Will the SNP team up with ‘awful’ Alba?

The SNP’s 90th party conference has finally wrapped up in Scotland, after the Nats spent a long weekend discussing their flailing party’s fortunes. Support for the party has been on the decline since the pandemic, with its latest leader John Swinney presiding over a rather disastrous general election result that saw his party left with just nine seats. And now, in a bid to stop the ‘fragmentation’ of the nationalist movement, some in his group have even suggested breaking bread with their rivals…

Pete Wishart, the SNP’s longest-serving MP and former Runrig band member, made the rather curious suggestion at the weekend that his group should work with former first minister Alex Salmond’s Alba party – despite it saying ‘really awful’ things. After the party’s deputy leader Keith Brown called for a constitutional ‘convention’ for pro-indy politicians, Wishart admitted: ‘Alba are a feature of Scottish politics and we have to accept the reality.’