More analysis of the Dundee by-elections

Just a quick note to let you know I've written a short analysis piece for The National about the SNP's victories in yesterday's two Dundee by-elections - you can read it HERE.

Dundee DEVASTATION for Sarwar as SNP humiliate Labour TWICE in by-election double-header - they don't call it Bash Street for nothing

Strathmartine by-election result, first preferences (3rd October 2024):

SNP 35.0% (-10.3)

Liberal Democrats 26.9% (+8.2)

Labour 26.9% (+4.0)

Conservatives 4.2% (-1.7)

Greens 3.6% (+0.2)

TUSC 3.4% (+2.7)

Lochee by-election result, first preferences (3rd October 2024):

SNP 37.3% (-5.9)

Labour 35.6% (-0.2)

Conservatives 6.8% (-1.6)

Alba 5.5% (+2.4)

Greens 5.5% (+1.3)

Liberal Democrats 4.8% (+1.7)

Workers Party of Britain 4.4% (n/a)

Local by-elections are often mainly about symbolism and momentum, but these two really did matter because the SNP's overall majority on Dundee City Council was at stake - and has survived.  In fact Lochee is technically a gain from Labour, although the SNP were defending a lead in both wards from last time around.  The SNP's 1.7% lead on first preferences in Lochee was tight enough that Labour could potentially have won with transfers from other unionist parties - the combined vote for the Tories, the Lib Dems and the Workers Party exceeded the combined vote for the Greens and Alba.  So it's intriguing that it didn't happen, and it'll be interesting to find out why from the detailed numbers.

Can the SNP still be considered to have had good results even though their vote fell?  Yes.  The percentage changes are measured from the 2022 local elections, when the SNP's national lead over Labour in the popular vote was 12.3%.  The average swing from SNP to Labour in the two by-elections was 5%, which would leave the SNP about two points ahead nationally.  That's not too shabby only a few weeks after finishing five points behind Labour at the general election.  In practice it's probably even better than it appears, because the SNP's vote share in local elections is often on the low side compared to other elections.

For the second week in a row, Alba have had an OK-ish result in a by-election, although I suspect that's mainly about improved organisation and a more effective get-out-the-vote effort rather than any increase in Alba's underlying national support, which probably remains at roughly the very familiar 2% level.  Indeed, there's a potential danger in getting half-decent results in low-turnout local by-elections, because Alex Salmond was very quick last week to suggest that Alba's 6% showing in Perth meant that they were on 6% across Scotland and were therefore on course for list seats.  That's plainly not the case, but many Alba members are all too hungry to believe in that kind of statement.  If the party effectively hypnotises itself into thinking a breakthrough is just around the corner, the deep-seated problems that in practice will prevent Alba from winning any list seats at all may not be tackled or resolved.

And it can't go without note that Lochee is yet another election in which the Workers Party of Britain, for which Craig Murray stood at the general election, put up a candidate directly against the Alba Party, of which to the best of my knowledge Craig Murray is also still a member.  Let me reiterate yet again that this is not a jibe against Craig personally, and in fact I have the highest admiration for both his politics and his personal courage.  The point is about Alba itself.  Craig has driven a coach and horses through the most important commandment in the Alba rule-book by standing for a party in direct competition with Alba.  And yet somehow it's as if that never happened - Craig's membership remains untouched and no disciplinary action has been taken against him.  By contrast, my own Alba membership is currently arbitrarily suspended on the whim of one man (Chris McEleny, the non-elected General Secretary), which is preventing me from exercising my right as a paid-up party member to stand in internal elections.  Later this month, I will face a so-called "disciplinary" hearing in which I could be expelled from the party altogether for essentially two things - a) using my elected position on an internal Alba working group to push for democratisation of the party's internal structures in a way that the leadership apparently has no intention of tolerating, and b) making certain limited criticisms of the leadership in posts on this blog.  I am far from being the first member to face this kind of treatment - other expulsions and lengthy suspensions have already occurred.

