The Alba Party

I see Alex Salmond is to start a new list-only political party to contest May's elections. And I thought it was going to be dull!

Some thoughts:

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a fan of parties being set up to try to 'game' the voting system. Nor am I a fan of a party being set up to try to give the current SNP leadership a bloody nose. If those form any part of the motivation here, and I think they probably do, I'm not keen.

From a tactical point of view, it will be interesting to see what happens next. By my count there are now three pro-Indy list-only micro-parties. If that remains the case, I expect them to split the vote and end up with a grand total of zero seats between them. But if we do see the other two folding in the next couple of weeks and a grand conjunction, they might be in with a chance.

My gut feeling, despite that, is that this is probably a retrograde step for independence. I'm quite sure that the Westminster government, and the BBC, and indeed the rest of our media, will spin anything other than an SNP majority as putting independence to bed for the next five years, and adding the Alba party to the mix makes that majority that much more unattainable (while, ironically, also making it more likely that there will be a pro-independence majority in Holyrood - but appearance means more than reality in politics, and the media control the appearance).

For myself, my plan had been to vote SNP/SNP, but that this was going to be my last ever vote - my willingness to support them has been hanging by a thread for some time, and if they can't (or worse won't) progress the cause of independence with significant speed then I won't be giving them another mandate. I'm now mildly intrigued by the possibility of SNP/Alba, but only if this appears to have a reasonable chance of being effective. Even then, probably not.

Of course, the last thing to mention is this: these list-only micro-parties are not the best thing in a single election, because they make the overall majority harder to attain with little chance of success themselves. But a new party needs to start somewhere, so even if the party can only get at least some traction, to be in a better place for next time, that may yet be worthwhile. Again, we'll see.