This was the scene at Scot Goes Pop HQ, around ten minutes before my so-called Alba "disciplinary" hearing was due to start on Zoom -
And this was the scene during the hearing -
I can very much endorse the sentiment of Captain Blackadder - "I love a fair trial."
At this stage I'm thinking very carefully about what I can and can't say about what just happened, because under the Alba constitution (which is not always adhered to by the powers-that-be, of course) there's supposed to be an automatic right to appeal if the complaint is upheld - and I haven't yet been told whether it has been. But what I will say for now is this -
* There were at least two shockingly blatant breaches of natural justice during the hearing, which were undoubtedly severe enough that if they had occurred in any criminal trial, the case would have instantly collapsed. Essentially Mr McEleny has added to the list of accusations against me, but I am not allowed to know what those extra accusations are. Literally. I have literally no idea what I am accused of, even in the vaguest terms. To a large extent this was a secret trial - secret even from me.
* I didn't have a stopwatch handy, but my sense is that my involvement in the hearing lasted for no more than six or seven minutes, and then I was instructed to leave. Even leaving aside the other massive irregularities, that does not strike me as a remotely serious process given that there's a very real chance it could lead to outright expulsion.
If the complaint is upheld, no matter how severe or light the penalty is, I will without a shadow of doubt be immediately lodging an appeal, if only as a matter of principle. Regardless of whether or not Alba in the future is a party that has me in it, it will still be a party that needs to put its house in order. And I suspect that will only happen if it is confronted with some very painful home truths about just how utterly broken the party's internal processes are right now.
The Alba Party, which I once had such high hopes for, is in a very, very dark place, and needs a quiet revolution from the inside if it is to have even the remotest chance of prospering electorally in the years to come.
Stalinism is obviously alive and well inside Alba. What I can't understand is why you would wish to remain within an organisation that is like that.
ReplyDeleteThe mood music suggests that will very soon be an academic question.
Deleteits a stitch up of a travesty of a made up phoney baloney drumhead mass kangaroo court - and thats being generous
ReplyDeleteSeems a difficult day for you James. I think ALBA will die by a thousand cuts or should I say by a thousand leaving. Why should activists work to keep this shower in positions of responsibility? It is self inflicted injuries.
ReplyDelete"..will die by a thousand cuts...".
DeleteYou missed out an "n" there.
Hard to believe that the ex Alba leader Alex Salmond was subject to an unfair, unlawful and tainted by apparent bias process and here we have his party carrying out similar processes.
ReplyDeleteCan the Alba party officials not see this themselves.
It does beggar belief that they spend all day on social media screaming about ‘Justice for Alex’. While presiding over corrupt processes. They have No moral high ground.
DeleteJosh Robertson Chair of the Disciplinary Committee should be ashamed
Josh strikes me as basically a decent young bloke who is allowing himself to be used for career reasons, ie. he's accepted the role of doing the leadership's dirty work, and in return he'll get a plum place on the Scottish Parliament list. He knows he's doing the wrong thing and it obviously makes him uncomfortable, but he's made a firm decision to plough on with it because he thinks the ends justify the means. What he hasn't twigged yet is that a plum place on the Scottish Parliament list isn't a prize worth having, because Alba aren't going to win any seats.
DeleteIt is disgusting to be so craven that you ditch any principles for the hope of a political career
DeleteHow is Josh’s behaviour any better than the careerists in the SNP ? Just the same and just as unlikely to bring us independence.
I almost never agree with your comments IFS haha but you're bang on the money here.
DeleteFrankly, a kangaroo court by the sounds of things.
James was suspended when Alex was still with us. Do you honestly believe that Alex had no idea what was happening. Anonymous at 9.20pm raised the issue of Stalinism. If you read the history of Stalin's purges back in the 1930's a common cry from victims was, "If only Stalin knew this was happening"!
DeleteDefinitely Salmond he was the one waving around the dossier and cancelling election results
DeleteAnon at 10.52am - " If only Nicola knew this was happening."
DeleteWe stand ready to avenge our leader.
ReplyDeleteCurses on those who have supported the Bathist enemy.
Shah. US puppet!
DeleteYou are 'fighting the good fight' in the wrong Party, James.
ReplyDeleteYou already must know that.
Get yourself shifted to where you might actually have an input/effect which matters.
