Alex Salmond, the disgraced former First Minister of Scotland, has decided to return once more to the political fray with his ego-driven movement, the Alba Party. Currently devoid of any policies to distinguish it from the Scottish National Party (SNP), its purpose seems little more than to provide a Silvio Berlusconi-esque platform to allow Salmond a fleeting return to the spotlight. Salmond, who was acquitted of sexual assault charges with the significant caveat that his behaviour towards women had been astonishingly creepy, has decided that he is fit to re-enter public office with his rag-tag band of pariah nationalists who had long been embarrassment for the SNP. The sheer audacity it takes him to even consider public life again is bad enough; much worse that there are significant numbers of people who think his vanity trip is worth endorsing.

The alleged goal of the Alba Party is to maximise the pro-independence vote in the Scottish Parliament and gain a ‘supermajority’. This boils down to playing the electoral system for partisan advantage. It is a horrific abuse of how the proportional system that the Scottish Parliament uses, and it will inevitably undermine the independence camp if the SNP are dependent on them for seats.

The exact number of seats that the Alba Party wins isn’t important. The point is, that if they win seats, and especially if the SNP need their votes to pass an independence referendum bill, then they’ll be influential in the independence process. In other words: the creation of a new nation will have the grubby mittens of the mediocrities, antisemites, and vaccine sceptics who are poised to be elected under the Alba’s broad banner of awfulness. It’s also grimly appropriate that it would be signed off by a man who can’t seem to keep his hands to himself.

So no, this article isn’t going to be about how many seats Salmond will win. To tell you the truth: I have no idea. Nobody has any idea. It’s probably reasonable to assume that they’ll either manage about a seat per region or they’ll be a busted flush. Many others have written about the exact impact of Alba on the SNP, the unionist parties, and on the outcome of the elections given this new entry. There’s no shame in that – that was my initial idea for an article on Alba as well – but at the end of the day, this really isn’t the point. The bottom line is that if you’re voting for Alba, hang your head in shame. It’s a ghastly party with a ghastly leader and a ghastly slate of candidates.

Firstly, let’s go for the easy angle. Alex Salmond himself is self-evidently terrible. For instance, since 2017, he’s had a show on RT, a Russian television channel with close links to Vladimir Putin, legitimising its presence in the UK. He’s a slimy, creepy charlatan who is only standing in this election to undermine Nicola Sturgeon, out of little more than spite. In spite of his evidently horrific attitude towards women, he still believes he is fit to stand for public office. He doesn’t care if this project derails independence. He presumably thinks that his party will expand the pro-independence majority. He may well be right on this, but if he actually wanted to achieve this stated aim, then Salmond would be putting up adverts country-wide to vote for the Scottish Greens on the list vote. The Greens already hold seven seats in Parliament and are easily the best-established pro-independence party other than the SNP itself.

So if Salmond has decided not to go for the easiest path to independence, by taking the simplest route to maximise the number of pro-independence MSPs in Parliament, possibly diminishing the Greens and the total number of pro-independence MSPs, what is his plan? To a cynic, it may seem that by setting up his own personality cult – sorry, party – Salmond simply wants to be a thorn in Sturgeon’s side, bearing out his vendetta against her leadership style. Of course, as we can all attest to Salmond’s deeply modest, humble character, this couldn’t possibly be the case, but let’s at least entertain the thought that Salmond may, in fact, be promoting this new guise for nefarious selfish ends.

Maybe the party is more than just one man’s vanity project? Unfortunately, this doesn’t hold water. The Alba Party has no real policies. It is the SNP if the SNP was exclusively composed of washed-up, third-rate losers with no chance of acceptance in any other mainstream political party. Alba’s unique selling point is that it wants to create a ‘supermajority’ for independence. Aside from being vague to the point of uselessness (having a larger majority does sweet nothing to increase the legitimacy of independence), it is only ‘unique’ in the sense that it’s essentially the only policy that Alba has. As mentioned, the Greens share the same stance on independence, and are not led by an egotistical gargoyle with an approval rating below that of Boris Johnson, so it would seem like a much more decent choice. The fact that the Alba Party has been taking candidates, including MPs, from the SNP demonstrates that it does not exist to complement the SNP, but in the long-term, to compete with it. The party is not so much a blank slate as it is an empty slate, devoid of any coherent vision for the country, seeking only to elect a man manifestly unfit for office to carry on his feud with the First Minister in full view of the public eye.

Astonishingly, the party’s list selection choices diminish its image further yet. Among the candidates the party is fielding are Neale Hanvey, who was suspended from the SNP after making antisemitic posts on Facebook, and was later (disgracefully) reinstated; Alex Arthur, who promoted anti-vax viewpoints and referred to Romanian immigrants as ‘fat as pigs’; a plethora of mediocre (former) MPs, including Corrie Wilson, George Kerevan, and Kenny MacAskill, whom the SNP had distanced themselves from out of embarrassment; and of course, Alex Salmond himself, who – it cannot be emphasised enough – is not able to be trusted around women.

Whatever happens, the presence of the Alba Party will have a profound impact on the future of Scottish politics. From an electoral standpoint, this will be a very interesting election. However, from a humane standpoint, I request only this: don’t vote for the Alba Party. Scotland is surely above nursing the ego of a slimy, grotesque Putin-paid propagandist who can’t be trusted around women. So please, in this election, don’t vote for this weapons-grade tosser and his cacophony of yes-men, and back someone who can be trusted around women instead. The bar is on the floor; let’s try to surpass it.

If you want to prevent this nightmare from manifesting, then luckily, there’s a very easy way to do so! If you live in Scotland, simply follow the link below, and wipe the smile off Salmond’s smug face:

https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote