Former MP Kenny MacAskill narrowly beats Ash Regan in Alba Party leadership race

Kenny MacAskill has narrowly beaten Ash Regan to become the new leader of the Alba Party.

The leadership contest was won by acting leader MacAskill by just 119 votes, securing 52.3% of the vote to Regan’s 47.7%.

MacAskill became an SNP MSP in 1999, serving as justice secretary during his tenure before becoming an MP for East Lothian during the 2019 General Election.

He defected to Alba in 2021 after the party was founded by former first minister Alex Salmond. He lost his seat in last year’s general election.

The leadership contest was triggered by the death of Salmond at a conference in North Macedonia in October. MacAskill became acting leader of the party until a leadership contest could be held.

Following the announcement on Wednesday, MacAskill said this was an election that “none of us wanted”.

“It was brought about by a tragedy – the loss of our leader, our founder, and our friend Alex Salmond,” MacAskill said.

He said the party would “always remember” and honour Salmond by driving forward his dreams to deliver an independent Scotland.

“He spent his life campaigning for Scottish independence,” MacAskill said.

“He took us close and it’s now up to us to deliver that and take final steps towards the conclusion of that journey.”

The Alba party, which will host its annual conference in Edinburgh on Friday and Saturday, must now decide its mandate and platforms ahead of the next election, but MacAskill confidently said the party would “clearly stand for independence”.

“The tragedy of Scotland is not how bad things are but how much better they could be,” he said.

“A vote for Alba will be a vote for independence and a vote for Alex Salmond.”

Leadership rival Regan defected to Alba from the SNP in 2023 after failing to succeed former first minister Nicola Sturgeon as party leader. She also previously resigned as the SNP’s community safety minister over plans to reform gender recognition laws.

MacAskill said he is looking forward to continuing to work with Regan and supporting her efforts in the future.

Former MP Neal Hanvey defeated Chris McEleny to win the party’s deputy leadership.

McEleny, who was a key aide to late leader Salmond, said his defeat had not come as a surprise and he now expects to have his membership suspended.

He spoke to journalists shortly after the announcement, saying he had been dismissed as general secretary by an “unfair and unlawful process”.

McEleny said: “That makes me sad, certainly if Alex Salmond was still here this would never have happened.

“Unfortunately now I will be going to employment tribunal against the party that I helped create and I did run for several years.

“That’s not something I want to happen but unfortunately that’s the actions of Kenny MacAskill and others that have forced me into this.”

The former general secretary said his dismissal came after gross misconduct allegations which he described as “ludicrous”, urging the party to take part in a conciliation process before any tribunal begins and implying it does not have the funds to fight any legal action.

Following McEleny’s remarks, new party leader MacAskill said he was “unaware of any action being initiated against us”.

Hanvey was elected to replace MacAskill as depute leader of the party, winning 77.8% of votes cast to the 22.2% which went to McEleny.

The winners of both posts defected from the SNP to Alba when sitting as MPs in 2021, days after Salmond founded the party.