Cos tonight is the night when 1 becomes 2 - has Ash Regan crossed the Rubicon with her resignation and made it inevitable that Alba will split into two separate parties?

Ash Regan, the Alba Party's sole remaining parliamentarian, has given an extraordinary interview in which she reveals that she stepped down from the party's NEC a month ago (despite apparently never having actually attended any NEC meetings!) in protest at the original week-long suspension of Chris McEleny.  Short of announcing their engagement, it's hard to see how Regan and McEleny could make it much clearer that they are mutual allies of each other - any lingering suspicion that McEleny's support for Regan is a one-way thing has been well and truly dispelled.

I heard someone make an interesting point in response to the interview.  They recalled that the action McEleny took against me was initially explained (albeit in extremely vague terms) by a claim that I had breached party confidentiality in a blogpost, although it was never explained what the confidential information was supposed to be or in what form I had disclosed it.  And yet Regan has very explicitly in her interview breached the confidentiality of NEC decisions, and arguably also breached the terms of the party's social media policy by severely criticising the current leadership.  So if consistency is to be maintained, disciplinary action would have to be taken against Regan.  Probably consistency will not be maintained, although who knows - given that the General Secretary is currently taking disciplinary action against the acting party leader, and the acting party leader is currently taking disciplinary action against the General Secretary, anything must be considered possible.  Perhaps every single member of Alba will be expelled, and that's how the party will end.

But it's starting to look like the party will cease to exist in its current form anyway.  The best recent precedent I can think of for such irreconcilable differences opening up within a party is the SDP (Social Democratic Party) in 1987-88, when a narrow majority of members wanted to merge with the Liberals and a substantial minority wanted to remain an independent force.  The SDP leader David Owen actually proposed that there should be an amicable separation, with the party agreeing to divide itself in two and split its resources proportionately.  The pro-merger majority rejected that proposal, but Owen partly got his way anyway - as soon as the merger went through, he simply reconstituted the SDP with the same name, the same logo, himself as leader, and with three of the party's five MPs.  There was also, of course, the UKIP-Brexit Party split in 2018.

I wonder if Ash Regan's resignation is setting in train a similar non-amicable parting of the ways for Alba.  If, as I expect, she loses the leadership election, we might see a new party being set up with herself as leader and McEleny as deputy.  It might attract a significant number of current Alba members due to Regan's feminist credentials.  It sort of half makes sense if you think about it, because it would resolve McEleny's dilemma that we discussed last night - how does he still stand for a Holyrood list seat if he's burned his bridges with Alba?  A new party might be the only way he can do it without renouncing independence and throwing in his lot with Farage.  The new party would even start with a modicum of credibility due to having a serving MSP in Regan, although I doubt that would get them very far.  Alba's current chances of winning seats are slim, but Alba divided in two would surely have no chance.

Alba only have two other elected representatives - the local councillors Chris "Lieutenant Columbo" Cullen in Ayrshire and Karl Rosie in the Highlands.  Cullen is part of the so-called "Corri Nostra" which is backing Kenny MacAskill, so he would undoubtedly stick with official Alba in the event of a split. I've no idea which way Rosie would jump.