Tom Gordon: Alliance for Independence is an arrogant misadventure

Back then, it was the far Left which reckoned it could mop up regional votes in the following year’s election.

It led to the creation of Rise, an umbrella group for the Scottish Socialists, the Radical Independence Campaign and assorted fissile sects.

At the 2016 election, Mr Sillars backed Rise on the list and gave his constituency vote to the SNP, the party of which he was once deputy.

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But despite some capable candidates, Rise sank, trailing in behind the Scottish Christian Party.

Much to its fury, it was even outpolled by its nemesis, Tommy Sheridan’s Solidarity.

Now it’s the turn of Alliance for Independence (AFI) to eye the lists.

Again backed by Mr Sillars, and with former Highlands SNP MSP Dave Thompson involved, it offers non-SNP Nationalist parties a home and a shot at making history.

Judging by the ferocious reaction in some quarters, the AFI is being taken a lot more seriously than Rise ever was, and so it should be.

With Yes at 54% in the polls, it is touting a far more popular product.

Mr Thompson’s argument is that there is no point in people voting SNP on the list next May, because the party is set to do well in constituencies it won’t get many, if any, top-up seats.

Those votes would be wasted, he says, pointing to the four list MSPs out of 56 the SNP got in 2016, after it won 59 of the 73 constituencies.

(He ignores the 16 list MSPs who were key to the SNP majority in 2011.)

Far better, he argues, to vote for the AFI and ensure many more Yes MSPs are elected, ramping up pressure on Boris Johnson to concede Indyref2.

Mr Thompson reckons up to 24 AFI MSPs could be returned this way.

Mr Sillars says the SNP should give the AFI a clear run by shunning the lists. But the SNP isn’t budging, accusing the AFI to trying to split the Yes vote and “gaming the system”.

In an uncharacteristically hysterical column in the Times, my fellow scribbler Kenny Farquharson went further and called the AFI “cheats”.

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In which case, the Scottish Greens, Scottish Socialists and others down the years must have been cheating too when they won seats on the list and largely blanked the constituencies.

No. As Mr Sillars says, and as I agree, the AFI would simply be using the system that’s there. It can’t use any other system, after all, and it’s free to act it as it chooses within the law.

If MSPs don’t like the system, they can - by a two-thirds majority- vote to change it.

However that is not to say that opposition charges of electoral manipulation wouldn’t stick.

As Andy Maciver argued in these pages yesterday, even the perception of shenanigans would give the UK Government a heaven-sent excuse to quibble with the numbers.

The hardest result to resist would be a straightforward SNP majority won on a straightforward manifesto commitment to a second referendum.

But before we race ahead to 2021, consider some practical matters.

Mr Sillars insists the logic behind the AFI is “impeccable”. Which only shows the logical and the sensible can vary wildly. The AFI misjudges the public mood on multiple levels.

We are still in foothills of the coronavirus pandemic - still in the foothills of the infectious stage, far less the economic aftermath.

When voters go to the polls next spring, they will be looking for a grown-up, five-year government that can knuckle down on a recovery.

The public has so far been impressed by Nicola Sturgeon’s air of steady professionalism, and is likely to want more of the same.

Voters are categorically not looking for a tone-deaf, single-issue funhouse that wants to subordinate everything to a second referendum and a draining constitutional feud.

Who would stand for the AFI?

As Mr Sillars understatedly admits, this would be a “difficulty”. Normally, party members rank list candidates in order, with the most popular the most likely to be elected.

But as an umbrella alliance, it’s not clear what the AFI would do.

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A series of local stitch-ups would stink and offer hostages to fortune.

But in a vote of supporters, the winners would be those who could out-Indy the rest, the hairy Yes ultras most likely to put off casual voters, especially hesitant No switchers.

Or perhaps the AFI could resurrect some well-kent carpet baggers?

Mr Thompson is open to Alex Salmond or former jailbird Mr Sheridan joining his merry band.

Mr Salmond’s friends are dismissive, but some of Mr Sheridan’s old pals are already involved.

The AFI could be the party that puts the Yes into Yesterday’s Men.

And I think it would be mostly men, too. Don’t hold your breath for reserved top places for women or gender zipping when the has-beens and the hairies are trying to grab a taxpayer-funded ego trip at Holyrood.

Candidate vetting is hard enough for even established parties.

With the AFI needing at least 40 candidates, and no threshold other than a Yes badge, you can bet there would be some absolute rockets in there, tarnishing the SNP by association. The opposition would have a field day, the voters qualms.

But perhaps the biggest problem for the AFI is that it reeks of conceit.

It assumes the election is in the bag for its side, and the only question is how big the Yes majority will be.

With this arrogant sense of entitlement, it believes it can come from nowhere to piggyback on the SNP’s success; that the SNP should step aside for it; and voters should trot to the polls to elect whatever ragbag of candidates it manages to assemble.

It then believes its sole aim should take precedent for the next five years, whatever is happening with Covid, the economy, or anything else.

The AFI is lucky to have logic on its side. It has little else to recommend it.