Electoral Commission ‘letting Holocaust-denier disrupt Scottish elections’ Livingstone defends probe into SNP finances
THE Electoral Commission has been accused of “letting” a Holocaust denier “disrupt” Scottish elections by posing as a Green figure, taking votes from the real Scottish Greens.
Anthony Carroll, a councillor in Glasgow, spoke out after the Hillhead by-election in the city’s West End revealed what he called “concrete” evidence of the impact of the Independent Green Voice (IGV) on voters.
Hillhead was the Scottish Greens’ first ever by-election victory, but they very nearly lost out as they did in the South Scotland list in the 2021 Holyrood elections when the IGV also ran against them.
IGV were registered with the Electoral Commission in 2003, but only changed their logo from a forearm with a thumbs up to a leaf with the phrase Independent Green Voice on March 23, 2021.
Carroll said that he had spoken to multiple voters who had to request a new ballot paper after accidentally ticking the IGV’s box. Others reported voting before realising they had inadvertently given IGV their second preference instead of the Greens or SNP.
One Green voter who spoke to The National said they had almost voted for IGV accidentally before seeing the name of the candidate – Alistair McConnachie.
McConnachie is a Holocaust-denying ultra-Unionist and IGV has previously been labelled a “fascist front” by the Scottish Greens.
POLICE Scotland’s former chief constable has defended the longrunning investigation into SNP finances.
Iain Livingstone spoken with the Herald on Sunday almost a year on from when the inquiry escalated, with the search of the home of former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell.
So far, both Sturgeon and Murrell as well as former SNP treasurer Colin Beattie have all been arrested and released without charge.
The operation was first launched in July 2021.
Livingstone left Police Scotland last August and is now leading Operation Kenovo – a long-running investigation relating to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The claims McConnachie’s IGV are impacting on Green votes seem to have a basis in the figures from the Hillhead by-election, which show that 13.4% of SNP voters and 14.3% of Green voters put IGV as their second preference.
Conversely, 37.6% of people who voted for IGV as their first preference put the Greens as their second, while 27.1% of them put the SNP.
Carroll said: “For context, in [the 2022 local elections] about twothirds of the SNP second preferences went to us. Now, since the presence of this guy, he got 13% of them, and we got [43%].
“He had a marked effect with this confusion. There’s no doubt that that’s his intent here.”
Polling expert Professor John Curtice told The National he could see why both the Greens and the SNP may want to raise the issue with the Electoral Commission.
If the by-election had been run under a first-past-the-post system, not single-transferable vote, the effect of the IGV would have swung it away from the Greens.
As the Electoral Reform Society reported: “Had this election been under first-past-the-post, IGV would have drawn enough votes away from the Scottish Greens to result in a Labour victory.”
In an online article looking at the by-election, the charity added: “Voters shouldn’t have to spend their time trying to avoid electoral tricks and traps. We need electoral systems
He was pressed on concerns the ongoing investigation is damaging the SNP in the run-up to the next General Election.
“We have always acted in the interests of justice and the rule of law. The political circumstances are around us at all times,” he said.
“I know we have acted with due process. But I have been retired a matter of months now and the matter of Branchform is no longer a matter for me.”
He was further pressed on whether or not a £110,000 campervan at the centre of the investigation should be returned.
The vehicle was towed away by the force last year from outside Sturgeon’s mother-in-law’s house in Dunfermline.
Asked if this should be returned, he said: “I don’t think anything that work for voters, not systems voters have to work around.”
Carroll said that the evidence showed the Electoral Commission, which controls the names and logos parties can use on ballot papers, had to act.
“This person is not here to present any alternative, independent, so-called green voice,” Carroll said. “He’s just there to disrupt, where he can, potential for any Scottish Green politicians to win.
“He did that here in Hillhead. He did it in 2021, and unfortunately succeeded.
“The Electoral Commission is actually letting him do it at this point. The Electoral Commission just tried to wash their hands of it.
“Because with STV you get that concrete breakdown it is very clear what happened with the votes, in particular for those transfers.”
Asked if they would be taking a fresh look at the impact of IGV on Scottish elections given the new evidence from the Hillhead by-election, the Electoral Commission remained intransigent.
