The fake Scottish political party ‘Independent Green Voice’ (IGV) once again confused Scottish voters on 8 May and has deprived Scottish Greens of another MSP seat.
IGV is run by a group of ex-UKIP and ex-BNP activists, alongside climate change denialists and holocaust deniers, and has no manifesto nor policy platform.
Despite the real Scottish Green Party making history – doubling their total MSPs in Holyrood, winning their first two constituency seats in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and electing the first two openly trans Scottish parliamentarians – IGV blocked at least one Green from winning in the Mid Scotland and Fife region.
Given the alphabetised ballot list and IGV’s logo – a leaf with GREEN in bold letters – their intention was quite obviously to deprive progressive Greens of an MSP. Their fake electioneering swung the vote by one point and kept a Tory MSP their job.
Taken from X @GerryHassan
What actually happened?
Throughout the recent Holyrood elections, IGV had next to no presence online nor in person, yet won 2490 votes in the Mid Scotland and Fife region, or 0.9% of the vote.
In the same region, Scottish Greens won 36,286 while the Scottish Conservatives won 37,155, leaving a gap of just 0.3% of the total regional vote share.
Speaking to the National, a Scottish Greens spokesperson said:
They were listed above us on the ballot, took almost 1% of the vote, and our count teams saw clear evidence of confusion, including crossed-out ballots, double votes and difficult adjudications.
If even a third of those votes had gone to the actual Scottish Green Party, pro-independence candidate, Mags Hall, would have been elected. Instead, Reform have taken two regional seats and Mark Ruskell MSP is left as the only pro-independence regional MSP out of seven.
This cannot be brushed off. Independent Green Voice are not Green, not progressive and not connected to us.
Hence, a pseudo-political party successfully split the progressive, pro-independence vote.
Who is behind IGV?
According to the National, Scottish Greens have previously labelled IGV a “fascists’ front” and denounced the Electoral Commission for allowing “blatant electoral deceit”.
IGV stood candidates, albeit with very little public presence, across all eight regions.
IGV is run and was founded by Alistair McConnachie, who was kicked out of UKIP for Holocaust denial after working as a Scottish UKIP branch organiser. If he’s too bad even for UKIP, you can bet he’s not the progressive or ‘green’ type.
Another far-right organiser behind IGV is former treasurer Max Dunbar, a unionist ex-BNP activist and ‘Friend of Israel’. Dunbar stood in the South Scotland region in 2021.
McConnachie and Dunbar are joined by John Robertson, another former BNP organiser.
Given the presence of reactionary unionists, Zionists and far-right agitators in IGV, it’s easy to see why they’d feel threatened by the pro-independence, pro-Palestine and generally progressive Scottish Green Party. Especially now that the Greens are winning big.
Not for the first time…
The Electoral Commission allowed this fascist front organisation to run in 2026 after having stood in 2021. Last election, IGV deprived the real Scottish Greens of at least one MSP, likely two.
Laura Moodie, now elected as MSP for South of Scotland, lost her chance in 2021 by only 115 votes. On her campaign for the successful 2026 election, she told the Canary:
So, essentially, a far-right collection of individuals saw an opportunity to use the electoral system – not to win themselves, because they know they can’t win themselves – but in order to achieve their aims, they stopped a Green from being elected in South Scotland, and likely Glasgow as well.
In 2021, the National reported from an FOI to the Electoral Commission that the EC received over 280 formal complaints about IGV. Many dozens concerned the name and logo specifically, while eight called for an official investigation.
This year, IGV stood on Scotland’s regional list ballots across the eight regions, at a cost of at least £4,000 (the cost of standing being £500 per ballot space).
Speaking to the Canary before the elections, Moodie said:
It was so successful for them last time – I mean, two deposits, that’s £1000 stopping two progressive MSPs … Hopefully this time they won’t be successful.
Sadly, while Moodie was rightly elected this time, she still remains one colleague short.
Still no action from the Electoral Commission
Scottish Greens denounced the UK’s Electoral Commission over inaction after the EC was repeatedly criticised back in 2021 and warned consistently in 2026.
Responding to the National, the EC said simply that there are “clear and sufficient differences” between the two parties’ appearances, despite voters writing to state the exact opposite. The EC has said:
We assess applications for party names, descriptions and emblems against the criteria set out in law, including the requirement to ensure that in our opinion voters would not likely be confused between two parties as a result of how their identity marks look on a ballot paper. If a party’s application meets the legal criteria, it must be registered.
The Canary will be contacting the EC shortly for a follow-up and to hold them accountable.
Featured image via the Canary
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