The double-standard, and the difference of treatment for the favoured and the unfavoured, is blatant.  It's overwhelming proof of a disciplinary machinery that is not functioning as advertised, but is instead being shamelessly abused as a tool to suppress dissent and deter the free expression of views within the party.  I will be taking a stand at the disciplinary hearing and at the likely subsequent appeal hearing, because frankly Scotland has no need of a carbon-copy of the authoritarian party that expelled Grouse Beater for no good reason, that suspended Neale Hanvey for no good reason, and that bullied Denise Findlay into a public resignation for no good reason.  Alba needs to be a lot, lot better than that, otherwise what is the point of it being there?

Britain's "Little Empire of Leftovers" is gradually breaking up - and it would be naive of unionists to think that Scotland is immune to the process

I suspect that when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the UK assumed that its remaining "Little Empire of Leftovers" would be its to keep in perpetuity, because the territories that were left had either fiercely pro-British populations (as in the case of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar), or were too geographically remote for other countries to plausibly stake a claim on them and too small to be plausible contenders for full independence (as in the case of Pitcairn).  Well, the handing over of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, albeit with all the imperfections of a 99-year lease back to the UK and US of Diego Garcia, is a massive jolt to that complacency, because the UK has been forced to this point by a brilliant diplomatic campaign by the government of Mauritius.  It's entirely possible to see how that could be a model for picking off some of the other UK overseas dependencies.

Next in line is surely Cyprus, which is the most comparable to the Chagos situation, because the UK simply decided to confiscate 4% of Cypriot territory as a condition for the country becoming independent.  The military bases on that retained territory have seemingly been used recently to assist Israel in its genocidal campaign in Gaza.  The precedent of Diego Garcia surely means that those bases must revert to Cypriot sovereignty and any continued UK military presence there would only be acceptable as the result of an agreed settlement.

I've never taken the view that Spain has a legitimate claim on Gibraltar or that Argentina has a legitimate claim on the Falklands.  Both territories have stable populations which have exactly the same right to self-determination as the people of Scotland, and they have exercised that right by decisively rejecting Spanish and Argentinian rule.  But I do think in time those populations, probably starting with Gibraltar, may come to see the value of essentially keeping their current system but changing the title deeds, ie. becoming nominally independent but entering into a free association agreement with the UK to allow London to continue controlling their foreign affairs and defence.  That would demonstrate to the world that decolonisation has occurred and make them masters of their own house.  In the case of Gibraltar it would require Spanish cooperation to circumvent the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht, but one day there might be a Spanish government with the foresight to realise that decolonisation of Gibraltar is actually in Spanish interests.

In the case of the small Caribbean dependencies, the increasing development of pan-Caribbean governance structures may eventually provide the architecture that would make it viable to shake off the London link.

Meanwhile, there are also broader "Little Empires", covering the independent states where King Charles is still monarch, or where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council still has jurisdiction as the final court of appeal.  Both of those empires are continuing to contract, with Barbados recently becoming a republic, and Saint Lucia becoming the latest country to abolish Privy Council jurisdiction last year.  It's surely only a matter of time before Australia and Jamaica adopt home-grown heads of state, which will probably lead to others following their example.

The tide of history is only moving in one direction, and it would be naive of unionists to think Scotland is immune to it. I remember in my childhood hearing Alan Whicker talk about the upcoming Hong Kong handover.  He said "when the sun sets on the British Empire, it'll set over Kowloon Harbour".  But actually when it really sets, it may be over the cliffs of St Kilda.

*  *  *

SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Who's an unpopular boy, then? It's all gone wrong for Anas Sarwar, says shock Ipsos poll

Before I forget about it, let's take a quick look at the "Ipsos Scotland Political Pulse" poll that was published last week, because it contains yet more positive straws in the wind suggesting the SNP may now have a good chance of winning in 2026 - or at least "winning" if that is defined as remaining the largest single party and possibly remaining in power without an overall pro-independence majority.  For the uninitiated, the Political Pulse is very different from the regular Ipsos polls for STV, because it's conducted via online polling panel rather than by telephone, and there are no outright voting intention questions.  However it does contain personal ratings for leading politicians, and we know those are often more predictive of election results than standard voting intention questions anyway.

