Alba has catastrophically lost one-third of its members - and Tasmina's angry "explanation" reveals that she believes the remaining members are stupid and gullible to a truly epic degree

There was a short clip doing the rounds yesterday, which was apparently taken from a longer video uploaded to YouTube weeks ago, but I hadn't previously been aware of it.  It features Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh's characteristically angry reaction at conference after being quite rightly challenged on a fact that hasn't received enough attention - that the Alba Party has lost around a third of its members, which is a catastrophic drop by any standards.  The membership numbers stood at around seven and a half thousand in 2023, and had dropped to around five thousand by the time of the leadership election a few weeks ago.

Ahmed-Sheikh's reaction and "explanation" is one of the true classics of the Tas art-form, and it can't be fully appreciated without seeing her wildly exaggerated mannerisms and facial expressions - or indeed without seeing Corri Wilson start to vigorously nod her head every time Tas says something particularly bonkers or ludicrous.  So I do encourage you to seek the video out in all its splendour, but here is a transcript -

"I wonder if I may just make a point in relation to Maggie's mentioning of losing members.  If I can ask members not to pay full attention to those who go on Twitter who know NOTHING about the party, who may have left the party, why they may have left the party, and many people write in, and have chosen REGRETTABLY to leave because they can't AFFORD to stay a member of this party or indeed ANY party.  People are STRUGGLING in Scotland.  They have to make CHOICES about how they spend their money, and they say they regret that they leave but they still remain in contact with us because obviously we have a supporters' base as well.  So please don't be driven by comments that suggest people are leaving us for the wrong reasons.  The second point I would like to make is that on Alex's passing, many people were left in a limbo, they didn't KNOW if we would carry on, they didn't KNOW if we were ABLE to carry on, emotionally, physically, and EVERYTHING ELSE.  But we are, because we OWE IT TO ALEX, and I am confident, I am confident IN MY HEART AND SOUL, people will see that the passion remains, the determination is as strong as ever, and they'll come back to us in droves WHEN THEY CAN AFFORD TO DO SO."

If I can just pick this apart, what Tas appears to be saying is that the reason a third of Alba members have left is not that they were unhappy with the party's direction or with the McEleny Purges or whatever, but instead that:

1) They can't afford the £12 annual subscription to remain a member (but are so keen to return that they remain in constant contact with the party and provide regular updates on how close they are to being able to scrape together enough cash to live the Alba dream once again).

2) They weren't sure whether Tas and the gang had the will to carry on (emotionally, physically and EVERYTHING ELSE) after Salmond's death, and decided to err on the side of caution by assuming they didn't, and thus left the party in a stampede.

Wow.  OK, so two points spring to mind in response to that.  Firstly, Tas is indirectly admitting that Alba lied to both its own members and the media last autumn, because after Salmond's death they told everyone there had been a huge membership surge, and even claimed that was one of the reasons why the NEC simply had to undemocratically extend its own terms of office by postponing the internal elections by several months.  I believe the line was something like "we need time to adjust to our expanded membership".  It turns out the membership had not expanded as a result of Salmond's death - by Ahmed-Sheikh's own admission, it had shrunk.

As far as the affordability issue is concerned, I don't doubt that even £12 a year may be too much for some people in the current climate.  But that begs the question of why, at a meeting of the Finance & Audit Committee last August (the last internal Alba meeting I attended before I was suddenly suspended from the party), Chris McEleny announced that his aim was to get as many Alba members as possible to move to direct debit, and only then hike the minimum annual subscription higher than the current £12.  According to McEleny, "once you've got them on direct debit, you've got them for life, they never cancel".  That cynical attitude does not suggest to me that Alba had experienced many members cancelling on affordability grounds (because if you really can't afford something, you're going to be determined enough to cancel a direct debit).  It also does not suggest that the Alba leadership actually care very much whether people are struggling to afford the fee.

And yes, OK, McEleny has just been expelled from the party for gross misconduct, but I have very little doubt that at the time he was speaking on behalf of the wider leadership, including both Salmond and Ahmed-Sheikh.

Let's be honest - the vast majority of people who have left Alba did not do so because they couldn't afford £12 a year.  They did not do so because they were terribly worried that Tas and the gang didn't have the emotional, physical and EVERYTHING ELSE ability to carry on.  They left either being they were bullied out, or because they were in despair at the Stalinist shambles that Alba has become.  They left because they were sick of having their voices ignored or disregarded, and of being shouted at like stupid and unruly primary school children.  Rather like Keir Starmer, Ahmed-Sheikh's reaction to being told what people have had enough of is to give them even more of it.

*. *. *

I couldn't help but raise a wry smile at the observations made by "a friend of Chris McEleny" (I suspect that may be "friend" in the "asking for a friend" sense of the word) about his expulsion from Alba - 

"This decision is an ultimate sign of weakness on the part of Alba’s leadership. If Alex Salmond had adopted the approach of expelling people from the SNP that he didn’t get on with then he would’ve expelled Kenny MacAskill several times over throughout a period of 20 years that Kenny briefed against him and was critical of his leadership to the press."

Those words would have a lot more credibility if McEleny hadn't spent his last year as General Secretary constantly sending referrals to the Disciplinary Committee, of which I was a member, demanding that Alba members be expelled or suspended from the party because they had made mild criticisms of the leadership - something that McEleny robotically insisted had "injured the party" and was therefore a serious breach of the Code of Conduct.

I've heard the argument that McEleny was just following orders from Tasmina, and I'm not remotely impressed by it.  First of all, none of us were in the room when those orders supposedly came in, so we don't actually know whether that's what really happened.  And secondly, "I vos only following orders" was not considered a legitimate defence at the Nuremberg trials.  In fact, McEleny had a lot more freedom of action than the Nuremberg defendants - if what Tas was instructing him to do was so against his moral principles, he could and should have resigned at any time.

How do you expect to ‘unite’ the Yes movement when you’ve spent the last 18 months bullying, and forcing out members of your own party.
You’ve treated your own supporters appallingly with smears and expulsions
Maybe try uniting your party first

— Denise Findlay 💚🤍💜 (@gracebrod1e) May 3, 2025