Former first minister Alex Salmond has insisted his new Alba Party is “here to stay”, despite his failure to be re-elected to Holyrood. The one-time SNP leader had stood for Alba on the regional list in the North East of Scotland, but his attempted Holyrood comeback was ultimately unsuccessful. However, he insisted that the new party – which supports independence and had hoped to help win a “supermajority” for this in the Scottish Parliament – had now “established itself as a political force with which to be reckoned”. Alba was launched just a few weeks ago, at the start of the Scottish election campaign.