Tempus Fugit.............
I ageee with David although I would say thank you for exposing what a corrupt, clown show Alba is.
DeleteI did think of joining you’ve saved me from that
David Francis - the same people who carried out the unlawful, unfair and tainted by apparent process are still running the show in the SNP. These same people also concocted a plot to send the previous leader of the SNP to jail on false charges. Not aware of the Alba officials going that far.
DeleteI’m beginning to think maybe that plot was just the way politicians behave. The political dark arts.
DeleteWe see how they behave in Alba and how Salmond behaved in Alba.
So, who claimed to have given these people their careers? Salmond's judgement of character was catastrophically deficient. He couldn't be the person who gave Sturgeon et al their career break and, at the same time, just be the victim of their mind-boggling ruthlessness. Sturgeon joined the SNP when she was just 16. She observed how people were dealt with. She was his most loyal acolyte.
DeleteAnon at 10.32pm - " The political dark arts" - no - committing perjury in the High court is a criminal offence as is conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
DeleteAnon at 10.33pm - " Ruthlessness" no - criminality.
No one had been convicted of perjury or does innocent until proven guilty only apply to Salmond
DeleteThis is about James and Alba. Take your SNP hatefest elsewhere .
DeleteAnon plonker at 8.17am - when did you become an SGP moderator. So anon you like criminality? Have you done time in the past? Was it Barlinnie?
DeleteAnother anon plonker at 10.33pm actually says " She was his most loyal acolyte." She being Sturgeon - that is the most fact denying sentence I have ever read. Even more fact denying than this sentence by another anon plonker at 10.51pm.
" "does innocent until proven guilty only apply to Salmond."
You plonkers including Sturgeon's gang aided by the Britnat state and media have continually stated Salmond was guilty AFTER he was acquitted of all charges and after he was dead. Shameful.
When does James expect to hear back from ALBA?
ReplyDeleteThe decision will have been made tonight, and I stressed to them that I think it would be reasonable to expect to be informed of the outcome by close of play tomorrow. But unfortunately that hasn't been the experience of others in the past - sometimes people have been kept in the dark for days or weeks for no apparent reason.
DeletePresumably they're still getting the subs.
DeleteNice SNP gain from Labour in Stirling.
ReplyDeleteYummikins!
DeleteSNP down 4%, Labour up 4% and Reform up 14%.
DeleteStar Chamber. I knew it all reminded me of something, and it suddenly dawned on me reading your article. Star Chamber - that such a thing could exist not only in the 21st Century, but in a political party which should be at the forefront of democracy, not totally oblivious to it.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is the good fight; even if it is gut-wrenching to be treated with such unfairness. BTDTGTTS. Sometimes you have to see things through to the bitter end; only then do you feel like a weight is lifted off your shoulders. You did your best and none of the others did.
"This year (2024), three individuals donated more than £200,000 to the SNP, with the total of donations coming to £682,220.07."
ReplyDeleteNice.
Why would anybody donate a penny to these charlatans?
DeleteOff their heads!
She's back on the 'charlatans'!
DeleteThe full truth and nothing but the truth.
DeleteSomething you do not get from SNP propagandists.
" It also showed the SNP had 64, 525 members as of June this year - down from 74, 889 in April 2023."
The frightening thing is that politicians are the ones supposed to make things better for citizens, and political parties the vehicles. It all reminds me of this from 24th July 2016 while I was still a member of the SNP for 3 years from Sep 2014.
ReplyDelete"THE SNP’s 120,000 members face tough new disciplinary rules to ensure they uphold the “values and standards” of the party under plans going before the annual conference.
A leaked draft agenda shows that National Secretary Patrick Grady will ask delegates to begin a “wide-ranging” reform to the party’s policy-making and disciplinary procedures."
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14638762.snp-members-face-new-discipline-crackdown/
Discipline me would you? GTF. It should be the other way around.
Mmm, from the comments, the resolution had:
Delete"4. strengthening and clarifying disciplinary procedures to ensure both the principles of natural justice are upheld and the values and standards of the Party are respected by all members"
"Strengthening". You WILL accept being told what to say and think, and when to say and think it. Any questions? PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN. And so authoritarian on.
