page_title: Highlands and Islands Alliance
section_title: Formation and development
hierarchical_section_title: Highlands and Islands Alliance / History / Formation and development
context_page_description: The Highlands and Islands Alliance or Càirdeas was a minor Scottish electoral alliance that was active in the late 1990s. Founded in the Autumn of 1998 by non-partisan politicians local to the Highlands and Islands, it only contested the inaugural Scottish Parliament election of 1999, where it collected a negligible 1.3% of the regional vote and despite a reasonably publicised campaign, failed to elect any of its candidates. Led by anti-nuclear activist Lorraine Mann, the Alliance was established to better represent marginalised communities in rural Scotland, who they felt had been ignored by government in favour of those in the more densely populated Central Belt. Its policies were near exclusively centred on localism and rural issues, only contesting Scotland's regional additional member system so that electors could vote on nationwide matters through their constituency ballot. After the election, the group remained politically inactive until it was quietly disestablished in August 2004.
  Although electorally unimportant, the Alliance's legal campaign to allow political job sharing in the Scottish Parliament attracted considerable media and academic coverage.
context_section_description: Overseen by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair's administration, a Scottish Parliament was to be established in accordance with the 1997 Scottish devolution referendum result. In response, the Highlands and Islands Alliance was founded in the Autumn of 1998 by local activists who sought to "create a strong, independent voice for the Highlands and Islands" in preparation for the following year's inaugural election. They believed that the Central Belt in the Scottish Lowlands, the most densely populated area in the country, had received a disproportionate amount of attention from the British Government in Westminster and that rural communities were being neglected as a consequence. The group also wanted to redress the fact, that in their opinion, residents in the Highlands and Islands experienced "the lowest incomes and highest taxes in the UK". Alliance members believed that the establishment of a devolved parliament at Holyrood was an opportunity to enhance their region's representation, commenting "[we] have great hopes that Holyrood will not emerge Russian-doll like from Westminster".
  Members instrumental in the Alliance's development included playwright Edwin 'Eddie' Stiven, Black Isle Councillor Bryan Beattie and the group's sole leader, anti-nuclear activist Lorraine Mann. Prior to leading the party, Mann campaigned successfully and single-handedly against nuclear reprocessing at the Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment in Caithness, further serving as Convenor of Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping. The Alliance was formerly registered with the Electoral Commission on 25 February 1999, with Beattie acting as nominating officer, as well as treasurer, and Mann as leader. Consisting of about 280 members, the group were headquartered at Midoxgate House, a converted pigsty in the small hamlet of Fearn. Before its official registration, the party steadily built up a respectable profile; this included interviews with The Guardian on 22 and 26 January, in which they declared their intention to stand in the Scottish Parliament election, as well as criticised the disconnection between Highland parliamentarians and the constituencies they represented.
caption: The Highlands and Islands electoral region shown within Scotland