Alex Salmond and the Alba Party: what now?

It was inevitable: Alex Salmond has returned to frontline politics in a new vehicle: the Alba Party. He claims its aim is to build a “supermajority” for independence, and to complement the SNP. But looking at the people backing him, what can we learn about the reaction to this? What are the likely electoral implications, really? And what’s likely to happen next?

The reaction — who’s cheering what?

I wonder if Alex Salmond noticed that the people celebrating this the most are the same people who, after political lifetimes of saying he couldn’t be trusted, started insisting that his every word was gospel when his utterances started appearing damaging to Nicola Sturgeon. In other words, his former political opponents in Unionist parties. Despite the cries of foul from other party leaders, their supporters see this as a cause for celebration. If Unionist parties are celebrating the formation of a new pro-independence party, then it’s bad news for the independence campaign. Salmond might wish to reflect on that.

On the other hand, there’s a predictably dismissive tone coming from the SNP, which is countered by the question that if he’s so irrelevant, why are they reacting? But it’s telling that with the announcement that Chris McEleny, a Councillor in Inverclyde and former contender for Depute Leader, is joining the new party has been met with celebration in some quarters. It seems that some in the party may see the formation of Alba as the opportunity to rid themselves of some more troublesome members. When party members are cheering a defection, it says something grim about the defecting member and the party they’re going to.

The campaign, the strategy and the people

The party’s aim is to stand at least four candidates in each of the regions, and not contest any constituencies. That’s a total of 32 candidates. They’ve announced four: Salmond himself, looking to stand in the North East, Eva Comrie, who was the SNP’s #1 candidate in Mid Scotland & Fife (remaining in that region to stand for her new party), the aforementioned Chris McEleny (standing in West Scotland), and businesswoman Cynthia Guthrie, standing in South Scotland — an interesting choice given that she’s based in West Lothian, which begs the question whether they have their lead candidate for Lothian lined up, and they’re just waiting to unveil them.

But the most interesting name? Look at the imprint at the bottom of the website: the promoter is Kirk J Torrance, formerly the SNP’s New Media guru. Clearly, they’re expecting that as a new party, they’ll get limited coverage in the mainstream media, with little or no access to setpiece occasions such as leader interviews and TV debates. This will be a social media-driven campaign, fought principally over Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. And I expect Torrance and his team will hope that this goes better than the livestreamed launch, which saw a number of technical problems.

The electoral implications

Social media has been awash with confused takes: a lot of people talking about Alba splitting the pro-independence vote, and those pointing to the Scottish Parliament’s proportional system and asserting that it’s not possible to do that. That’s an oversimplification: yes, the Holyrood system is more proportional than Westminster, but unlike most other proportional systems, a majority of seats are still elected by First Past the Post, there’s no means of correcting any imbalances created by distorted FPTP outcomes as the number of MSPs is fixed, the eight regions are discrete entities and there’s no nationwide calculation, and crucially, the distribution of seats isn’t just about how many votes a party wins, but how many they win relative to other parties.

Ben Walker from Britain Elects has calculated the share of the vote the Alba Party would need to get a seat in each region. If this were based entirely on vote share, then surely, this would be constant: you would expect the share in the Highlands and Islands to be higher as there are only eight constituencies, so a total 15 seats in the region. In fact, it’s the third lowest on his calculations. While you’d expect the two regions with ten constituencies (so a total of 17 seats) to be the lowest, and West Scotland is indeed the lowest, the other region, North East Scotland, is in fact the second highest. And in the middle, the five regions with nine constituencies (a total of 16 seats) you would expect to be constant. Instead they range from 5.4% in the South, to 6.6% in Lothian.

The fact is that the Regional seats are allocated one at a time based on the D’Hondt formula (the number of votes, divided by one plus the number of seats already won): the formula is applied after all the regional votes are counted and the constituency results have come in, and whichever party has the highest result gets the first seat. Then, the formula is re-applied to account for that seat having been won, and whichever party has the highest result after that gets the second seat. And so on, until all seven seats are filled. So a smaller party taking votes off a larger one can easily make the difference between the larger one picking up that last Regional seat, and another party altogether winning it, without the smaller party even getting close to coming into the reckoning to win a seat themselves.

Now, given the SNP’s current advantage on the Constituency vote (they won 59 out of 73 in 2016 and could, if polls are any indicator, win five more this time), a new party on the Regional vote might not matter so much as the party is only defending four Regional seats: one in the Highlands & Islands, and three in South Scotland. But they’re not the only pro-independence game in town: the Scottish Greens are, of course, a vocal part of the Yes movement and at the moment, they rely entirely on Regional seats, choosing only to stand in a handful of constituencies.

And the SNP’s #BothVotesSNP campaign is already undermined by all kinds of people attempting wheezes to vote tactically on the Regional Vote, arguing that a Regional Vote for the SNP is wasted while they’re winning so many constituencies. And it’s possible, just possible, that this message is getting through: the latest Survation poll for the Courier and Press and Journal shows SNP support at 50% on the Constituency Vote and 39% on the Regional — enough, we think, to net the SNP 67 Constituencies: an outright majority without a single Regional seat being won. By contrast, Green support stands at 1% on the Constituencies and 11% on the Regional — enough for 11 Regional seats. We also know from their polling data that 12% of SNP Constituency voters plan to vote Green on the Regional Vote.

But here’s what we don’t know: of that figure — roughly 6% of all voters — how many are Greens lending their Constituency Vote to the SNP, and how many are SNP supporters tactically voting Green? The chances are it’s a little from Column A and a little from Column B, but working out precisely how many could be fiddly.

