[SCOT goes POP!] They don't call him "Mad Dog" for nothing - the Alba Party may face a coup attempt from their disgraced former General Secretary Chris McEleny, even though they've already expelled him

[ALBA-Bot]

They don't call him "Mad Dog" for nothing - the Alba Party may face a coup attempt from their disgraced former General Secretary Chris McEleny, even though they've already expelled him

Below is an up-to-date screenshot of the Alba Party's registration with the Electoral Commission. 

As you can see, one of the party's three official "officers" (officers recognised by the Electoral Commission are to some extent distinct from those recognised by the party's own constitution) is none other than a man who has already been expelled from the party, namely the disgraced former General Secretary Chris McEleny.  By any standards, this is an intriguing metaphysical state of affairs.  When Alba took action against me a few months ago, I checked the rules and it appeared to me that any expulsion took effect as soon as the Disciplinary Committee had reached their decision, notwithstanding the right of appeal.  If that's correct, a non-member of Alba effectively still has a degree of control over the party.  (Admittedly, Corri Wilson's interpretation of the rules seemed to be different - her email telling me that my appeal has been rejected implied that I only ceased to be a member at that point, which would mean that McEleny is still technically an Alba member pending any appeal.)

Before taking the screenshot, I scrolled down far enough so that you can't see the first line of Alba's registered postal address, just in case that would breach McEleny's privacy.  The fact that the address is in Greenock implies that Alba may yet again be making history for all the wrong reasons by being the first party ever to have their official headquarters in the basement of a man they've expelled.

You might wonder if the Electoral Commission simply haven't updated the details yet (after all, McEleny is listed as "Councillor Christopher McEleny" even though he hasn't been a councillor for three years), but as far as I've been able to gather that's not the case - McEleny does seem to remain Alba's Nominating Officer, which means that he is the only person allowed to put forward Alba candidates for local, Holyrood or Westminster elections unless he specifically authorises someone else to do so.  

Why don't Alba just sack him, you might wonder?  They can't.  Check the Electoral Commission rules.  A change of officer requires the signatures of all three current officers, unless it can be demonstrated that one of the officers has died or is unable to sign for some other reason.  It appears that, so far at least, McEleny has not voluntarily signed, which is the only way he can be removed.

So what is he playing at this time?  He may be looking for leverage, which would be in keeping with the pattern of the repeated high-profile leaks of damaging information to unionist tabloids over the last few months (the purpose of the leaks was presumably to send the message "there'll be plenty more of this if you expel me").  If we read in the coming days or weeks that McEleny's appeal against expulsion has succeeded against all the odds, that's highly likely to mean the Alba leadership have given in to blackmail in order to stop the leaks and to regain control of the crucial Nominating Officer position.

But we also know enough about McEleny for there to be little doubt that he's perfectly capable of some truly extreme behaviour - remember when he tried to suspend his own party leader Kenny MacAskill from attending NEC meetings.  He justified it as being in line with the precedent the NEC themselves had set a few months earlier by unconstitutionally barring "former party member James Kelly" from meetings of the Constitution Review Group, which I was an elected member of.  He's therefore quite capable of seeing through the nuclear option of remaining Alba's Nominating Officer even after his expulsion is formally upheld.  That would allow him to nominate his own slate of Alba candidates in the 2026 Holyrood election, including presumably himself as lead candidate in the West region.  Alba's own chosen list of candidates would be virtually an irrelevance, left to be butchered at McEleny's whim.

The Alba leadership's only defence against this would be to either cut a generous deal with McEleny (which again would amount to a surrender to blackmail) or to nominally set up a new party, which under Electoral Commission rules would need to have a new name.  That would leave McEleny, and presumably Ash Regan (and Stew?), in control of the rump "official Alba", which they would paint as the true inheritor of the telepathic Salmondite flame.

If all of this sounds far-fetched, you may be surprised to learn that most of it has happened before when the Respect party split into two.  However monumentally stupid the law is, there's no way around it - if an official party officer flatly refuses to go, there's no way of forcing him to, and a new organisation may be the only viable option left.

The mind boggles.  Be sure to get lots of popcorn in.

Source: They don't call him "Mad Dog" for nothing - the Alba Party may face a coup attempt from their disgraced former General Secretary Chris McEleny, even though they've already expelled him