In the second-floor room of a building on Tufton Street, Scotland’s former first minister Alex Salmond delivered a press conference this afternoon to London journalists. An untouched tray of biscuits sat on a coffee table at the back, while the rest of the space was rather merch-light thanks to forgetful organisers not transporting more materials from Scotland: a party banner was illuminated on a TV screen and seats were covered in ‘general election briefing’ PDF print-outs. Hydrating not with water but with Lucozade — the party leader confessed a ‘lifelong addiction’ to the sugary drink, admitting it was neither Irn Bru nor Aperol Spritz, a favourite tipple of some nationalist figures — Salmond didn’t spend too long on Alba’s general election ambitions before he cut to the chase.
Revealing that he will not, in fact, stand to be a Westminster candidate in the upcoming general election, the former First Minister announced that he is eyeing up a Holyrood return instead. Salmond told journalists today that he now plans to stand as a candidate for the Aberdeenshire constituency of Banffshire and Buchan Coast in 2026. It’s news to Angus MacNeil: a former SNP man campaigning as an Independent for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, who Alba is endorsing. ‘That is damning of where the SNP are in 2024,’ MacNeil remarked on hearing the update, ‘and if Alex Salmond is talking about standing at 2026, that would tell me that he is not expecting the SNP to do anything about independence before then.’
But is Salmond truly serious about independence, or is he more concerned with ruffling SNP feathers? He announced today that he will be standing 19 Alba candidates across Scotland, eight of which will contest seats currently on a knife-edge between the SNP and Labour, or the SNP and the Lib Dems. Most of the rest will stand in seats across the central belt – which is strange, given that one of Alba’s strongest policy stances is on oil and gas licenses in the North Sea. Alba’s leader insists that he isn’t looking to split the independence vote. ‘We are going to mobilise the independence vote,’ he promised. Salmond then hinted that Alba wasn’t really interested in targeting SNP voters either. Instead, his three-year-old party is keen to focus on the politically-homeless, indy-sympathetic group that Salmond worries may simply not turn out on polling day:
We are in a situation now where 50 per cent or so of the people of Scotland believe in independence, but only around 30 per cent are voting SNP. That means there’s 20 per cent of independence supporters who are either currently, according to the polls, not voting or voting for unionist parties.
Our intention is to take the votes of people who have been so disillusioned by the lack of progress towards independence over ten long years that they’re actually going to sit in their homes in the absence of an Alba candidate, or alternatively, vote for a unionist party.
And it’s in that vein of convincing the unconvinced, rather than stealing voters away from other parties, that Alba is working with MacNeil. Salmond’s pro-indy alternative hasn’t managed to persuade MacNeil (who was expelled from the SNP last year) to jump ship, but the apparently undaunted Alba leader brushed off the issue: ‘Angus made a pledge that he would stand as an independent nationalist. I wouldn’t expect Angus to go back on that pledge.’ MacNeil’s reasoning is that he wants to avoid more upheaval, given that his constituents already had to face ‘one phase of change from SNP to Independent’. When pushed, the Na h-Eileanan an Iar politician said that joining Alba wouldn’t have hurt his chances, ‘not detrimentally’ — but the issue remains that the party is on track to win no seats in 2024.
Ultimately the focus for Alba isn’t on 2024. The party’s standing of candidates is more of a popularity stunt than a serious gesture.
Ultimately the focus for Alba isn’t on 2024. The party’s standing of candidates is more of a popularity stunt than a serious gesture. Alba’s chance of significantly splitting the pro-independence vote in Scotland is minor, with left-wing parties like the Greens more of a threat – both in 2024 and 2026. Salmond is looking ahead to Holyrood and has set himself the target of winning 15 per cent of the vote share (double the Scottish Greens result in 2021) and therefore ‘20 seats or more’. ‘I think Alba is on the rise,’ the former FM added. ‘The task for us is to win the 20 or so seats that will require us to be the strong left arm of the independence coalition.’
And all Salmond’s talk of coalitions raises the question: what exactly is he hoping for in the Scottish elections? Holyrood constituency polling by Redfield and Wilton has the SNP and Labour almost neck and neck, at 33 per cent to 32 per cent — with the nationalists making a slight recovery from a Labour lead in previous weeks. Might Salmond already be considering what would happen if the SNP didn’t win a majority in the Scottish parliament elections? New First Minister John Swinney and his party are still navigating Holyrood as a minority government – and have found that they can’t necessarily rely on the Scottish Greens for back-up after Humza Yousaf’s rather abrupt dismissal of his coalition partners in April.
Certainly Salmond appeared softly admiring of the SNP’s current Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, who has his own ambitions to be Scotland’s First Minister. The Alba leader suggested that had Flynn been leading the SNP, the party would have a stronger stance on oil and gas licenses in the North Sea – not least because Flynn himself is defending the Aberdeen South seat in the general election. ‘Elections concentrate the mind,’ Salmond said today, discussing how he believes there is a way of reconciling oil and gas development with the future of the planet. ‘I think young Mr Flynn’s mind has been incredibly concentrated by [issues of oil and gas] over the last months. I dare say if he’d been the SNP leader that would have been their policy.’
Salmond wouldn’t be pressed on whether he would prefer a Flynn-led SNP than a party headed by Swinney, but threw out some advice for his old colleagues anyway. ‘I will say to whoever the SNP leader is, it’s high time they started to act not just as leader of a political party, but leader of a national movement.’ And it’s a movement Salmond has high hopes of helping lead again, come 2026.
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