Net ratings of leading politicians (Ipsos, 18th September 2024):

Kate Forbes (SNP): -11

John Swinney (SNP): -11

Anas Sarwar (Labour): -16

Keir Starmer (Labour): -23

Rachel Reeves (Labour): -27

Douglas Ross (Conservatives): -47

Rishi Sunak (Conservatives): -53

OK, these numbers don't exactly demonstrate enthusiasm for the SNP, but you only have to defeat what's put up against you, and both John Swinney and Kate Forbes appear to be considerably less disliked now than any of Labour's top team.  And if you're a bit underwhelmed by the depth of Starmer's unpopularity at -23, remember the fieldwork is already a couple of weeks old and he's almost certainly slipped further since then.  

Other polls asking about leadership in the alternative way, ie. a head-to-head question about who would make the best First Minister, have almost always shown the SNP leader ahead in recent times, regardless of whether that person was Humza Yousaf or John Swinney.  So whichever way you look at it, the question of leadership does still seem to give the SNP a clear edge, even after all their travails and even after losing a phenomenon such as Nicola Sturgeon.

This will probably be the last poll in which Douglas Ross is rated, so it's nice to see him getting such a lovely send-off.  (Or should that say sending-off?)

Just as crucial is that Labour as a whole no longer have a superior rating to the SNP as a whole.  It's essentially level-pegging now with the SNP on -12 and Labour on -13. Respondents also have slightly less confidence in the Labour government's plans for the economy (-37) than they do in the SNP government's plans (-33).

And although the SNP government is perceived as having performed poorly on every policy area that is asked about, the perception of respondents is that Labour would do even worse - with the sole exception of education, where there's a tie between those who think Labour would do better than the SNP and those who think they would do worse.

In all honesty, I think anyone looking at these numbers totally objectively, say an observer from a foreign land, would come to the conclusion that the most likely outcome of the 2026 election is a modest SNP win.  But of course there's still a lot of water to pass under the bridge.

*  *  *

SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to make some serious progress over the coming days and weeks if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

In Liz We Trussed - but could Jenrick be Just The Ticket?

When Boris Johnson resigned just over two years ago, it seemed like a setback for the independence cause, because he was regarded as the best recruiting sergeant we could ever have.  But I and others believed that there was one remaining hope.  In Liz We Trussed.  If Truss rather than Sunak won, there would be a potential Thatcher-like figure in Number 10 who would be electable in England but loathed in Scotland, which might just be the decisive factor in pushing Scotland towards independence - just as Thatcher herself had been decisive in transforming the slender pro-devolution majority of 1979 into what John Smith famously called "the settled will" of the early-to-mid 90s.

Of course what none of us anticipated, and in fairness there was no way we could have anticipated it, was that Truss would literally prove to be the most hapless Prime Minister in British history, would bring the economy to the brink of collapse within a month-and-a-half, and would single-handedly make a Labour government in 2024 a nailed-on certainty, thus allowing Scottish Labour to ride the momentum and narrowly defeat the SNP.  In retrospect, the Truss victory in the 2022 leadership election was not only bad for the SNP and the wider independence cause, but worse than we could ever have imagined.

So it's obviously dangerous to be too confident in any assumptions we make about knock-on effects from the current Tory leadership vote. The opposite of what seems obvious could easily prove to be true. But for the fun of it, let's have a go anyway.

