The Alba Party has only one elected representative in Scotland, after a Highland councillor quit the party.
Karl Rosie had defected from the SNP to join the late Alex Salmond’s party in March 2024.
However, The Scotsman has reported that Rosie is no longer listed as a member of the party on the Highland Council website.
This leaves the party with just one elected representative — South Ayrshire councillor Chris Cullen.
Edinburgh Eastern MSP Ash Regan had served as the party’s only representative in Holyrood, but left the party two months ago to focus on her anti-prostitution ‘Unbuyable’ bill.
Former MPs Neale Hanvey and Kenny MacAskill defected to the party while in Westminster, but were both defeated in election bids in the summer of 2024.
An Alba Party spokesperson told The Scotsman: “We’d like to thank Karl for his contribution to ALBA since joining the Party.
“This is a personal decision based on his local circumstances. We look forward to continuing to both support and cooperate with him.”
Reacting to the news on X, the party’s former general secretary Chris McEleny, who has been engaged in a long-running dispute with Alba leaders after being sacked last spring, said the party was in a ‘continued demise’.
He remarked: “Scottish Politics would’ve greatly benefited from a party aiding the SNP on the independence issue to allow for more movement on many key policy fronts.
“Instead the past year has been a disaster and an abject failure.”
Alba also faced grim polling on Wednesday, with an Ipsos poll showing that just 1% of the electorate planned to vote for the party on the regional list.
That is despite a concerted effort from party brass to encourage SNP supporters to back the pro-independence party on the list.
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And more recently, former MEP Hugh Kerr and ex-UK ambassador Craig Murray have defected to Your Party.
However, party leader and veteran politico MacAskill has pledged to fight on, recently telling Holyrood Magazine:
“We’re putting out the hand of friendship, and I know that hands are extending towards ours.
“I’m not talking about parties uniting, but the spirit of the Yes movement that was broad-based, I think, can be resuscitated for 2026 as it was in 2014.”
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