ALBA’S candidate in Glasgow North believes the route to success lies in mobilising the pro-Yes vote who cannot bring themselves to vote for any party.
Nick Durie, the party’s candidate, is hoping to galvanise those people who voted Yes in 2014 but who feel alienated from party politics.
“Working people don’t have anyone to vote for,” he said.
Durie is a longstanding housing activist in the Wyndford estate in the heart of the constituency.
He has led campaigns to improve the quality of the housing in the scheme and against its demolition.
Durie said people there and across much of the former or current social housing stock in Glasgow North were “sick” of complaining about damp and mould.
Many of these he believes may be tempted towards Alba by his proposal for democratically elected housing officials.
Rather than splitting the independence vote, as the SNP would say, Durie contends that Alba are “mobilising” Yessers who do not back John Swinney’s party.
He said: “I just don’t think we are splitting the vote because the people who are interested in Alba are never going to vote SNP in a million years, we’re mobilising them.”
Pointing to the nearly 85% turnout for the independence referendum, Durie said that had “dropped off a cliff”.
He said there was a wealth of votes in store for a party that could tap into left-wing discontent with the mainstream parties.
He added: “Sir Keir will have a good day but it’s not on the basis of a left-wing policy platform.”
Like his comrades in Grangemouth, he is fighting a local campaign which could appear at odds with the decidedly national mission of Alba – Scottish independence.
But Durie said he saw no conflict in this, saying: “I’m trying to make the point that when you’re in a dense urban area, oil rigs or offshore wind, these things aren’t forefront in your mind because they’re not so visible.
“The common treasury is visible.”
He is therefore also campaigning against the for-profit model of district heating employed in council schemes across the constituency, which he thinks should be banned as in Denmark.
Glasgow North was held by the SNP’s Patrick Grady, who is stepping down at this election after he was the subject of a sexual misconduct complaint by a member of his staff.
In his place is SNP candidate Alison Thewliss, who represented Glasgow Central from 2015.
Also in the running for the seat are the Tories, Reform, the Scottish Greens, the LibDems and Labour.