For reasons that are probably self-evident to regular readers, I haven't been paying as much attention to the vote as I normally would, and I've been a bit puzzled as to why Robert Jenrick has emerged as a strong favourite with the bookies.  I know he's topped the MPs' ballots, but that shouldn't really matter if Kemi Badenoch is the darling of the membership in the way we were told until recently.  But if the bookies are right and Jenrick wins, the Tories are going to move into space associated with the far right.  I had wondered if some of his extremist rhetoric was designed to win the vote and he would tack more to the centre thereafter, but I watched his video about the ECHR earlier today, and he hasn't left himself any wiggle-room at all.  It seems clear he would turn the Tories into a "leave the ECHR, no ifs, no buts" party.

Now, that only matters if he's capable of winning a general election.  My verdict on Jenrick's video is that he has that kind of generic Tory 'slimy toad' speaking style that makes my flesh crawl, but then I'm not really his target audience.  He does have fluency, he does have confidence.  He could potentially win back a lot of voters from Reform without necessarily alienating the voters who stuck with Sunak in July, and that's all he'd really need to do unless Labour can get back to the sort of popularity they haven't had since 2017 when they took 40% of the vote under Jeremy Corbyn.  At the moment that's hard to imagine.

It's just conceivable, then, that Jenrick could become Prime Minister in 2028 or 2029 and that Britain really could leave the ECHR.  What would be the reaction of moderate, pro-European No voters in Scotland?  They reluctantly reconciled themselves to Brexit, but would they really be so sanguine about Brexit II: This Time It's The Kitchen Sink?  It would be an extraordinary opportunity for the independence movement, essentially an unexpected second chance for us to take advantage of the golden opportunity we somehow managed to squander in 2016-19.  But the SNP would need to have the right leadership and strategy in place.

*  *  *

SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: Our annual fundraiser still has a long way to go to reach its target figure, and there are only three months of the year left!  If you'd like to help Scot Goes Pop continue into 2025, card payments can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

In case you've ever wondered, this is what the Alba Party website looks like to a suspended member

Not much to see, really.  And certainly not much point in following the advice in the text, because it's obvious even to the most basic single-cell life-forms that my suspension is not warranted, and yet every email I've sent regarding the matter (four so far) has been totally ignored, no matter how many senior people in the party I've copied it to.

But even though I cannot access the website, that of course hasn't stopped Alba from collecting the direct debit payment for my membership.  I checked my bank account, and with grim irony this month's payment was deducted a day or two after my suspension.  Which begs the obvious question: what the hell am I actually getting in return for my money?  I'm sure it's just a total coincidence that Chris McEleny timed my suspension to occur just a few days before I could have applied for a conference pass, allowing me to exercise my most important right as a paid-up party member, ie. to vote on party policy and in internal elections.  I'm sure it's just a total coincidence that he timed my suspension to occur just a few days before I could start collecting nominations to stand in those elections, which I would otherwise be doing right now - I had intended to stand again for Membership Support Convener after coming within a 1% margin of being elected to the position last year, and also for one of the male slots on the NEC. 

Mr McEleny has a history of getting extremely angry whenever anyone has used the phrase "rigged election", but when one man arbitrarily decides which party members will and will not be allowed to stand in internal elections, some people may well feel that the word "rigged" is objectively justified or even unavoidable.  So far there has been no due process in my case.  I remain suspended from the Alba Party and deprived of all my rights as a paid-up party member purely on the whim of one man: Christopher McEleny.  He has provided no adequate explanation for that suspension, just ultra-vague waffle about "blogposts attacking the party".  All of my attempts to seek further clarification have been deliberately ignored by him, by his deputy, by the party chair, and by the party leader.

