Alba's financial difficulties due to fraud, leader claims

The Alba Party's financial difficulties are the result of it being defrauded, its leader has claimed.

Kenny MacAskill announced this weekend that the pro-independence party was unlikely to field candidates in May's Holyrood election due to a lack of funds.

Police Scotland has been investigating alleged "irregularities" in the party's finances since May last year.

MacAskill told BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast on Monday that the party was in a "very difficult position".

Four senior Alba members have offered to take over the party to ensure it can contest the election.

Kirk Torrance, a former Alba candidate who was an adviser to Alex Salmond when he founded the party, has also called on MacAskill to stand down.

Torrance, who also advised the SNP under Salmond's leadership, told BBC Scotcast: "I think a change of leadership is probably reasonable at this stage.

"You cannot go and say things are over and then say, 'I'm going to stay on and be the leader'.

"If other people, serious people, are stepping forward to take up the mantle, with a strategic hat on, I would suggest under new management things can change."

But MacAskill said he expected to continue as leader.

MacAskill told BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast: "You can have a great deal of wishful thinking but you also have to have a practical reality.

"And unfortunately as a result, we believe, of a fraud perpetrated upon us, the Alba Party finds itself in a very precarious position."

MacAskill warned that the party was currently unable to meet all of its financial obligations or fund an election campaign.

He added that Alba had asked the Electoral Commission about the possibility of fielding candidates, but that the situation was "very difficult".

On Sunday, four Alba members - Tommy Sheridan, Angus MacNeil, Christina Hendry and Suzanne Blackley - said the party leadership had "left the door open for a transition team to take the party forward".

MacAskill told Radio Scotland Breakfast: "The decision to stand as Alba Party is a decision for the Alba Party and will be made by the national executive committee. It will not be made by any individual.

"It will be for the national executive committee – not from me as an individual or indeed from Tommy Sheridan or Angus Brendan MacNeil – it's for the national executive committee collectively."

The police investigation followed a row between the party and its former general secretary, Chris McEleny, who was dismissed last year after being accused of gross misconduct.

When the police probe was reported in October, a source close to McEleny said he was "completely content that the finances of the party under the leadership of Alex Salmond were both sound and compliant".

On Monday, the source said that if Alba did not contest the election "it will be as a result of nothing other than the sheer incompetence of the current leadership team".

Salmond, Scotland's former first minister, launched Alba in 2021, aiming to win a "supermajority for independence".

However, the party has failed to make electoral breakthroughs since then, winning just 0.5% of the vote in Scotland at last year's general election.