ALBA have had a political advertisement banned from social media – just months after it was banned from running an attack on the Tories by one of the UK’s biggest billboard firms.
The party said it was blocked from running an advert mocking Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar on Facebook.
In it, the party compared Starmer with the ventriloquist Keith Harris, with the Scottish Labour leader standing in for the dummy Orville.
Starmer is quoted in the advert as saying: “Whatever I say will be what Anas says.”
The comment came during a grilling from journalists late last month, during which The National challenged Sarwar for replying to a question directed at the UK leader.
In feedback given to the party, the company rejected the ad on the grounds it did not “comply with our policy on ads about social issues, elections or politics”.
The party say no further reason has been given.
The advert has been allowed to run on Twitter/X as an ordinary post.
💬 @ChrisMcEleny: "We have known for a long time in Scotland that the Scottish Labour Party are just a branch office... Anas Sarwar is viewed by Keir Starmer as a Labour puppet and London’s Voice in Scotland." Read More ➡️https://t.co/j5m7HWtaYU#ALBAforIndependence pic.twitter.com/29Tu1q7AK8
— ALBA Party (@AlbaParty) October 3, 2023
Alba's general secretary Chris McEleny said: "First it was an Alba Party advert highlighting Scotland’s oil being seized by Westminster that was banned.
"Now it’s an ad that highlights that a vote for Labour is a vote to have a puppet branch office as London’s voice in Scotland.
"It seems that big media companies are riding two horses in the runup to the next General Election.
"Social media would be better putting their time and resources towards stopping the shocking amount of online abuse that goes unchecked on their platforms than stopping important messages getting to people in Scotland.”
It comes after media giant Global prevented the company from running an advert depicting Rishi Sunak as a vampire from their billboards, claiming it was slanderous against the PM.
The advert was an homage to the SNP’s famous adverts in the 1980s depicting Margaret Thatcher as an oil-thirsty vampire.
In the reworked version, the caption read: “No wonder he’s laughing. He’s got Scotland’s oil.”
A spokesperson for Meta said: "We’ve now restored the ad as this was initially removed as a false positive."
It is understood the party must resubmit the post for it to be "boosted" as an advertisement.
