Patrick Harvie on 10 things that changed his life

The National

15 hours ago

From joining the 'rainbow parliament' as an MSP in 2003 on the back of campaigning for the repeal of Section 28, all the way through to gaining a position in the Scottish Government, Harvie's journey in politics has been bigger than he ever could have imagined. You could say it's been a bit like a Tardis … more on that later.
We sat down with him to talk about the 10 things that changed his life.
1. Mum's politics and environmentalism
GIVEN he did not know he was going to be a Green politician until he was well into his 20s, Harvie would probably not say he was born and bred a Green.
But at the start of our conversation, you could be forgiven for thinking it had been his destiny all along.
He spoke with pride about his mum Rose and how she embedded in him some of the political beliefs he holds to this day.
'Both my parents, but principally my mum, have been pretty active in making their politics part of how they live in the community, so whether that's a recycling charity or going on CND marches,' he said.
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'My mum was a midwife and there was a young woman who was pregnant who lived in the Faslane peace camp at one point, and so she was giving support that wasn't available elsewhere.'
Harvie has fond memories of helping his mum collect newspapers to recycle as part of her own charity, way back when recycling was not integrated into society as it is now.
'This is at a time when local authorities didn't do any recycling, so it was begun by community activism,' he said.
'It was about bringing people together to achieve something collectively.'
2. Doctor Who and sci-fi
WHEN you walk into Harvie's office, you are left in no doubt as to how important Doctor Who is to him. There is memorabilia and figurines on the shelves, and throughout our meeting, he drinks tea from his iconic 'Gay Lord' mug, with a multicoloured Tardis on it.
He first remembers becoming aware of Doctor Who when the great Tom Baker regenerated into Peter Davison in the early 1980s, but he has always had a sense that the series had actually been with him his whole life.
'Having watched all the old stuff before that, I'm convinced that I watched it and took it in because it's so familiar,' Harvie said.
'Even the music just feels so deeply embedded in my memory as though I must've heard it as a baby.'
(Image: NQ) It was love at first sight with Baker, and Harvie considers the Fourth Doctor to be his favourite, though he has a soft spot too for Patrick Troughton, largely because of the mystery behind many of the episodes that are still missing.
Harvie's early love of Doctor Who eventually gave rise to a much bigger passion for science fiction in general, and it is difficult not to be sucked in by the way he speaks about its power.
'There is something about telling stories in another worldly way that I think is more powerful in terms of its relevance to today,' he said.
'I've always found that there's something that allows you to tell stories that are difficult to tell if they were set in the real world.
'Star Wars has always been really good and I think not well recognised enough for showing you can have a society where people are absolutely surrounded by technological devices – AI and robots – and yet the vast majority of people are just about scratching a wretched living out of the dirt.'
I only dabble in sci-fi from time to time, but after spending time in Harvie's company, I felt like I needed to kick off a Star Wars marathon as a matter of urgency.
3. Science and technology
NOT only has sci-fi been a key part of Harvie's life, but he said he has always been encapsulated by science and technology more broadly.
He is acutely aware of how much the technological eras we grow up in shape us, and he theorises that he may never have adopted the politics he did had he not grown up in the 1970s and 1980s.
'I live in an era where, as a child, humanity was just starting to learn through our scientific research the scale of damage we're doing to our life support system, and that gave rise to the Green movement,' he said.
'If I'd been born 20 years earlier, that awareness wouldn't have been there.'
He continues to be fascinated with how technological advances change our existence on Earth.
'I've often reflected on if you had described smartphones that are in everyone's pocket now when I was a kid reading sci-fi stories, it would have felt like something utopian and incredibly liberating,' he said.
'And yet, it's turned into a bin fire.'
4. Coming out
NUMBER four speaks for itself – a moment when Harvie took the brave step as a child of the 1970s and came out.
He reflects on how he knew for a long time deep down that a feeling was there, but it took a while to put a name to it, while others took it upon themselves to do so, in quite unpleasant ways.
But aged 17, he began going along to the Glasgow Film Theatre where he had to seek out a secret message before hanging out with people like himself.
'I started going to what I would now call an LGBT youth group in Glasgow, at the time I think it still called itself the Strathclyde lesbian and gay youth movement,' he said.
(Image: Scottish Greens) 'It was a totally self-organised group of young people, there were no services. If you found out about the existence of this group – and I found out by calling the lesbian and gay switchboard helpline in the middle of the night after my parents had gone to bed – it's going to sound bizarre, but what you had to do was you had to go to the GFT on Rose Street at a particular time and look for someone holding a blue folder.
'Eventually, after I'd been going for a while, I would hang out with the group that would meet there, and you would see folks two or three weeks in a row walking past, looking at you, trying to summon up the courage, and going away again, and eventually saying hello.'
5. Going to university in Manchester
ENTER a city which has always been proud of its gay community.
Harvie went to university in Manchester where he reminisces that the 'volume was turned up' for him as he set about revelling in his newfound independence just after coming to terms with his sexuality.
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Like so many parts of our conversation, there was a deeply human moment where Harvie told me he didn't come out with a degree and how university had ended up being a bit of a turbulent time for him – but that he wouldn't have changed it.