It's one of the reasons I've never joined a political party. The very worst sort of human beings naturally gravitate towards the top. Natural born leaders are very rare and even they tend to get corrupted by it all. Even rarer those that don't.
DeleteI can't believe what Alba have become in such a short space of time.
Why do you think they're doing this? Even from a selfish standpoint it's harming ALBA's, and hence their own, prospects of electoral success or political influence.
ReplyDeleteYou deserved better James. The leaders of our political parties would certainly be 'wrong uns' for governing a new Scotland - a gang of pound shop Stalinists and/or aimless wimps.
ReplyDeleteFor me there's a line somewhere that is difficult to define between innate wretchedness and British state security interventions. Are the parties free agents in their ineptitude and lack of vision or are they manipulated/threatened by secret Mr. Plod and his chums ?
It's too easy to lapse into conspiracy paranoia but I do sometimes find it hard to credit that our 'leaders' can be so crappy without 'help'.
I certainly have my suspicions. Even in Alba.
DeleteThe security service has an annual budget of billions. It wouldnae cost that much to buy a few politicians in political parties. Know them not by their words but by their actions.
DeleteThe Trial by Kafka was about a man who was accused of something but he never knew what.
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke of process.
Chris McEleny, if you're reading this, I was one of about 300 or something who voted for Alba in previous election in my constituency of East Ren and Eastwood. I won't tick another box for the party while you're in charge. I don't even agree with James on everything but the lack of integrity in this process is startling.
This is beyond a joke.
Will someone bring a serious independence party to the fore please.
After you..
DeleteI'll vote for any independence party that has integrity. Sadly lacking here, trust is important. SNP finances and Alba infighting unfairly just pushes people away.
DeleteWe believe you! Vote for the party of integrity- Labour/Tory/Lib dems/Reform
DeleteWhat you on about? Wouldn't vote for any of them.. it's the dearth of inspiration that's the problem.
DeleteI note the wee troll here doesn't wrestle with the lack of ethical probity Alba has, merely plays a straw man. Enlightening.
DeleteIt's hard enough asking people to vote Alba without this nonsense.
I realise Mr Salmond has passed on and we should not speak ill of the dead. But is there some hypocrisy going on here? Or a rewriting?
ReplyDeleteMr Salmond was the leader and put in place or had consented to Alba operating in this manner. It is very much the party he wanted to create so there could be no independent thinkers etc in the party without them being found and thrown out.
It’s not speaking ill to tell the truth, which is what you have described. The most hardworking and spirited seem to be the ones who were pushed out, leaving only the supine with their blinkers on and fingers in their ears
DeleteThat's absolutely right. I am pretty old and have lived through a political landscape littered with splinter parties of the left (and right), there solely to accommodate the ego of a charismatic leader. I fear the only one that appears to have had success is Farage
DeleteA lot of the ones who left wasted time trying to get an independent elected in the General Election and think 'Independents for Independence' will gain traction or that the schemes will rise up in a massive campaigning effort.
DeleteIt's nonsensical.
The independent that got 2.2% compared to Kenny MacAskill’s 1.5%
DeleteAnd the independent only stood because Alba made it clear they wouldn’t back her
The only reason there is any independents for independence initiative is because the people forced out are now homeless
All that energy for independence that should have been harnessed to improve Alba wasted. And not being used to advance independence.
Well said 4.29
DeleteWhat was so bad that they felt they needed to leave? Thr above kangaroo court looks like the internal structure is a basket case
Let's be realistic: Getting a bunch of unknown independents elected is pie in the sky nonsense.
DeleteEven rejoining the SNP would be more worthwhile than the time wasted on that.
The SNP are just as clueless and now lost at sea.
DeleteThere will be no revolutionary change, and therefore no Alba party very soon. Those in charge have betrayed members who thought they were signing up to a serious political party
ReplyDeleteJames - has the Alba Kangaroo Court bounced its carefully considered, even-handed wee verdict onto you yet?
ReplyDeleteNo. They usually only send emails during normal office hours, so if it doesn't come within the next 50 minutes or so, the earliest I'll hear is Monday.
DeleteOk.
DeleteGood luck in any case.
No reason you shouldn't have been told today if a decision was made last night.
DeleteThis has happened to other people before me, unfortunately. I wouldn't be totally surprised if I still haven't been told a week from now.
Delete