THE Alliance for Independence has rejected accusations that it is a secret SNP faction. It has also denied being a front for Tommy Sheridan’s Solidarity.
The new party, which is due to formally launch in the coming days, has insisted it’s about “giving the Yes movement a wider voice”.
Yesterday, AFI unveiled its newest recruit, former SNP councillor Austin Sheridan.
The Glaswegian – no relation to the former socialist MSP – told The National: “There’s lots of people that are very prominent in the Yes movement that aren’t members of any of political parties. And they don’t necessarily want us to be members of a political parties, because all political parties have very set policies on a wide range of different things.
“Whereas for us it is primarily about securing an independence referendum for Scotland”.
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Sheridan, who is on the steering committee, and will be the nominating officer for Glasgow, was speaking as the party shared the first details of their constitution, which has now been submitted to the Electoral Commission as part of the process for registering to stand as an entity in next year’s vote.
It says the three “fundamental objectives of the Alliance” are to support a pro-independence Scottish Government in delivering a referendum, independence, and “successful independence negotiations”.
To achieve those objectives all Alliance candidates and MSPs will “be bound to keep a pro-independence Scottish Government in power to enable it to deliver these objectives.”
That means if the SNP were to return a minority government next year, the AFI bloc in Holyrood would be expected to vote for the budget, rather than run the risk of the government collapsing.
That’s already sparked complaints from opposition parties. Yesterday, Scottish LibDem leader Willie Rennie urged the Electoral Commission to look at the relationship between the AFI and the SNP.
Rennie said: “If this faction from the SNP is allowed to register a political party, with the intentions that they have expressed, then it will result in different arms of the SNP appearing under different names on the two different ballot papers used for the Scottish Parliament elections.”
READ MORE: Another former SNP MSP backs Alliance for Independence campaign
Sheridan denied claims that the Alliance was over before it’s started. Earlier this month we told hold the Scottish Greens, the Scottish Socialist Party and the new Independence for Scotland Party were all planning on running their own campaigns for next year, rather than becoming one of AFI’s “umbrella parties”.
Currently, the only other party with any enthusiasm for AFI is Solidarity.
“At the end of the day, we don’t know if any of these parties at this moment in time are going to get far more involved,” Austin Sheridan said.
When pointed out that they’d all already said no, he said AFI would published their proposals soon: “Obviously if they choose that they don’t wish to be part of the Alliance that is totally up to themselves.”
But he said AFI had already had conversation with people within the SSP, the Greens and Solidarity.
AFI says their 56 candidates at next year’s election will be a mixture of locally selected activists and members put forward by umbrella parties.
The constitution says that all of AFI’s own candidates would be subject to a “fair and inclusive” vetting process, but would “respect” umbrella parties to select their own candidates.
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