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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The Alba Party is campaigning to have the Scottish GRR stopped

24 replies

IwantToRetire · 13/04/2023 16:57

According to a poll, which is available on Alba’s website, gender reform is “opposed by a majority of the people of Scotland”.
It is accompanied by a series of statistics which suggest that the majority of Scots reject the proposals made in the bill

“The green tail is wagging the SNP dog and as a result the SNP are holding back the cause of independence.

“The controversial gender reforms are overwhelmingly opposed by a majority of Scots. If the Scottish Government want a showdown with Westminster then they should make it over the scandal of fuel poor Scots living in energy rich Scotland.

“It’s time for the Scottish Government to focus on issues that matter to the people of Scotland and axe their gender obsession.”

News story from the National published by yahoo https://uk.news.yahoo.com/alba-party-launch-petition-axe-123105089.html

(Not being in Scotland I dont know how significant it is that Alba is saying this the day after the SNP said they were going to legally challenge the UK Parliament blocking the GRR Bill.)

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Ingenieur · 13/04/2023 17:05

Alba was always the conservative mirror to the SNP's progressive outlook. It makes sense that there are people who are culturally conservative but also welcome independence and is a good way of eventually diminishing the importance of the UK-wide parties.

Alba have not been performing amazingly, so I presume this is both an appeal to their base, but also an indication that there is another Indy-focused option without the baggage of social justice.

IwantToRetire · 13/04/2023 17:08

Thanks for that. But culturally conservative, ie wouldn't work with Scottish Tories as they are for Independence for Scotland?

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Ingenieur · 13/04/2023 17:11

Yes, the Scottish Tories are anti-independence.

I tend to think of Alba as the Scottish Conservatives, but pro Indy

MrSheepy · 13/04/2023 17:28

What is economically conservative in particular about Alba?

IwantToRetire · 13/04/2023 17:52

Okay, I think I have got the impression that because the media talks about Alba (because of Alex Salmond?) that they had more of a presence than they actually have.

ie no current MSPs? And no election due of MSPs until 2026?

And that currently there are more MSPs who are not SNP - well by one only!

So in theory if all these non SNP MSPs worked together they could out vote the SNP.

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Aaron95 · 13/04/2023 18:00

Alba are run by a mysogenist who only narrowly avoided a crimminal conviction for sexual offences against women. The party was only founded to placate his ego after he was ejected from the SNP. I'd sooner vote for the BNP.

BlackForestCake · 13/04/2023 19:01

Ingenieur and Aaron are talking nonsense. Alba is significantly to the left of the SNP on economic matters, and of course more progressive in defending women’s rights.

Alba performed disappointingly in the last election partly because it was so new. More recent polls have shown it reaching 5% which would gain it seats in the Scottish Parliament.

Mochudubh · 13/04/2023 19:32

Salmond himself gives me the heebies but if Alba are the only GC alternative to the Tories, they've got my vote. I 've been an SNP voter almost my whole adult life but never again. Even without the GR nonsense, they have created a shitshow that has made Independence all but impossible in my remaining lifetime and as I've said on other threads, for that I will never, ever forgive them.

TheBiologyStupid · 13/04/2023 20:18

Interesting.

When did the SNP lose the "Tartan Tories" tag and become "progressive" (for want of a better word)?

ThomasinaLivesHere · 13/04/2023 20:24

I don’t get the quote about the green tail wagging the dog. The SNP chose on their own to support this nonsense. It’s not the greens controlling them.

Alba are just irrelevant and I don’t see them becoming significant. Like another poster said they were just created because Alec Salmond was pissed off at being rejected by snp.

BlackForestCake · 13/04/2023 21:03

TheBiologyStupid · 13/04/2023 20:18

Interesting.

When did the SNP lose the "Tartan Tories" tag and become "progressive" (for want of a better word)?

Tartan Tories wasn't ever really accurate, it was more a slur used by the Labour Party. The SNP was slowly moving leftwards from about the 1970s onwards in response to deindustrialisation and Thatcherism.

When Labour moved to the right under Blair, the SNP moved left to fill the gap and hoovered up ex-Labour voters wholesale. These got them from being a fringe party with an occasional by-election victory to being able to win first past the post seats regularly.

TheBiologyStupid · 13/04/2023 21:35

Thanks, BlackForestCake.

IwantToRetire · 13/04/2023 21:39

When Labour moved to the right under Blair, the SNP moved left to fill the gap and hoovered up ex-Labour voters wholesale.

And is one of the reasons why in the UK Parliament Labour will be lucky to get a majority. If the SNP's recently revealed (though known by many) bad practice, questionable financial management and more (as well as GI) mean some will move from voting SNP to Labour in a UK GE, Labour will have more chance of winning. In the past UK Labour had come to expect Scottish votes.

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TheBiologyStupid · 13/04/2023 21:49

Christ! - I just started reading the Wikipedia article:

The party was divided on its approach to the Second World War. Professor Douglas Young, who was SNP leader from 1942 to 1945, campaigned for the Scottish people to refuse conscription and his activities were popularly vilified as undermining the British war effort against the Axis powers. Young was imprisoned for refusing to be conscripted. However, others in the party were explicitly pro-Nazi. Hugh MacDiarmid, who stood as an SNP candidate in 1945, believed that the Nazis were "less dangerous than our own government" and wrote a poem about the London Blitz that included the line "I hardly care". Arthur Donaldson, who went on to lead the party between 1961 and 1969, believed a Nazi invasion would benefit Scotland.

