Two Scottish MPs defect to Salmond’s Alba Party

EDINBURGH: Alex Salmond has said he “hopes and believes” there will be no need for Scottish MPs to be in Westminster after two members defected to the Alba Party.

Neale Hanvey followed East Lothian MP Kenny MacAskill in joining the newly-formed operation.

Salmond announced he would be standing as a candidate in May’s Holyrood election on Friday, as part of plans to gain a “supermajority” for independence supporters in the Parliament.

He told Times Radio: “I hope and believe that Scottish nationalists at Westminster will be looking to the day that he or she would be transferred to the Scottish Parliament and it’s quite reasonable that Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey think that that is going to be within this term of the parliament given the political opportunity that we now sense.”

Hanvey was previously suspended by the SNP for using anti-Semitic language on social media. He apologised for any offence caused in the days following his suspension.

The MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath also lost his role as SNP vaccine spokesman in February after posting a message on a crowdfunder page raising money to bring a defamation action against Aberdeen North MP Kirsty Blackman and others.

Hanvey said: “The people of Scotland will always be my priority and it’s therefore a very real honour to be standing for Alba and an independence supermajority.”

Scottish Labour campaign co-chair Neil Bibby said: “Neale Hanvey and Kenny MacAskill must both stand down and give their constituents the chance to elect politicians more interested in guaranteeing Scotland’s recovery than endlessly refighting yesterday’s war.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat campaign chair Alistair Carmichael MP said: “Like paint chipping off an old and decaying wall, Neale Hanvey’s defection is the latest episode in the nationalists’ bitter, twisted and divided civil war.”

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: “Sturgeon and Salmond may now despise each other but they are united by their obsessive determination to rip Scotland out of the United Kingdom. All focus should be on the pandemic and our recovery but Sturgeon’s SNP and Salmond’s ultra-nationalists want this election to be another divisive fight about the constitution.”

Former Holyrood justice secretary MacAskill told Sky’s Ridge on Sunday he would not be standing down to allow a by-election.

North Lanarkshire councillor Lynne Anderson has also defected from the SNP to Alba.

The party launch comes after a turbulent period for the SNP and the Scottish government, led by Salmond’s successor Nicola Sturgeon. The Alba Party will only be standing candidates in the regional lists in an attempt to boost pro-independence numbers in Holyrood.

Salmond urged voters to back the SNP or another pro-independence party in the constituency seats.

Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said: “This new party has been thrown together at the last minute by a man who is less popular in Scotland than Boris Johnson is.”

An SNP spokesman said: “The SNP is focused on tackling Covid-19 and securing a strong, fair and green recovery for Scotland as an independent country in a post-pandemic referendum. Only both votes SNP on May 6 can put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands – not Boris Johnson’s.”