The SNP Green coalition’s causing ructions within both parties. Of course, it’s likely to survive a while yet as Continuity SNP are wedded to the idea and Green Ministers continue to enjoy the trappings of ministerial office. But the fallout has been harmful for both and it’s hard to see what gains have been made for either.
For sure there’s profile for the Greens but it’s been far from beneficial exposing the divide within the party, as well incompetence at the top. As for the SNP it’s not just Fergus Ewing but many both in elected office and amongst the rank and file who are uneasy and more often entirely opposed to the stitch up.
The defence from the SNP administration that it provides parliamentary stability’s fanciful. The parliamentary make up always ensured the ability to deliver legislation even when just shy of a majority. That it was to deliver an independence majority’s simply baloney. Nothing of any note has been delivered on that, indeed quite the opposite, with the Greens fair weather friends at best on the core SNP issue.
Fergus Ewing has rightly called out the idiocy of the move. The SNP have gained nothing and lost a lot. The credibility and competency of the administration was waning anyway but the policies either in the hands of the greens or influenced by them are proving catastrophic and especially in SNP heartlands.
My only disagreement with Fergus is that he terms them “hard left”, as someone of the left I just view them as “bonkers”. We need to address the climate crisis and fast, but in a way that allows for a just transition and takes people with us, not alienating and allowing for a populist backlash against necessary actions.
The Bute House back-room deal came about without being put to the public or even with the SNP membership having a vote, let alone a voice. It was formed for the deliverance of Nicola Sturgeons grand GRA project which is about to crash and burn in the Supreme Court, as has so much of what little legacy she left.
That was confirmed by Robin Harper. Now I knew Robin long before we were both elected to Parliament. He was then in the Ecology Party, the precursor to the Green then Scottish Green Party. A personable man he was widely popular in Parliament and without it as I knew people he’d taught when a teacher and they recalled him fondly. He’s hard to rile.
His views on independence were made clear in 2014. That’s perfectly legitimate and given the Greens lukewarm position he neither felt the need to leave nor them to discipline him. Instead, the cause of his departure is the zealotry identity politics with which Sturgeon forged an alliance.
That crassly exposed when the Scottish Party whooped and hollered when voting to break its relationship with the wider UK Green Party, not on the constitutional issue but on their failure to adhere to the one true faith on ID politics.