Does Alba Risk Splitting the SNP Vote?
Just as people are starting to see through the SNP's lies, some are hoping they won't be stupid enough to be taken in by the same tactics used by Alba.
Alba: A Party Run in Service of Russia
Alba is a joke. I don’t think they are even standing in my constituency, and they are certainly not a risk to the SNP. This comes from the desperation for Labour to kick the Tories out of government in Westminster.
Alba is a party run on behalf of Russia by a useful idiot hired by Putin to peddle propaganda. If it splits the mad person vote, so be it. These people want to rip my country in half. Alex Salmond hates England so much he prefers to stress Scotland's Viking links: murdering, raping, and pillaging those Vikings.
Splintering No, But Reducing Yes
Splitting the vote no, but reducing it yes, and that reduction may well be crucial. Alex Salmond's political career has been focused around achieving independence for Scotland. However, his recent actions raise the question about whether he is really interested in independence or just his own ego. His re-emergence in Scottish politics may well be the telling blow in preventing Scotland from becoming an independent nation.
Missteps in Public Perception
At a superficial level, Alba won't take away from the SNP vote as they are just standing on the lists. And indeed, if they can successfully coax many independent-leaning voters to vote for them on the list votes, it could actually dramatically increase the size of the pro-independence majority. While that might sound like an advantage, in practical terms, it isn’t. Having a big majority in parliament is only helpful if you want to force through policies with significant levels of opposition in your own party. This isn’t the case with independence and the SNP. As has recently been demonstrated, even being in a minority and depending on the Greens to pass things with a paper-thin majority is still ample to allow them to pass pro-referendum legislation. Adding in 20–25 Alba MSPs won't really make a difference.
The only circumstances in which it would help is if the election is a disaster for the SNP and they end up worse off than they were at the last election, despite polls from a month or so ago suggesting their support was up about 10. While under such disastrous conditions, the Alba party might help maintain a pro-independence majority in the parliament, it very likely won’t help achieve actual independence.
The Real Obstacles to Scottish Independence
The reason for this last statement and indeed the reason why the Alba party will likely obstruct independence is that getting a pro-independence majority in the parliament isn't really the issue. The parliament has had a pro-independence majority for about a decade but this hasn't produced actual independence. What the SNP need to achieve is two things, and Alba will likely obstruct both.
In the short term, the SNP need to poll over 50 of the first past the post vote in May. If they do, it will be clear that the Scottish people have voted for another referendum. This is a clear and primary SNP policy. However, if the SNP get a majority but on less than 50 of the vote, then the UK parliament can still claim that the majority of Scots voters voted against a second referendum and thus they are justified in carrying on saying no.
In the longer term, the SNP need to have support for actual independence at greater than 50. There is no point in having another referendum just to lose it, and indeed, the careers of several SNP leaders would likely depend on winning any referendum, especially Nicola Sturgeon.
And this is where the Alba party will likely harm independence. Just standing at all will keep the feud between Sturgeon and Salmond in the news. It'll keep this negative narrative running through the whole of the campaign. As opposed to this chapter being closed after Sturgeon was found not to have broken the ministerial code, it'll remain a theme throughout the election and likely harm her image and ultimately reduce the SNP vote.
Conflicts and Voter Confusion
Also, it will confuse the independence message. Any other pro-independence party standing on the lists would make little waves, but Alex Salmond is a big name in Scottish politics and so the Alba party will garner attention and take this away from the SNP. It may simply result in SNP MSPs being elected with slightly smaller majorities but this will reduce their overall share of the vote and could well make the difference between their share of the vote across the whole country being slightly above 50 or being slightly below 50.
The former will make it hard for Westminster to resist calls for a second referendum, but the latter will make it much easier for Boris and his merry Brexiteers to keep saying no.
The SNP will undoubtedly be the largest party after May, but the extent to which the vote in May can be said to be a clear vote in favour of a second referendum is going to be the key battleground in this election and in this respect, the Alba party will in effect be supporting the unionist cause.