Some genuine good news for the independence cause: it seems that Alba will *not* be splitting the Yes vote in constituency seats next year, no matter who wins the leadership election

On Monday night, a commenter on this blog asked for my objective verdict on the STV mini-debate between Ash Regan and Kenny MacAskill for the Alba leadership.  I was planning to write a blogpost giving my thoughts, but that plan was overtaken by other events.  However, one of the things I had been intending to pick up on was that Ash Regan was surprisingly direct in saying she wanted Alba to be a "list-only party" in the Holyrood election next year.  Kenny MacAskill said something very similar, although his language wasn't quite as unambiguous, which arguably left him a get-out clause if he had a change of heart.

Nevertheless I was initially very encouraged by this.  Alba can only do harm if they stand in first-past-the-post constituency seats, because it would split the Yes vote and make it easier for unionist parties to win, and yet until recently there was every indication that was exactly what they planned to do.  In August, I directly heard Chris McEleny suggest that Alba would be standing in at least one constituency seat per electoral region, which would mean a minimum of eight across Scotland.  I know others heard him say exactly the same thing on other occasions.  And famously, Christina Hendry told the newspapers that her much-vaunted "Salmond Blood" gave her the right, Game of Thrones style, to stand in her uncle's former constituency seat in the north-east.  So Monday's debate implied there had been a very welcome change of heart on both sides of the Alba divide.

But I was much less encouraged after I then took a look at Chris McEleny's blog.  (That's the kind of crazy thing I force myself to do sometimes, just so no-one else has to.). There's a post from around a week ago in which he states that he wants Alba to be a "list-only party", but weirdly he then goes on to say - 

"Alba should at most only defend the new seat of the constituency incumbent Alba Party MSP Ash Regan currently holds and potentially at most a small handful of other seats"

Whatever else that might describe, it self-evidently does not describe a "list-only" party.  In fact it suggests that Mr McEleny has an extremely complex relationship with the word "only".  So my heart sank again - I assumed the plan was still to stand in several constituencies, but to dishonestly package that as a "list-only strategy" for window dressing purposes.

However, tonight I had a totally unexpected opportunity to clarify matters.  The National hosted a leadership hustings on YouTube, and viewers were able to submit questions via the live chat.  So I tried my luck and put forward a question asking whether "list-only" meant standing in no constituencies at all, because Mr McEleny's blog suggested otherwise.  I'm very grateful to Hamish Morrison, who was moderating on behalf of The National, for reading the question out, and the answers did actually take us forward.  Ms Regan was extremely specific that she didn't want Alba to stand in any constituencies, including her own.  Mr MacAskill essentially said the same thing, although once again he maybe left himself with just a touch more wiggle room than Ms Regan did.

So that's really good news for all independence supporters, no matter which party you support.  It'll make it easier for the SNP to hold off the Tory / Labour challenge in marginal constituencies and thus increases the chances of retaining the pro-independence majority at Holyrood.

I don't think there's much doubt Ash Regan "won" tonight's hustings.  She's a much more relaxed and fluent speaker than Mr MacAskill and as a result she came across as more sincere - even though on several points I knew perfectly well she was being disingenuous.  But sadly, sounding sincere when you're actually being insincere seems to be an indispensable skill for politicians these days.

I don't think her relatively strong performance will make any concrete difference, though.  All that matters in the Alex Salmond Memorial Party is who has the backing of Alex Salmond's widow and family, and that lucky designated winner is Mr MacAskill.  However, he had a bit of a shocker tonight and there was one point in particular where he totally lost the plot.  The question after mine was asking about the people who had been bullied out of the party and what could be done to bring them back, and Mr MacAskill responded by just flatly denying that anyone at all had been bullied out - which at this stage is a Comical Ali level of denialism given how well-documented the bullying and subsequent resignations have been.  He then went on and on about how awful it was that the question had been anonymously submitted, as if anonymity on the internet is a far more heinous affair than actual bullying and harassment.  

In fact, the question wording was perfectly polite, and I think most people would feel that anonymity is only a problem if somebody hides behind it while being abusive.  My guess is that the questioner simply happens to use a pseudonym for their YouTube account, and therefore wasn't being anonymous just for the purposes of the hustings.  Mr MacAskill making such a song and dance about the questioner's anonymity thus looked like a rather weak and desperate attempt at deflection.  I also got the distinct impression that he may have got the questioner mixed up with me, because he called him or her "an anonymous former party member", whereas in fact they hadn't identified themselves as a former party member.  (Hamish Morrison had introduced my question as being from "former member James Kelly".)

By contrast, Ash Regan did acknowledge that some former members, particularly women, had felt unhappy at the way they had been treated.  The problem is, of course, that her ally Chris McEleny was the guy responsible for a lot of that ill-treatment.

The bottom line is that there is no good outcome to this contest.  A MacAskill win would probably keep Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and Corri Wilson in harness and would maintain the paranoid bunker mentality that the only problem Alba have got is that people keep having the temerity to speak out about their horrific experiences in the party.  But a Regan win would probably mean a senior role for Chris McEleny, who has been the single most baleful influence within Alba.  Ms Regan made clear she would accept Mr McEleny's resignation as General Secretary, but very noticeably didn't rule out appointing him to a different role.

Incidentally, YouTube lets you know how many people are watching at any given time, and it seemed to hover at around 40 or 45.  That's perfectly respectable for a small party's leadership hustings, but the snag was that you could see from the live chat that a lot of viewers were not current Alba members, but disenchanted former members such as Fiona & Neil Sinclair and Leanne Tervit.  Poor old Mr MacAskill and Ms Regan - they slog their guts out trying to win votes, and the only people listening (virtually) are what Zulfikar Sheikh calls "the Wee Gang of Malcontents".  There's some sort of poetic justice in that, I feel.