Alba Party to launch Westminster campaign with two candidates in Tayside

Alba Party leader Alex Salmond will launch his party’s General Election campaign in Dundee on Monday.

The former first minister will be joined by the new independence party’s candidates for Dundee Central and for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry.

Alan Ross, a former councillor for the Lochee ward of Dundee from 2007 to 2022, will stand for the Dundee Central seat while Ghazi Khan, a civil engineer, will contest the new Arbroath and Broughty Ferry constituency.

The party’s campaign team is expected to gather outside the V&A Dundee design museum on the city’s waterfront at 11am to formally launch their Westminster campaign.

Dundee became the first Scottish city to back independence in 2014, voting 57% to 43% in favour of Yes during the referendum of that year.

Mr Salmond said: “Alba are the real deal on independence.

“The SNP are all over the place.

“The SNP say they will beg Keir Starmer for a referendum.

“Alba say that we should seek a direct independence mandate from the people at each and every election.

“Thus in this election each and every vote for Alba will count for independence.

“In two years time at the Scottish elections the Alba message will carry the country.

“Alba are delighted that a recent surge in local party membership means that we can contest both seats containing the Yes city of Dundee and with two outstanding candidates.”

Mr Ross is currently an assistant manager at Dundee’s only residential rehabilitation centre for alcoholism and drug addiction and his campaign is expected to focus on Dundee’s drugs deaths crisis.

He said: “I’ve lived and worked in Dundee my entire life and it is agonising to see the lack of action taken to tackle this very serious crisis.

“I witness first hand, every single day, the devastating impact that substance abuse has on huge swathes of people in this great city.

“The Scottish Government have already admitted to taking their eye off the ball when it comes to drug deaths, and it is apparent to me that they’ve also taken their eye off the ball when it comes to independence.

“In 2014, huge numbers of Dundonians, many voting for the first time in their lives, backed the Yes campaign because they understood that with the powers of independence we could transform Scottish society for the better.

“That is why I am standing at this election, to put independence on the ballot paper and rekindle that hope that made Dundee a Yes City in 2014.”

Mr Khan added: “People have been badly let down by the SNP and their five-year focus on identity politics and hate crime laws instead of the things that really matter such as affordable housing, health and education.

“This very weekend the SNP leader in Westminster admitted in a newspaper that they should refocus on the people’s priorities.

“It’s a bit late now when their local representatives have been obsessed with self-identification and trans-activism, instead of campaigning for self determination for Scotland.”

The Alba Party is expected to contest at least 16 UK parliamentary seats in Scotland in the upcoming General Election, including Aberdeen North, Rutherglen, Glasgow South West, Airdrie and Shotts and Mid Dunbartonshire.