ALEX Salmond’s Alba Party projected a message onto Pacific Quay last night amid claims they’re being “blacked out” by the broadcaster.
The former First Minister has railed against the corporation during its election campaign, complaining of a lack of coverage and “censorship” with the party not invited to take part in televised debates.
Last week broadcasting regulator Ofcom said the BBC approach to its coverage had not raised concerns, while the BBC defended its “rigorous” election coverage processes.
Following the decision Salmond vowed to mobilise activists and counter what he called the “broadcasting ban”.
“Over the next week we will introduce further innovative campaign tactics to get across the arithmetic reality that an SNP vote on the regional list is wasted, but that Alba can galvanise the independence campaign,” the former SNP leader said.
“Alba has been effectively blacked out by the BBC. The BBC sticks to its out-of-date, discredited formula of ‘five major parties’ getting roughly equivalent coverage, despite the reality that of these parties the SNP are almost 10 times the size of the LibDems.”
Last night Alba took their protest directly to the BBC, projecting their party logo onto the Glasgow HQ.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond's Alba pledge to step up ground campaign amid ‘BBC blackout’
Chris McEleny, the party’s campaign manager and lead candidate for West Scotland, commented: “The BBC apparatchiks may take our debating lines but they cannot take away our freedom to make a fool of their attempts at censorship.
"By depriving Alba of our proper position in the debates and in their news output they have exposed themselves as unfit to be Scotland’s public service broadcaster.
“When Alba’s community-based campaign proves successful BBC bosses will spend the next five years explaining why their attempts to rig an election left them with egg on their faces and the Alba symbol on their building.”
By standing on the list on Thursday, Alba are hoping to secure a “supermajority” for Scottish independence. Polls have put the party on varying levels of support from 2% to 6% - with Panelbase consistently projecting they will win seats.
Speaking last week, a spokesman for the BBC said: “The BBC has rigorous processes on how we cover elections and we note that Ofcom have found that we have given due weight to the Alba Party in our coverage to date.”
Tonight another leaders’ debate will be held – from 7.50pm BBC Scotland will broadcast as Nicola Sturgeon, Douglas Ross, Anas Sarwar, Patrick Harvie and Willie Rennie go head to head in their final pitch to the electorate before Thursday.
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