In my most recent email on Tuesday, the key question that I asked was whether my "temporary suspension pending a hearing" would be allowed to drag on for an unacceptably long period of time, as has happened to others before me, or whether a Disciplinary Committee hearing would be held as soon as practically possible.  The fact that even that question was ignored did not fill me with confidence, so I went back and had a look at Mr McEleny's original email, and noticed that there was not even a reference to my right to be told the date and time of the Disciplinary Committee meeting and to attend it if I wished to put my defence in person.  That might be an oversight, but let me put it this way.  As an elected member of the Disciplinary Committee myself, I am still bound by confidentiality rules and cannot comment on whether or not Mr McEleny has always abided by the requirement on him to allow defendants to attend hearings if they express a wish to do so.  However, that is a subject covered by Alan Harris' recent guest post and I would recommend you read it with care if you haven't already.  What I can comment on, because this has nothing to do with the work of the committee, is that someone who was expelled by the Disciplinary Committee a few months ago later left a comment on this blog to reveal that he had written to Mr McEleny to confirm that he wished to take up his right to an appeal to the Appeals Committee, and that Mr McEleny had totally ignored that email (how uncharacteristic!) and the appeal never took place.  In other words, he was seemingly expelled from the party without due process - something which I believe could be challenged in court.  If the Alba leadership keep doing this sort of thing, eventually their luck is going to run out and they're going to come up against someone who actually has the money to launch a legal challenge.

If I sound angry and cynical about this, there's a good reason.  Most reasonable people would say that expulsions and suspensions from political parties should be reserved for the most serious wrongdoing, such as violence or racist outbursts, not for fatuous reasons such as "being a bit critical of the party leadership in a blogpost".  One of the key reasons so many people flocked from the SNP to Alba is that the SNP disciplinary process was being abused and people like Neale Hanvey and Grouse Beater were being suspended or expelled on bogus or highly questionable accusations of anti-semitism.  And yet now the leadership of the party that they flocked to as a refuge is abusing the disciplinary process in an even more extreme way.  As many people have pointed out in recent days, Chris McEleny was a fierce critic of the Sturgeon leadership when he was an SNP member, certainly far more critical than I've ever been of the Alba leadership, and yet the SNP did not suspend or expel him or interfere in any way with his right to stand in internal elections.  He would have been outraged if they had done, but they did not.  It is absolute rank hypocrisy of him to arbitrarily impose an extreme standard on Alba members that he was never prepared to accept being imposed on him as an SNP member.  The basic principles at stake do not change just because Mr McEleny currently happens to be the person given some power and no-one is preventing him from abusing it.

As you have been so studiously ignoring my emails for three weeks, Chris, you leave me no option but to say this to you publicly on this blog, which I know you are monitoring.  If you are trying to pull a fast one on me, as you have done to other Alba members in the past, in the literal sense I cannot stop you doing that.  But what I can prevent happening is you doing that in secret.  This time the curtain is going to be pulled right back and Alba members are going to know exactly what you've done.  Maybe they'll approve of your actions, maybe they won't.  But they're certainly going to know.

Thoughts on Russell Findlay's win in the Scottish Tory leadership election

The irony has often been noted that Labour and not the Tories are self-conscious about being a party of diversity, and yet it's the Tories not Labour that have produced three female Prime Ministers and one ethnic minority Prime Minister.  The argument is that the Tories will always choose merit when they see it, whereas Labour will allow unconscious prejudice to get in the way.  However, judging from Meghan Gallacher's poor result this morning, it looks like the Scottish Tories choosing a leader with a working class accent will remain the Final Frontier for many years to come.

Scottish Conservative leadership election result:

Russell Findlay 2565 

Murdo Fraser 1187 

Meghan Gallacher 403

Possibly the SNP and Labour have both dodged a bullet with Gallacher's failure.  It's hard to know for sure, because the Tories might have found that the downsides of having her as leader would have outweighed the upsides, but the one thing that might just have caused working class voters in west-central Scotland to take another look at the Tories would have been a Tory leader who speaks just like them.

Someone on the previous thread suggested it was a shame independence supporters didn't infiltrate the Tories and swing the contest for Murdo Fraser.  But that might be a case of 'careful what you wish for', because an independent centre-right party free of Tory branding, portraying itself as patriotically-Scottish-but-oh-isn't-independence-such-a-bore might actually have done quite well. Look at what happened with the CAQ in Quebec.

