am not happy.
You're no' happy? Quelle surprise! By the way, why's a patriot like you no' holidaying in Bonnie Scotland?
DeleteIPS members are holding their meetings at local bus stops.
DeleteBy the way anon at 10.51pm - why are you such an idiot?
DeleteHow many Alba members are there?
ReplyDeleteMore than there are IPS members.
DeleteIn fairness both Alba and the SNP are extremely ambitious.
ReplyDeleteTheir target for 2026 is that all their members vote for them.
There are about 450 Alba members.
ReplyDeleteSource?
DeleteRemarkably similar to the Scottish Greens on 7646
Delete11784 Alba votes to 92685 for SG at WM24.
Delete19 candidates to 44.
DeleteAnon at 7.27. No source. You got one? One we can believe?
DeleteTo complete my back of a fag packet calculations, it means there are 120,000ish Scottish Green voters and 35,000ish Alba voters based on 4th July WM election.
DeleteI wonder how many of that 155,000 used to vote SNP?
Oh but Greens aren't splitting the Yes vote because Greens are fundamentally different creatures made of artisanally baked vegan fibres harvested from recycled twine. Tra-lala-la-la.
DeleteAlba, meanwhile, every single one of them is a card carrying Wings commenter.
Rubbish. I'm not.
Delete@Lord of the Slippers Also worth keeping in mind the lower turnout. How many former SNP voters didn't bother to vote in the General Election?
DeleteThat’s ALBA’s problem. Didn’t have enough people to organise and some of the so called leading lights bothering to stand for election as they new what would happen.
ReplyDeleteThe majority of the population don’t know who or what Alba is. Virtually no one knows who or what ISP is. But that allows SNP to continue behaving as they are and making defeat in 2026 increasingly likely.
DeleteAlba is over and done with as a political party because it was never intended to be one, the Scottish public is never going to vote in numbers for it and Salmond knows that, it was only ever an invention to try to damage the SNP or anybody else that supports independence
DeleteAlex Salmond is reminding me of someone else now… Joe Biden. Pride versus defeat.
DeleteAnon @ 8:36 Nonsense.
DeleteThe SNP was losing support and members before Alba even came into existence. They haven't needed any help, they've been more than capable of shooting themselves in the foot multiple times.
Member-Led ? Well I suppose all of the leadership are members.
ReplyDeletePride versus defeat? I'm not sure what that means. However, I would like the Alex Salmond controversy to be resolved. That means looking at the working of the Scottish Government, how the SNP was being run at the time, how the Civil Service was involved and how the justiciary functioned. These are all fundamental to Scottish institutions and it is absolutely obvious that actions were taken which were and still are not open to scrutiny. Governments must be open to scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteThe Law was used to jail a journalist and threaten others who did not do as much to expose the identities of the people making the complaints as other journalists. The main stream media journalists were identified as being different from on line journalists by the judge and were treated in a different way. (I identified one of the complainers from the Kirsty Wark programme. Danni Gavarelli identified another. They were not held to account. Craig Murray was sent to jail.) I cannot see any logical reason why they were treated differently. Nor can I see why the Salmond defence was never exposed to public scrutiny.
I am not after revenge. As a Scottish citizen I want to see the truth brought out about the workings of the Scottish Government, the SNP, the Civil Service and the Justiciary because there is something fundamentally wrong with what happened. It needs to be examined and remedies put in place so that this cannot happen again.
Grouser
Grouser what you quite rightly are describing is justice in a colony. Independence is the only remedy to prevent such things happening again.
DeleteZzzzzzzz most people don’t care. I am not after revenge! Of course not. Let’s get a Tory in the Brit Nat Parliament to try and undermine the Current Scots Government. Why not get the pro ALBA party to shout from the Westminster benches? Oops the public rejected them.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Why give that speech to Davis now, instead of say MacAskill or Hanvey while Alba still had MPs? Just bad luck for parliamentary calendaring?
DeleteExcept, KC, that half of Scotland still wants it. And will still want it then.
ReplyDeleteThere is no putting the Jocks back in the box.
Anon@12:16,
DeleteYour post isn’t clear, but I assume you mean independence.
Just a wee correction, it’s actually a bit under half that want it.
Just a wee correction - Ipsos polls consistently show the majority want it.
DeleteMcEleny *is* Alba. As long as he runs the machine, good people won’t be listened to: they’ll be expelled.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we want independence? There are various answers but most want a country that values fairness ("equality" is now a loaded term as is "justice")
ReplyDeleteLet's promote a vision where people are heard and respectfully disagreed with.
Different views help us clarify our own aims and objectives and people might change their minds. Especially if they don't get a slanging match. Instead of seeing non-indepenistas as the enemy why not
a) ignore them / feel sorry for them
b) show them a vision of a happy...(moving towards prospering...in all areas of health and well-being...) country of outward looking, sociable and compassionate people.
I'm reminded of a photo of a young woman who smiled at the riot policeman in full combat gear. Which one would you rather be? Time to put down our batons and take a stand - with a genuine smile, not a sneer.