A spokesperson said: “We approved an application from Independent Green Voice to register this emblem in March 2021. The application was subject to a detailed assessment against the statutory criteria, including the requirement that voters would not likely be confused with another party’s emblem, as a result of how their emblem looks on a ballot paper.
“The emblem includes the full party name and is visually different to should be happening until there is a decision from the Crown Office.”
Last week, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn joked that the campervan could be given to the Tartan Army for Euro 2024 in Germany.
He also said he still believed comments he made last year when he said, “the sooner Operation Branchform is over the better for everyone”.
“I said the sooner things come to a head for everyone, the better, and I still believe that,” he said.
Livingstone also said he would not give advice to his successor Jo Farrell, saying it would be “inappropriate” to do so but that he wanted both her and the force to “do really well”.
He also rejected criticisms, including from SNP chief executive any other already registered emblem.
“The application was published on our website for public scrutiny and comment. Any comments we receive are given careful consideration before a decision is made. No comments were received in relation to this application.”
Despite the Electoral Commission’s comment, the National has previously reported how hundreds of people complained in the wake of the 2021 Holyrood election about IGV’s name and logo misleading voters.
Murray Foote, that the operation had been heavy handed in the search of Sturgeon and Murrell’s home, including the erection of an evidence tent outside the couple’s home.
He said: “I think it was proportionate and necessary, as I said at the time, and I still believe I would have been in neglect of duty had we not acted as we did.”
A Police Scotland spokesperson told The Herald: “As the investigation remains ongoing we are unable to comment.”
A spokesperson for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said: “All Scotland’s prosecutors act independently of political interference.
“As is routine, to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations, we do not comment in detail on their conduct.”
THE SNP have cause to raise concerns with the Electoral Commission over the impact of a “fascist” fringe party on Scottish elections, Professor John Curtice has said.
The eminent political expert, who teaches at Strathclyde University, spoke to The National about concerns raised by the Scottish Greens around the “Independent Green Voice” (IGV).
Founded by Alistair McConnachie – a Holocaust-denier who was kicked out of Ukip for his extremist views – IGV uses a leaf and the words Independent Green Voice on ballot papers after the Electoral Commission approved a change in early 2021.
McConnachie used the IGV branding in the recent Hillhead by-election in Glasgow, and Greens have raised concerns that he is looking to sow “confusion” and rob them of votes with a “fascist front”.
“He’s just there to disrupt, where he can, potential for any Scottish Green politicians to win,” councillor Anthony Carroll told The National, adding: “The Electoral Commission is actually letting him do it at this point.”
Carroll pointed to the data from the Hillhead by-election as evidence that IGV was succeeding in an attempt to dupe voters, as the party won a seemingly disproportionate number of second preferences from SNP and Green voters.
Asked if it was compelling evidence that IGV was disrupting the vote, Curtice said: “I’d put it like this, I can see why somebody might think that it supports their case.
“In so far as that might be thought to be true, it could be argued that the SNP have as much to be unhappy about as the Greens.”
Asked to explain, he said: “Because, of the 146 people whose ballots were transferred when [IGV were knocked out of the running under the single-transferable vote system], 55 went to the Greens, 37 went to the SNP.”
Curtice, below, went on: “I grant that you would expect people who are aware of Mr McConnachie’s position to switch to the Tories, who were still in the count at this stage, but only seven ballots went in that direction. “So, the point is that it isn’t just the word ‘green’ that appears in his affiliation, it’s also the word ‘independent’.
“I can see why they might – why both parties [SNP and Greens] might – want to go to the Electoral Commission and say ‘hang on’.”
The Greens argue that IGV’s vote share far exceeds what you might expect from a party that didn’t run a ground campaign.
Asked if this was the case, Curtice said: “Well, he beat the Liberal Democrat, in Hillhead, you know.
“I know it’s not the Hillhead that was the centre of a once-upon-a-time Liberal Democrat parliamentary seat, but he still managed to beat the Liberal Democrats.
“I suppose you can say that’s evidence of confusion.”
Curtice added: “What I am willing to say to you is I can see why the Greens and perhaps the SNP might wish to draw the attention of the Electoral Commission to this particular result.”