No, we may be just as well having Russell Findlay, who will change nothing and doesn't strike me as Mr Charisma.  He's a more credible figure than Douglas Ross, but then so are most hamsters.  And assuming the Tories are mostly in the market for committed unionist voters, a slightly more competent leader may even do us a favour by drawing support away from Labour.

It was Ruth Davidson who originally pushed Douglas Ross as some sort of Messiah, wasn't it?  That says a lot about her own much-vaunted political judgement.

*  *  *

SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  The fundraiser page can be found HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Big win for the SNP in Perth City North by-election

There was a by-election double-header in Perth & Kinross yesterday, and as is often the case in the wacky world of STV by-elections, things are not quite as they seem.  The Perth City North result is being billed as an SNP gain from Labour, but in fact it's a ward where the SNP were defending a huge lead and their vote share dropped.  The Strathallan result is being billed as a Liberal Democrat gain from the Conservatives, and indeed there was a Conservative lead in the ward last time around - but on first preferences there was this time too.  The Lib Dems only won on transfers.

Perth City North by-election first preference votes (26th September 2024):

SNP 44.7% (-10.5)
Labour 15.3% (-0.1)
Conservatives 14.4% (-5.1)
Reform UK 10.2% (n/a)
Alba 6.5% (+4.3)
Liberal Democrats 4.6% (+0.4)
Greens 4.2% (+0.8)

Strathallan by-election first preference votes (26th September 2024):

Conservatives 32.1% (-14.6)

Liberal Democrats 30.0% (+18.6)

SNP 17.4% (-17.5)

Labour 11.2% (n/a)

Reform UK 6.0% (n/a)

Greens 3.3% (-3.7)

Within minutes of the Perth City North result being announced, there was synchronised tweeting about it from John Swinney, Pete Wishart and Jim Fairlie, and in spite of the 10 point drop in the SNP vote, it's probably fair to say this is a solid result for the SNP.  They didn't win a single local by-election anywhere in Scotland in the whole time Humza Yousaf was leader, so to win even the safest of wards by such a big margin must be regarded as pretty satisfying.  Although Labour's vote in the ward has only declined very slightly, they're effectively stuck where they were in 2022 - when nationally they were in a distant second place and only just barely ahead of the third-placed Tories.  You'd expect better from a party that won the general election in Scotland less than three months ago, and it bears out the message of recent opinion polls that Labour are suffering from Keir Starmer's unforced errors.

That said, Labour's result in Strathallan is actually OK in a ward that has been poor for them in the past - they didn't bother standing in 2022, but in 2017 they took only 5% of the vote, while in 2012 they took 10%.  The SNP's showing in Strathallan is disappointing, there's no getting away from that, and it's hard to escape the impression that there must have been some kind of direct movement from the SNP to the Lib Dems, who did have a genuinely impressive result in spite of not quite topping the poll on first preferences.

If there's a common thread to the two by-elections, it's the strong showing from Reform UK, and that does look like an increasing problem as Holyrood 2026 comes into view.  Unless Reform UK's Scotland-wide vote drifts downwards to 5% or below, they may win enough list seats to make it very hard for the pro-independence majority at Holyrood to be maintained, even if the SNP stay in first place.

If I was being Machiavellian, I'd say what is required is a pro-independence party on the radical right to take on Reform UK on their own terms.  That won't happen, of course, so perhaps some shameless left-wing economic populism is the order of the day to try to win back the disaffected voters drifting to Reform.

*  *  *

SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  The fundraiser page can be found HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Dedication, ooooh dedication, that's what made Keir a record-breaker, yeah

Just a quick note to let you know that I have an article in The National today about Keir Starmer's record-breaking journey from landslide victory in early July to deep unpopularity in the polls in late September.  I'm not sure if it's in the main part of the website, but it can be found on page 8 of the print or digital edition. [UPDATE: It's now also on the main part of the website HERE.]

