THE unionist tactical voting strategy put forward by George Galloway’s party to “defeat the SNP” will be “a very hard thing for them to pull off”, a voting expert says.
Initially named Alliance for Unity, Galloway’s All for Unity (AFU) finally had its registration approved by the Electoral Commission last month after adjusting its title over concerns that the original could “mislead voters as to the effect of their vote”.
The former Labour MP and Celebrity Big Brother contestant founded the party and will stand on the South of Scotland list at the Holyrood contest in May, as will Jamie Blackett, AFU leader.
The party, which opposes a second independence referendum, has also unveiled a tactical voting strategy in a bid to maximise the unionist vote and “defeat the SNP” in the constituency race.
Amongst the candidates it’s backing are Labour’s Jackie Baillie in Dumbarton, Tory Gordon Lindhurst in Edinburgh Pentlands and Molly Nolan of the LibDems in Caithness, Sutherland and Ross.
It’s part of a plan Galloway has said will “maximise the number of people in the Scottish Parliament who want to get Scotland off the hamster wheel, who want to end the neverendum, who want to attend to Scotland’s deep-seated socioeconomic problems”.
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Non-party campaign Scotland in Union has previously advocated similar activity, including a “swap my vote” scheme pairing up unionists in different areas.
According to that organisation, 540,000 pro-union Scots would consider tactical voting.
But Dr Alistair Clark of Newcastle University, a specialist in voting behaviour and electoral systems, says such initiatives are seldom successful at the ballot box. “I can see what they’re trying to do with this, but it’s going to be a very hard thing for them to pull off,” he told the Sunday National.
“Tactical voting is a very difficult thing to pull off because you have to assume that voters are paying attention to the instructions you are giving out. People who are interested in politics like to think voters are pouring over every detail of what’s going on in their campaign. The reality is very far from that.
“Politics is often the last thing on people’s minds and in many cases voting advice of that sort is the last thing they are paying attention to.”
Clark says the election of Ian Murray in Edinburgh South is an example of successful tactical voting.
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The Labour MP was the only one from his party returned in Scotland in 2019.
“That’s notable because of how rare it was.” Clark says. “There were other attempts to do this sort of thing which have not come off.”
Galloway, who was expelled from Labour for bringing the party into disrepute, is a “controversial character”, Clark says.
In a 2014 Prospect Magazine interview the Dundee-born politician said: “If you ever see me standing under a Union Jack shoulder-to-shoulder with a Conservative, please shoot me.”
And, on the London School of Economics blog, Galloway said he would “never” work with Tories: “I hate the Union Jack, I hate flag wavers. My flag is red. I don’t stand under national flags, if I can help it. And I would never work with Tories.
“I hate Tories. With every beat of my heart I hate them more, so why would I campaign with them?”
READ MORE: George Galloway to vote Tory to try and stop Scottish independence
But he’s now said he’ll be “voting Tory with my first vote” in May.
The tactical voting plan “won’t necessarily play that well with people,” Clark states. “He is one of those Marmite characters.”
The comments come after Blackett, who has called Nicola Sturgeon a “dangerous demagogue”, claimed “Tactical voters have more chance of securing their desired outcome of defeating the Nationalists by giving their first vote to the best placed ‘pro-Unity’ candidate and their second vote to All for Unity.
Writing in The Critic, he said: “Giving a second vote to one of the big parties would be to reduce its effectiveness. If All for Unity can translate those votes into more anti-nationalist seats then it is game over for the SNP and we will be in a position to secure a pro-UK coalition; we are calling it a 'government of national unity', in Holyrood.”
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