Ash to Ashes, Alba to Dust: the Alba Party dramatically ceases to be a parliamentary party seven months earlier than expected, and is reduced to fringe party status

Well, this is it: for four and a half years Alba have enjoyed continuous parliamentary representation, either at Westminster or Holyrood (or for a short while at both), but Ash Regan's resignation brings that era to an end, and it's highly unlikely to ever be revived.  Alba are now in every sense of the word a fringe party - they do admittedly still have two local councillors (including the "Crossmaglen Columbo"), but then the Rubbish Party (look it up, it's a real thing) have one local councillor, so that's kind of the level we're talking about now.

Although the timing of Regan's announcement is a surprise, the logic for her decision has been overwhelming for months, because she remained openly in alliance with Chris "Mad Dog" McEleny after he was sacked as General Secretary for gross misconduct and then expelled from the party.  That situation just wasn't sustainable.  I don't know if she was holding on in the hope that something might turn up which would allow her to topple Kenny MacAskill and the real leader Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (aka "Tyrannical Tas"), thus enabling her to reinstate McEleny, but if so she must have finally accepted that was never going to happen.  The interesting thing now is what McEleny himself does, because Regan will undoubtedly be coordinating her actions with him.  Does he belatedly move on and relinquish his role as Alba's Nominating Officer, allowing the party to pointlessly get on with the task of nominating candidates that will be heavily defeated at next year's election?  Or, on the contrary, is Regan's departure at this stage specifically designed to clear the way for him to go nuclear and block Alba from standing candidates at all?

No wonder Tesco are still rationing popcorn.

So where did it all go so horrifically wrong for Alba?  In truth they sealed their own fate a long time ago by not only choosing the wrong path, but the polar opposite of the right path.  A party like Alba could only have thrived by throwing out the welcome mat and becoming a warm home for all of the most radical parts of the independence movement - instead the party became a narrow, paranoid, authoritarian sect run for the exclusive convenience of an extremely small self-appointed elite of closely linked families and friends, ie. the Corri Nostra, Tas & the Great Zulfikar Sheikh, Robert Reid and his mum, "Those of Salmond Blood", etc.  

The problem with narrow sects is that they tend to only be popular with the people actually running the show, and there just aren't very many of them.

 

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