A personal statement about Chris McEleny's decision to suspend me from the Alba Party for the heinous crime of (*checks notes*) blogging

Over the last two weeks, I have sent three short and to-the-point emails to Chris McEleny, the General Secretary of the Alba Party, seeking the further information and clarification I am fully entitled to after his bizarre message out of the blue announcing that the NEC had removed me from my elected position on the Constitution Review Group - something the NEC had literally no power to do under the existing constitution.  (A person's party membership can be temporarily suspended pending a disciplinary hearing, but the NEC has no power to simply remove someone on an 'a la carte' basis from their elected position on an individual committee.  It would be total chaos if they did have that power - if there was a troublesome minority on the NEC itself, for example, the majority could simply vote that minority out of existence.)

Because Mr McEleny ignored the first email, I made sure that the two subsequent emails were copied to the Deputy General Secretary (Corri Wilson), the party chair (Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh) and the party leader (Alex Salmond) - just so I would know there was no danger that they would be overlooked accidentally.  All four individuals have quite plainly made an intentional decision to ignore my messages for fourteen days.  In my opinion, for any party member to be treated in that way is disgraceful and an act of carefully calculated contempt.  I would be lying if I said that this has not lessened my respect for these four people, which used to be considerable, and sky-high in the case of Mr Salmond.  There was a time, actually, when I used to hear from Mr Salmond quite frequently by phone - but, of course, that was when he needed people like me to put his side of the story following his trial and to try to ensure enough support was there among committed Yessers to get Alba off the ground if and when the launch came.  I was once warned by someone who has known Mr Salmond for far, far longer than I have that one of his greatest faults, ironically, is a lack of personal loyalty - if someone is no longer deemed useful, he'll drop them like a hot brick.  My reaction was "not to worry, I'm big enough and ugly enough to look after myself, and I'm not naive either - I know how ruthless many senior politicians are".  All of that still stands, but my goodness, what a prescient observation that person made.  No longer am I needed to defend Mr Salmond's reputation after dodgy proceedings against him - now he is the instigator of dodgy proceedings against me, and conveniently the phone has fallen completely silent.  My liberty is not at stake, of course, so my situation is infinitely less stressful than Mr Salmond's was five years ago.  But suffice to say that this little irony has not gone unnoticed by me or by others.

I finally received an email today from Mr McEleny, but it continued to completely ignore all of the emails I had sent him over the last two weeks.  It simply informed me that I have now been suspended from the party, pending a Disciplinary Committee hearing, due to new allegations that I have publicly "attacked the party" on this blog and on Twitter.  I of course have done no such thing - I have made legitimate, measured and well-reasoned criticisms of the party leadership's actions in specific areas.  I must say that there is a whiff of Stalinism about any party leadership that cannot differentiate between itself and the wider party, and thus regards any criticism of itself as an attack on the party.  This is absolutely no surprise, though, because I have been an elected member of the Alba Disciplinary Committee since January, and I have seen exactly the threadbare, nonsensical reasons that have been put forward for expulsions and lengthy suspensions.  Confidentiality rules have, frankly, been abused over that period to ensure that Alba members do not have a clue of the outrageous things that have been going on behind the scenes.  I have known for months and I haven't been able to say anything.

It is the very problem of a party leadership that thinks it is the party that I have been trying to address in the Constitutional Review Group since January - in other words I have been battling against the odds to try to turn a sham internal party democracy, one where everything is carefully controlled and managed by a self-perpetuating leadership elite, into a real democracy in which the members can if they want change things for the better without the leadership's permission.  I have not done that to "attack" the party, I have done it to try to rescue a party that will otherwise be in a death-spiral if it alienates and loses any more members.  It now seems obvious to me that Alba was actually set up as a small, private version of the SNP for a few closely-connected families and friends to control in a way that suited themselves - although nobody bothered to mention that to the thousands of people from outside the in-group who joined and were promised a 'member-led' party.  It's actually much more like a private living-room rather than a fully-fledged political party.  We had an extraordinary demonstration last year that the leadership will even cancel internal election results if they dislike the outcome - I doubt if even the Sturgeon clique would ever have dared go quite that far in the SNP.  Anecdotally, I've been left in no doubt that Alex Salmond had been monitoring the progress of those votes and only made the final decision to nullify them once he was sure the "wrong" people had won.  If democracy had prevailed, Denise Findlay rather than Rob Thompson would currently be Organisation Convener, and Jacqueline Bijster rather than Daniel Jack would currently be Membership Support Convener.  Instead, we have a de facto autocracy.  I am nowhere near as big a threat to that autocracy as Ms Findlay, Ms Bijster and Eva Comrie were, but it seems that the leadership are being very thorough and meting out draconian treatment to even the lesser threats like myself.