He said: 'I sometimes say Manchester kind of chewed me up and spat me out because when I came back, I was in a bit of a bad way emotionally.
'But if I could go back, I wouldn't make a different choice.'
Speaking about leaving without a degree, he added: 'I had an office in the student union, staggering distance from the bar, and at the time, that seemed to matter a bit more.'
6. Campaign to repeal Section 28
HARVIE was not an MSP in the first session of the Scottish Parliament, but my word, did he become involved in one of its very first decisions post-devolution.
Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, brought in by Margaret Thatcher's government, stated local authorities in Scotland, England and Wales 'shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality' or promote the teaching of homosexuality 'as a pretended family relationship'.
After returning to his parents in Dumbarton after university, Harvie became heavily involved with the campaign to repeal the law in Scotland, something which proved highly contentious in the first session of a parliament just finding its feet.
(Image: Scottish Greens) Harvie described the journey as an 'intense whirlwind experience' and was delighted to 'beat the b******s' at the end.
And he feels it set out how things were going to be in a devolved Scotland for many years to come.
'It did establish the precedent that the Scottish Parliament was going to start voting the right way on these issues,' he said.
'This new parliament did the right thing the first time it was difficult. That set an expectation where, for about 20 years, the Scottish Parliament never voted the wrong way.'
It was the start of Harvie's politics journey, as it wouldn't be long before he became an MSP.
'I joined the Greens because of that experience,' he said.
7. Getting elected
HARVIE was elected in 2003 in what was known as the 'rainbow Parliament' when there were seven Greens, six Scottish Socialist Party members, one Scottish Senior Citizens member and several independents alongside the bigger parties of the SNP, Labour, Conservatives and LibDems.
Harvie is the only MSP elected at that time that has been there ever since, and I asked him what had kept him in the chamber all this time.
(Image: PA) 'I think it has stayed fresh partly because the parliament has changed so much every time,' he reflected.
'Most recently, we had the opportunity to be part of the government as well, so every session has been different, and the political dynamics in Scotland have changed so much, often in unexpected ways.'
8. Learning to make bread
AT this point, it would be natural to flow into talking about the Bute House Agreement that gave Harvie and his fellow co-leader, Lorna Slater, the opportunity to be the first Green government ministers in the UK.
But just before we get to that, Harvie was keen to talk to me about his love for making bread.
'There's something so wholesome about making a loaf of bread,' he told me.
'There's something so basic and tactile about it, it's like playing with plasticine but it turns into food.'
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Alongside Doctor Who, number eight evoked the child that clearly still lives in this experienced political brain.
Harvie tells me the book Slow Bread For Busy Lives by Andrew Whitley is what really opened up the world of bread making for him and allowed him to fit it around being at Holyrood.
'I'm in Edinburgh usually Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, so the rest of the week I've got at home, so I can make a loaf on a Friday and eat that over the weekend. It's a really nice pattern to be in,' he said.
9. Bute House Agreement
THE Bute House Agreement (BHA) was a huge moment for the Scottish Greens after the 2021 election, when first minister Nicola Sturgeon invited Harvie and Slater to be government ministers.
Harvie felt the Greens had worked hard to make an impact in Parliament, working to collaborate with other parties where there was common ground, and pushing the boundaries where required, and he felt that was valued by Sturgeon and her deputy John Swinney.
(Image: PA) 'To be the first Green Party in any of the UK nations to go into government was a huge step forward,' he said.
'Every Green campaigner who has ever knocked on a door will tell you they've heard people say 'I like what you stand for, but you're never going to get in, so I'm going to vote for someone else'. This was our moment to say Greens can actually deliver change.'
As we all know, the agreement abruptly ended in 2023, which eventually led to the resignation of Humza Yousaf as first minister. There were tears, hurt and anger right across the party.
But time is a healer, and Harvie still manages to look back on that period positively, and remains open to the Greens being involved in government again if the price is right.
He went on: 'I want Greens to be able to make a difference, and make the biggest impact we can, for people and planet.
'I think what we had with the BHA was very consistent with our principles, it was very consistent with our track record of seeking the common ground and expanding it, so if we had an opportunity that's similar, then it will allow us to do far more.'
10. Getting a heart bypass
EARLIER this year, Harvie had to take a bit of time off from politics, and he revealed to me why in an emotional finish to our chat.
After experiencing chest pains in the previous year and going through tests, it was concluded he would need a heart bypass.
I could sense a wee bit of emotion in his voice as he talked about the 'miracles' people work in the NHS, even under immense pressure.
'Everyone knows the NHS is under incredible pressure, but it was very clear to me that even under that pressure, people are doing scientific miracles every day,' he said.
'At the time, I was doing my best not to think about the gory details, I was thinking they're going to put me to sleep and then I'll wake up and start getting better, but if you do think about it, physically what they've done – shutting down your higher brain functions for a while so they can do stuff that would be agonising if you were awake, stopping your heart long enough to do the work – and less than a week later I walked out the hospital.
'I'm incredibly grateful to the folk at the Golden Jubilee in Clydebank. It's just a reminder of how lucky we are to live in a country with a national health service."