Scottish Election 2021: How Alex Salmond and George Galloway could help deliver an artificial majority for independence – Murdo Fraser

As the Holyrood election campaign gets into full swing after the Easter weekend, we can expect a raft of new opinion polls showing where support for the various political parties now sits.

A Panelbase poll at the weekend suggested Alex Salmond’s Alba party could achieve six per cent of the party or list votes, potentially giving them six seats. It is part of the former First Minister’s strategy to create a “super-majority” for independence in the next parliament.

This tactic is little more than an attempt to game the voting system to deliver an artificial majority for independence. Polling on the independence question suggests the country is split more or less precisely down the middle, with most polls in 2020 showing a small majority in favour of separating from the rest of Britain, and more recent surveys showing a small majority for remaining.

Any clever tactics to try and produce a larger majority of pro-independence seats at Holyrood should be seen for the cynical manoeuvres that they are, rather than an attempt to deliver a Scottish Parliament truly representative of public opinion.

It is not just on the nationalist side that we see a disruptive element. The All for Unity party, set up by George Galloway, polled at four per cent according to PanelBase, which could grant them one seat at Holyrood.

Unfortunately, that four per cent comes from other pro-Union parties, and is likely to cost them many more seats than the one that would be gained by Galloway’s vanity project.

At the last Holyrood election in 2016, the Scottish Conservatives performed better than even the most optimistic polls suggested. We won 31 seats, depriving the SNP of a parliamentary majority, and stopping any momentum towards another independence referendum at that point.

All for Unity, led by George Galloway, may damage the unionist cause by splitting the vote, says Scottish Conservative candidate Murdo Fraser (Picture: Chris Radburn/PA)

This only happened because Conservative supporters used both their votes to back the party, the first for the constituency candidate, and the second for the party list. It was this latter element that was crucial in electing more Conservatives to Holyrood than ever before.

What the latest polling tells us is that splitting the pro-Union vote and using the party vote to back an untried new entrant simply takes votes, and seats, away from the established unionist parties. This actually helps elect more pro-independence MSPs, from the SNP, Greens or even Alba.

As the largest pro-UK party at Holyrood, it is the Scottish Conservatives who have the most to gain by encouraging voters to support us with both votes. To do anything else, however well intended, simply helps the nationalists.

It’s no surprise that tactical voting guides produced by mainstream pro-UK campaign groups like Scotland in Union encourage support for all three existing pro-Union parties in the party vote. That is the way the pro-Union vote at Holyrood is maximised. Voting for smaller, maverick parties will simply assist the SNP.

Galloway may hate the description, but in this election he is acting as Nicola’s little helper.

Both he and Salmond, in different ways, may skew the election results to deliver more pro-independence MSPs in May than is truly representative of public opinion. That might suit Salmond, but is a bizarre position for a supposedly ‘unionist’ politician to put himself in, unless, of course, Galloway has another agenda.

Murdo Fraser is the Scottish Conservative candidate for Perthshire North

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