Green leaders abandoned the radicalism they ran on

The National

17-06-2025

Yes or No, I doubt many left that campaign period with a shining love for the British state, even if we diverged on the best way to fix it.
But while No campaigners settled down for the promised package of sweeping constitutional change that was promised and never delivered, many Yes campaigners turned to the political party system. The fight was not over.
READ MORE: SNP leadership must bite the bullet on independence or step aside
The SNP, to the detriment of the Yes movement, hoovered up a lot of that talent and has spent the last decade burning through what remained of their energy and the goodwill built on the near miss of independence.
But for many like myself, the vehicle to change was not going to be the managerial talk-like-a-leftist-act-like-a-centrist SNP. The party's vision for an independent Scotland was too 'continuity' focused.
Same money. Same monarchy. Same ineffective tax plans. What was independence for, if not to take a different path?
Enter the Scottish Green Party.
My relationship to parliamentary politics has, let's say, changed somewhat in the intervening decade, but at the time – and with that frustrated momentum of a job unfinished – the Greens were my home when everyone was getting comfortable for the long fight.
They were unapologetic in their support for fair taxation, real land reform and more, issues that seem positively nostalgic in this time of being on the backfoot to populist far-right rhetoric.
Where the SNP were afraid to rock the boat with their messaging on independence, the Greens painted a picture of what a better Scotland could be – and for years now I've watched as Green leadership trampled and undermined every principle that brought people to the party in the first place.
What credibility can a party have for building a better future when its limited time with power was used to wave through government budgets that devastated local communities?
READ MORE: The SNP's current strategy is political suicide. Here's what needs to change
And yes, I'm sure some could argue that without Green influence these cuts would have been deeper, more significant. But if the choice presented is between a kick to the head and a kick to the face, you don't pick the 'lesser evil'. You reject the choice itself.
It's not quite the same territory as the LibDems backing benefit sanctions to secure a 5p bag tax from the Tories, but the Greens should never have been in a position of passing on those cuts to local communities and services.
If that's the price of being in government, I have to wonder why any Green was willing to pay it.
In its quest to professionalise, Green leadership has morphed into the very thing that people joined the Greens to avoid; red lines drawn in shifting sand, consolidated power amongst the high heid yins, and an aversion to the very radicalism that brought relevance in the first place.
At a party conference in 2024, a motion amendment from Green activist Ellie Gomersall and Glasgow councillor Anthony Carroll was passed to bind MSPs into voting against any future Budget that made further cuts to local councils.
This did not come from the leadership, but from activists within the party who had watched their MSPs support cuts in opposition to everything the party stood for. The membership backed the amendment, putting itself at odds with the leadership – and not for the first or last time.
Humza Yousaf did the party a favour by prematurely ending the SNP's power-sharing deal with the Greens (and his career with it).
The SNP's chaotic search for its post-Sturgeon identity threatened to take the Greens with it, while party leadership refused to let go.
The bitter end to the Bute House Agreement was the best outcome for the Greens, and it created a useful distance between the party's leadership and the SNP's centrist failures – but I'm not sure I can say that it was deserved.
In the end, it'll be down to the Greens to look at their victories in government like a new national park (cancelled by the SNP) or the creation of more Highly Protected Marine Areas (also cancelled by the SNP) or plans to get more homes using green heating systems (cancelled) or the ban on conversion therapy (take a guess) and ask themselves if the cuts they passed on (not cancelled) were worth it.
Where I criticise, I want to make two extremely clear points – first, my aim is at the party leadership and not the membership who have, frankly, been steamrollered these past few years.
And second, even with these criticisms, it doesn't diminish my respect ultimately for the graft put in to bring the Greens to where they are today, for better and worse.
Many in positions of power in the party have stuck with the Greens through dire times, and have put endless sweat and tears into providing an alternative to the mainstream political machine, which only makes these last years all the more sour.
READ MORE: Scottish council issues statement amid row over whether Union flag is 'sectarian'
I do think it is time for a change in the Scottish Green Party, not only for the reasons I've listed, but also more pragmatically from the fact that an ostensibly radical alternative to the status quo has failed to make real hay out of the rise of Reform UK.
When people are crying out for anti-establishment politicians, and Green polling isn't shifting, there are questions to be asked.
MSP candidate selections have begun in the Greens, and it seems to be shaping up to a fight between the old guard and more radical voices within the party. Cards on the table, some of those challengers are good friends of mine. But I don't support them for that reason.
They represent the change I want to see in the Greens, and the change we need to see in politics full stop. What use is another establishment party when the possibility of real change is right in front of us?