Some rare good news for Scottish Unionists [View all]

[T_i_B]

Alex Salmond has launched his own political party to split the nationalist vote! Although this does smack of a vanity project on the part of Alex Salmond.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/26/alex-salmond-launches-new-independence-focused-political-party-alba

Alex Salmond has launched a new political party in what he described as a bid to build a super-majority for independence in the next Scottish parliament, and which could also enable his own return to Holyrood.

Launching the Alba party on Friday, he denied the “new political force” would rival the Scottish National party, which he led for more than two decades, and insisted that the presence of other pro-independence parties in the parliament would make the position of the Westminster government in refusing powers to hold a second independence referendum “fundamentally weaker”.

Established parties immediately raised doubts about Salmond’s suitability to be a candidate or lead a political party, with the SNP responding that the interests of the country as it emerges from a pandemic “should not be obscured by the self-interest of someone who shows no sign whatsoever of reflecting on serious concerns about his own conduct”.

During the press conference Salmond side-stepped numerous questions about his suitability as a candidate and his previous treatment of female staff, following the publication days ago of evidence to a Holyrood inquiry that described a culture of complicity around his allegedly inappropriate behaviour during his time in office.