But women are the ones aligned with the far right, of course...

BlackForestCake · 13/04/2023 21:51

It's often claimed that "Labour needs Scotland", but every Labour government has had a majority in England except one.

Babdoc · 13/04/2023 22:59

Meanwhile Rishi Sunak has just stated in an interview that nobody with a penis can be a woman, and that he’s committed to protecting women’s single sex spaces and sports. Thank goodness for Westminster and the Tories (not a sentiment often expressed on MN, I know…!)

IwantToRetire · 13/04/2023 23:09

It's often claimed that "Labour needs Scotland", but every Labour government has had a majority in England except one.

But that doesn't mean they would have an overall majority in that the UK Parliament is made up of more than just England!

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stealtheatingtunnocks · 13/04/2023 23:30

I’m not sure, I would vote for a party that knows what a woman is, but I’m not a nationalist

SageHoney · 14/04/2023 00:31

At the last UK general election, the number of Conservative seats won was so high that if every single person eligible to vote in Scotland had voted for Labour, the Conservatives would still have won an outright majority.

The SNP run the gamut. Their supporters are mainly united by wanting independence, and logically would stick to the party most likely to do the formal political work of facilitating it. Some long-term members have left over the recent leadership’s stance on various issues, but many others are determined not to cede “their” party to whatever faction's in power for the moment. Policy-wise, the SNP are classified as centre left just like Scottish Labour. (Even the SGP are now "centre left to left"). Alba, according to Ballot Box Scotland, is unclassifiable ... but they also equate them to the older leftist SNP splinter party Solidarity, which formally joined with Alba, and which Ballot Box considers "left". So, Schroedinger's politicians, I guess.

Alba have also only been around for two years; they weren't founded by Salmond but they got no press coverage at all until he stepped in as leader. The Independence for Scotland Party (ISP), Scotia Future, and Volt - all formed the previous year - got no coverage even locally. All for Unity, their anti-nat counterpart, got probably more than its share because George Galloway's a known name.

Thus, Alba: covered by the press because of Salmond - much more seriously in the European and other segments of the international press than by the UK press, which basically just asked how it felt not to be convicted of sexual assault. But Scotland, like the whole UK, is still heavily conservative in terms of political culture, in spite of bits of PR. I can't see any new party raking in members and seats like in Spain, Italy, France, Poland, Slovakia, Latvia, etc. 2 MPs and a handful of council seats isn't so bad, but Holyrood's essentially had the same five parties since its inception, and the few MSPs who've switched party or gone independent never seem to get re-elected.

Anyway, this GRR position is consistent with Alba's overt support for protecting women's rights (which MRAs are determined to cast as right-wing - women are overprivileged! women aren't even a minority! although I think that script's no longer working as well in Scotland). But most of all, it's part of their overarching "independence first" focus - they've also just launched a petition demanding that ScotGov focus on independence (fair enough, as Sturgeon did promise a second referendum this year) and mentioning a bunch of things including self-ID that they claim have displaced that goal for the SNP.

MerlinsLostMarbles · 14/04/2023 00:34

I have a feeling the Alba party don't have much influence on pretty much anything.

HirplesWithHaggis · 14/04/2023 02:04

stealtheatingtunnocks · 13/04/2023 23:30

I’m not sure, I would vote for a party that knows what a woman is, but I’m not a nationalist

Alba and ISP have more policies than just independence. And even if they got another referendum, you wouldn't have to vote Yes.

Fukuraptor · 14/04/2023 04:41

Judging the political landscape in left/right terms up here is complicated by the SNP's rhetoric under Sturgeon being significantly more left of center than their actual actions/policies. The SNP under Salmond were small c conservative, small state, Celtic tiger economic ideas about independence etc, ran a steady as she goes Scottish parliament refusing to use the powers it had to do anything much just carrying on popular policies from the Lab/Lib years.

Sturgeon gained significant support from erstwhile Labour voters during the 2015 General election campaign because she had significant national attention for challenging the Conservatives during leadership debates whilst Labour was trying to convince floating center voters it could be trusted economically. So she appeared left wing and the SNP MPs at Westminster maintained that appearance by having a go at the Conservatives.

But policy wise in Scottish parliament they still dragged their heels about using the parliament's powers to do anything. A lot of the policies that they have later adopted and celebrated e.g. varying the tax, Scottish child payment, even some of the social campaigns, were demanded for years by Labour and the Libdems and only reluctantly adopted by the SNP who were much more focused upon pushing for indy than using the devolved powers for good.

I don't know a lot about Alba outside of Salmond but because of him I wouldn't have placed it left of the SNP but I haven't looked at it in depth because they are small and I'm not in favour of leaving the UK.

Mochudubh · 14/04/2023 09:05

The more I think about it, part of the problem was not that the SNP were "obsessed with independence" and should "focus on the day job", but the opposite.

GRR, Ferries, named persons, baby boxes etc etc all came under the "day job".

In my view they should have been focused on Independence, that's their raison d'etre and anyone voting for them would know that and accept that might be the outcome.

THEY HAD ONE JOB. 😡

stealtheatingtunnocks · 15/04/2023 08:59

I had no idea there were so many indie parties.

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