Taking an active interest in these matters as I do, today I downloaded a copy of the Wee Alba Book which was launched with much fanfare at the Wee Alba Conference a few days ago. I will not claim to have read every word. But I have scanned every page and done a few searches and I can’t say the publication lives up to the hype. For the most part, it reads very much like an SNP publication. The tone is the same. Much of the content is the same. I was unable to find anything which marks Wee Alba as significantly different from the SNP.
What I didn’t find, of course, was any explanation of how Wee Alba intended to be instrumental in delivering independence as promised by their 2021 election manifesto. There was also no mention of the Union or of a referendum or even a plebiscite. The word ‘supermajority’ is nowhere to be found. Nor is the word ‘sovereignty’. Nor ‘self-determination’ There is, in fact, nary a single clue or hint as to what Wee Aba actually intends to contribute to the fight to restore Scotland’s independence. Beyond rehashing all the policy stuff that has so effectively buried the constitutional issue.
There is nothing about the process by which Scotland’s independence is to be restored and not a word about the timetable. Unless that is, I’ve missed something. In which case I’d be delighted to be corrected.
Wee Alba claims its book presents “The New Case for Independence“. It doesn’t do that. Indeed, the fact that it adopts the approach of trying to make a case for independence demonstrates that Wee Alba’s perspective on the constitutional issue departs not one hair’s breadth from Sturgeon orthodoxy.
Show me a document that opens by denouncing and repudiating the Section 30 process and I’ll start to think we might have a new force in the fight to restore Scotland’s independence. The Wee Alba Book is a lot less than it appears.
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Peter A Bell 
Damn!
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‘ was unable to find anything which marks Wee Alba as significantly different from the SNP.’
It’s a beyond-rhetoric-at-election-time pro-independence party Peter. Here to help.
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What does any of that mean?
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I haven’t read it, Peter, so I won’t comment on it. What I will say is that ALBA needs to have a different approach from the SNP, and a very, very much tougher approach, looking at all the constitutional routes to independence, of which there are several. Ireland did not have our constitutional riches, and conflict ensued when Redmond’s party was overtaken by Sinn Fein, but we have options that Sinn Fein never had, and we squander them. Faint heart never won independence – ever, anywhere on the planet.
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Absolutely Lorncal
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I too had hoped Alba would at least explicitly reject the Section 30 process. It would have been a good start. But they don’t even do that. Just like the SNP, they put a S30 request at the start of their ‘solution’. Alba isn’t ‘alternative’ in any sense.
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Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
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Pay more attention Peter
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To what? What have I missed? You always forget to mention that.
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