Having served on the Disciplinary Committee for months, I know all too well that in its current composition it is a rubberstamp for the leadership.  Things were a bit more evenly balanced at the start of the year, but following Marjorie Ellis Thompson's early resignation as convener and Alan Harris' automatic removal from the committee after he left the party, the leadership now have a 100% dependable majority, and of course I won't be allowed to sit in judgement on myself, which makes the majority even bigger.  So whatever Mr McEleny wants the outcome of the hearing to be, that will be the outcome.  This latest development is, therefore, fully consistent with Yvonne Ridley's boast to have inside information that a decision has already been taken to expel me from the Alba Party.  The only thing that might theoretically stand in the way is the Appeals Committee, and to be honest I'm not sure if that's a more independent body - although the one appeal I am aware of this year was dismissed, so that doesn't bode well.

Nevertheless, I will be challenging both the Disciplinary Committee and the Appeals Committee to demonstrate that the Alba leadership are not presiding over a Mickey Mouse organisation in which the procedures are just for show, and to do that by actually applying due process.  I haven't been given a date yet for the first hearing, but when it takes place I will have the right to bring with me another Alba member for support.  That person will not be able to "represent" me as such, but having sat through several disciplinary hearings this year, with my jaw dropping to the floor on multiple occasions at what I was witnessing, I think it might well be useful to have an independent witness to events, if nothing else.  So if you're a current Alba member and if you think you might be able to help at the meeting (particularly if you have legal expertise or some sort of equivalent), please drop me a line at: icehouse.250@gmail.com

A final point.  Mr McEleny's allegations in the email suspending me are once again incredibly vague, and the closest thing he gets to specificity is by complaining that I publicly criticised Shannon Donoghue and Yvonne Ridley (he doesn't mention them by name but there's no-one else he can be referring to). I have made clear that I was subjected to attempted bullying during my period on the Constitution Review Group, by two people in particular.  One of those was Shannon Donoghue, and to a small extent her bullying attempts spilled over into the public domain on Twitter, with one particular episode just after the general election in July.  Yvonne Ridley, meanwhile, has I believe actually publicly posted the full exchange in which she attempted to bully me a couple of weeks ago.  She blocked me immediately after posting it, so I wasn't able to doublecheck that she had quoted both of us fully and accurately, but if she has, I don't think there's much room for doubt about which direction the menace and poison was coming from.  So the Alba leadership is now very publicly showing itself to have no interest in protecting party members from bullying, and there's one simple and over-riding reason for that - ie. the bullies themselves are actually in charge, or at the very least are in positions of enormous influence due to connections of family and friendship.  The disciplinary process is in itself a useful tool by which an enhanced form of bullying can be administered.

I fully expect the forthcoming process to be a charade and that I will be expelled.  I'm not sure even Keir Starmer would expel people just for criticising the Labour leadership in blogposts, but this is the grotesque place we find ourselves - Alba is now more authoritarian than Starmer's Labour party.  I was advised by someone in this blog's comments section the other day to start looking ahead to life outside Alba just in case the worst comes to the worst, and of course I've been doing that: I have no intention of being left politically homeless if the Alba leadership expel me from a party that I have worked extremely hard for over the last three years.  In the meantime, though, I've never backed down in the face of bullying in my life, and I don't intend to start now.  I will be seeing what might risibly be described as this "disciplinary" process through to its conclusion.