Alba’s results ‘very disappointing’ as ‘best hope’ polls 274 votes

Alex Salmond has claimed it will “take time” for his Alba party to build enough support to achieve elected candidates after his “best hope” polled just 274 votes.

The party put up 111 candidates – a number of whom were elected as SNP councillors in 2017 before defecting to Mr Salmond’s party when it launched last year – but failing to have any councillors elected.

Mr Salmond said it was “very disappointing” that Brian Topping, the Alba candidateandveteranofnortheast politics, took just 274 votes in the Fraserburgh District.

Mr Topping was a SNP councillor in Fraserburgh for almost38yearsbeforedefecting to Alba last year.

Mr Salmond said: “It was very disappointing. Brian was our best hope. He was fourth on the first preference, but then got squeezed out. It was still a good result for him, because he came so close."

The former first minister added: “We are making progress, but it takes time.”

On why he had been unable to pull significant votes away from the SNP, Mr Salmond said “there was a lot of awareness of Alba that was not there”.

He said: “We have had some outstanding candidates, but it takes time. We have lots of new people. We are learning all the time.

“Essentially our next target is the Scottish elections in four years’ time. We have 3.1 per cent of the share in Aberdeenshire today and to get elected to Holyrood you need 4-5 per cent. Our share of the voteisencouraging.it’scashin the bank for the future.”

He said it remained Alba’s priority to get “Scottish independence addressed as matter of urgency”.

Mr Salmond said: “We need to end this prevarication. If thatdoesn’thappen,wewould have thought our position in fouryears’timewillbestrong.

"We want to put that to the test. Scottish independence is where Alba will stand or fall. People will look to Alba to inject urgency into the system.”

In Banff and District, Alba came last with Mr Salmond’s long-term friend and former SNP colleague Iain Cameron, who has 55 years political experience, polling just 73 votes.

Over in Inverclyde, Chris Mceleny, the general secretary of the party, returned just 126 votes.

Mr Topping, whose election lossbringstoanendalmost40 years of service to local politics, said he was “devastated” that he would no longer be a councillor.

However, he said he had “absolutely no regrets” about switching to the Alba party last year.

The response came as the Conservatives gained three seats in Aberdeenshire as the ‘Partygate’ scandal failed to dent the party’s performance in the North-east.

The Tories, who previously formed a ruling coalition at Aberdeenshire Council with the Liberal Democrats and a handful of independents, made gains in Troup, Ellon and Turriff.

The party now has two councillors in each of these wards, with both the SNP and independents losing members.

John Duncan, chairman of the Conservative and Unionist Party Association in Aberdeenshire, said the area was “bucking the trend”.

While the number of Conservativeinthecouncilchamber has increased from 18 to 21, Mr Duncan said ‘Partygate’ had probably harmed the party’s chances of shoring up more votes.

Mr Duncan said: “It probably has prevented us from gaining more second seats. We had been looking to get second councillors in central Buchan and Peterhead, but wemissedoutongettingthem by around 20 to 30 votes.”

Meanwhile, in Aberdeen City,thesnpgainedonecouncillor, giving them 20 members in the council chamber.

Labour gained two seats in wards that lost SNP and independent members and now have 11 seats.

Following the 2017 election, nine Labour members were suspended by Scottish Labour after entering a coalition with the Conservatives.