This matters. If it’s mostly SNP voters who have already peeled off as part of a tactical voting campaign, then the Greens are in trouble: Alba will be setting their sights on more than half of the current Green vote and what they have to do is persuade SNP supporters that they are a credible pro-independence. If it’s primarily Greens who are politically homeless on the Constituency Vote plumping for the most obvious alternative, then Alba has to convince enough of the 74% of SNP Constituency voters who are sticking with the party on the Regional Vote to make a change. That seems like a far harder ask.

So the big question is, what does this mean for an election result?

The impact of Alba: wargaming an opinion poll

Let’s run with that Survation opinion poll: it contains the largest disparity between SNP support on the two ballots, and it’s the most recent poll. If the changes nationwide are replicated precisely in every constituency, and in every region (I know, big if, but this is how most election projections are calculated), the SNP are looking to win 67 seats (all constituencies); Labour to break even on 24 (all regional); the Tories to drop to third place with 22 seats (2 constituencies, 20 regional); the Greens to better their last three seat tallies combined with 11 seats (all regional), and the LibDems to remain on 5 (4 constituencies, 1 regional). And, as Alba claims to be looking for an Independence Supermajority, it’s 78 pro-independence MSPs to 51 Unionists. But this was before Alba was an option…

Remember our 6% of voters looking for an SNP-Green split? What if they’re all SNP tactical voters? That’s more than half the Greens’ support base. It would be enough for Alba to win four seats: in Glasgow, the Highlands & Islands, Lothian, and Mid Scotland & Fife. The Greens would revert to the two seats they won in 2007 and 2011, in Glasgow and Lothian. None of the forecast gains would materialise, and the wins in 2016 would be reversed. Bizarrely, the SNP would be in a position to nick the seventh seat in Highlands & Islands. But Labour would pick up an extra two seats, while the Tories and LibDems would pick up an additional seat each. So instead of the Independence Supermajority, we end up with 74 pro-independence MSPs — four fewer than without any intervention from Alex Salmond.

But what if those voters are natural Greens, and Alba have to peel off SNP Regional voters? It would take tactical voting on an epic scale for it to work. Central Scotland would be Alba’s best prospect of a gain, but it would still take 14% of current SNP Regional voters to switch in order to make that happen — equivalent to a national vote share of 5½% for a party that was only registered in February and only announced its first candidates six weeks before Polling Day, just for one seat. For Alex Salmond to make his return to Parliamentary politics, he’d need to win 17% SNP Regional voters. And a supermajority is two-thirds of seats: 86. To get a seat in every region (eight seats), Alba would need 22% of SNP Regional voters, and even then, one of those seats (in the Highlands & Islands) would come at the expense of the Greens, leaving the total of pro-independence MSPs at 85 — one short.

Those are the extreme cases: one undermines the pro-indy position, and the other is deeply fanciful. What if we split the difference? Half of our SNP-Green split ticket voters are SNP tactical voters, and the other half are Greens plumping for SNP Constituency candidates. If the tactical voters switch to Alba, the Greens lose a seat in Lothian to the Tories and miss out on a gain in the Highlands & Islands, with the SNP retaining the Regional seat they have there. Again, one fewer pro-independence MSP in total. For Alba to gain a seat, they’d need to find an extra 2% of current intended SNP Regional voters, and that would be preventing a Green gain. For independence supporters to get the 78 MSPs they’re currently expecting, they need an extra 7% of SNP Regional voters.

So at worst, Alba wipes out an established pro-Indy party and reduces the number of pro-Indy MSPs. At best, it requires tactical voting on an epic scale just to fall short of its goal. And in the middle, it requires a very complex web of plan and counter-plan just for it to advance the independence cause by one seat. It’s not worth it. Surely, it’s not worth it.

So what’s next? Or, more fittingly, who?

One name mentioned in speculation is former MP (and producer of Salmond’s programme on RT) Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh. But play close attention to the sitting MPs: Kenny MacAskill (himself a former Lothian MSP) has been a staunch defender of Alex Salmond, and Angus MacNeil has been the subject of speculation. But the name that keeps getting mentioned, over and over again, is that of Joanna Cherry, who announced yesterday that she was taking time out for health reasons. She has re-iterated that today, saying that she intends to return to work as the SNP MP for Edinburgh South West (italics my own) when she is able.

It’s possible that one of the others will emerge as a candidate: parachuting a West Lothian businesswoman into South Scotland suggests that someone has been lined up for Lothian and that they are a big enough name to make an impact. But as yet, we don’t know for sure. I think the most likely outcome is that if any of the SNP’s MPs are about to jump ship, they won’t appear as candidates in the next week. Rather, a few days before Polling Day, there might be a surprise announcement of the Alba Party’s first MP. Or at least, if that does materialise, it shouldn’t be the surprise they’ll claim it is.

But why? Just why?

You’d think that someone who’s been in politics as long as Alex Salmond would have looked at all this: that he’d have assessed this and wondered why it was worth it. He claims to have talked to other pro-independence parties considering a pitch for the Regional Vote and decided that the Alba Party was the most viable. But I’m struggling to see what it has that others don’t have. Perhaps it’s what it doesn’t have that the others do. The others have been vocal, they’ve established figures (even if they’re far from household names) who have their own supporters. This one seems to have come out of left field, and is perhaps easier for Alex Salmond to reshape in his own image.

Ultimately, I think Salmond hasn’t quite processed that Scottish politics is capable of carrying on without him. I suppose we’ll see what the electorate think in May.