Alex Salmond launches bid for vast tactical vote in favour of Scottish independence

Former first minister brands casting a second vote for the SNP ‘ridiculous posturing’, doubling down on a tactic which led to the historic Holyrood election of the UK’s first Green Party parliamentarian in 1999, Andy Gregory reports

Alex Salmond claimed “the Yes campaign of the summer of 2014 is now reborn in political form in the ranks of Alba” (Peter Summers/Getty Images)

Alex Salmond has intensified his somewhat unusual tactic of seeking to attract only secondary “list” votes in the upcoming Holyrood elections, describing such ballots cast for the SNP as the “ultimate wasted votes”.

Addressing candidates at his new Alba Party’s first online conference, the former first minister of Scotland claimed that any independence supporters who give their list vote to his successor Nicola Sturgeon’s party would be guilty of “ridiculous posturing”.

The comments appear to mark something of an escalation in Mr Salmond’s rhetoric as he seeks to “game” the Holyrood voting system – in the words of Ms Sturgeon – by fielding only regional list candidates, with the purported aim of seeking a “supermajority” for independence, claiming to be therefore “helping” the SNP.

A day after Alba founder Laurie Flynn said the party had accrued some 4,100 members in its first week, Mr Salmond told candidates: “Why should independence-supporting colleagues not want there to be an independence supermajority?

“Why would they rather that the indy numbers were lighter and the unionist numbers heavier in the Scots parliament?

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“That is, in my estimation, ridiculous posturing for any independence supporter, caused by the realisation that SNP votes on the regional list are the ultimate wasted votes.

“Our argument for the independence supermajority is unassailable. More MSPs supporting independence – what’s not to like? … The cause of Scottish independence is beyond party.”

Saying that, despite doing the “heavy lifting”, the SNP held no “arbitrary authority” over the cause of independence, Mr Salmond claimed that the “Yes campaign of summer of the 2014 is now reborn in political form in the ranks of Alba”.

While the Yes campaign lost in 2014 with 45 per cent of the vote, the SNP has enjoyed a long succession of polls showing a majority of support for independence in Scotland over the past year. However, this appeared to slip in March, coinciding with the fallout from Mr Salmond’s explosive claims against Ms Sturgeon over her government’s handling of sexual harassment allegations against him.

At the party’s launch days earlier, Mr Salmond had faced questions over his past “inappropriate” behaviour with women, alleged in a trial at Scotland’s High Court where he was acquitted of 13 charges of sexual assault against nine women.

Mr Salmond said the conference would also discuss the party’s positions on “economic recovery from Covid, education, women and equality”, stressing the diversity of its 32 candidates.

In Holyrood elections, voters cast two ballots – one decided by the “first past the post” system used in Westminster, and a second “list” or “regional” ballot, in a form of proportional representation.

Mr Salmond’s decision not to field candidates in the main constituency vote on 6 May – instead focusing solely on securing seats via voters’ second ballots – is a tactic that analysts and commentators have warned is heavy with risks.

Most notably, if Ms Sturgeon’s party receives less votes in a constituency than expected, the SNP could lose seats as a result of Alba taking its regional votes. Four of the 63 seats won by the SNP in 2015 were regional list seats.

If his tactic succeeds, unionists could seek to paint the victory as nationalists merely winning the vote as opposed to winning voters, undermining the clear mandate Ms Sturgeon hopes to claim for another referendum – currently staunchly opposed in Westminster.

While Mr Salmond’s tactic is somewhat rare (despite George Galloway’s unionist All For Unity party banking on similar methods at the same election), it is essentially an extension of the way in which the pro-independence Scottish Greens already seek to use the “list” vote to secure seats in hugely SNP-dominant areas – a vote Alba now threatens to split.

The tactic of standing only regional list candidates was first used at Holyrood in its first devolved elections in 1999, and saw Robin Harper become the Green Party’s first elected parliamentarian in the UK. Six more Green politicians won Scottish seats in 2003 on a similar “second vote Green” campaign.

However, as The Scotsman reports, no pro-independence party other than the SNP or the Greens have won representation in Holyrood since 2006.

According to the cofounder of polling aggregator Britain Elects, Ben Walker, the Alba Party needs some 6 per cent of the list vote to win seats, and could possibly need to steal some 12 per cent of votes currently expected to go to the SNP in order to secure a place in Holyrood.

Mr Salmond’s team recently brushed off the results of a Survation poll suggesting his party was backed by 3 per cent of voters, putting it on course to take zero seats, with a spokesperson saying these “early indications put Alba within touching distance of representation across Scotland”.

“With five weeks still to go Alba’s support can only grow as we approach polling day,” they added. “It is worth noting that Alba has already achieved, in three days, approaching half the level of support of the Liberal Democrats, a party which has existed for over a century.”

An SNP spokesperson said: “It’s clear that the SNP is the only party serious about governing Scotland, and the only party with the ambitious policies needed to deliver a strong, fair and green recovery and protect our NHS.

“Only giving both votes to the SNP in May can re-elect Nicola Sturgeon as first minister and put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands – not Boris Johnson’s.”