FORMER MSP and Hope Over Fear founder Tommy Sheridan has been elected to the governing body of the Alba Party.
The independence campaigner and former Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) MSP is also being tipped as a potential candidate for the party.
The Alba Party website says he was elected to the National Executive Committee in February. The total number of voters cast in the election was 192.
According to the Daily Record, there are reports Sheridan may try and stand for Alba on the Glasgow list at the Holyrood election.
Sheridan was sentenced to three years in jail in 2011 after a court found he had lied in an earlier defamation trial he launched to clear his name following lurid reports about his private life published in the News of the World.
He was subsequently declared bankrupt in 2022 after running up debts while trying to prove he had been wrongfully imprisoned.
He appealed against his conviction in 2015, and again in 2016. Both applications were refused.
Sheridan’s political career was derailed when stories appeared in the News of the World alleging he had taken cocaine and cheated on his wife Gail at swingers’ parties.
He had risen to prominence as a fierce opponent of the poll tax and led the SSP as a serious political force in Scotland, culminating in the passage of his bill to outlaw poindings and warrant sales.
But after successfully suing the now-defunct weekly tabloid for defamation, his case was reviewed and he was later found to have lied to court – resulting in a three-year sentence, of which he served one year.
After leaving the SSP to form Solidarity, Sheridan appeared on Celebrity Big Brother and fronted a show for Russian state-backed channel Sputnik UK, and his public commentary on Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been sympathetic to Vladamir Putin.
In a Facebook post in 2022, he wrote he had "no sympathy for Ukraine".
He also tweeted in November: “Russia is not my enemy and their military action against Ukraine was provoked by the aggressive actions of Nato.
"Russia is justified in defending itself from Nato aggression. The US and Nato are the root cause of world instability not Russia or China.”
Alba have been approached for comment.
