The Guardian

Scottish coalition ‘could fall apart’ if SNP chooses Forbes as new leader

Green party warns it will end power-sharing support unless Humza Yousaf wins election

Libby Brooks Scotland Correspondent

The Scottish Greens have issued a stark warning to the next leader of the Scottish National party that “a sincere commitment to progressive values cannot be an optional extra”.

With the SNP announcing tomorrow the name of the person who will replace Nicola Sturgeon as party leader and first minister, leaders of the Scottish Green party gave their strongest indication yet that the partnership between the parties will be over if Kate Forbes is elected.

Scottish Green co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater told their party’s spring conference that they had “so much more” to deliver in government with the SNP, but would not continue the partnership “at any cost” with a first minister who does not share their progressive commitments.

Without the Bute House agreement, which brought the Greens into government after the 2021 Holyrood elections, the SNP does not have the parliamentary majority it needs to pass its budgets.

The SNP will announce its new leader after a turbulent contest that has seen deep policy divisions between candidates, unprecedented personal attacks and the resignation of the party’s chief executive – Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell – following revelations that the media had been fed false information about membership figures.

Recent polls suggest that Humza Yousaf, widely regarded as the preferred candidate of the SNP leadership, is edging ahead. He is the only candidate to commit to maintaining the partnership with the Greens, and has pledged to continue the centre-left, socially inclusive agenda that defined the Sturgeon era.

But his rival Kate Forbes, an evangelical Christian whose opposition to equal marriage and abortion nearly derailed her campaign in its first week, has proved popular with members after strong performances in hustings and TV debates. She has been highly critical of Sturgeon’s record, challenging her ideas on progressive taxation and a swift transition away from oil and gas.

Both Forbes and the third candidate, Ash Regan, a junior minister who resigned over the Scottish government’s gender recognition reform bill, have said they would drop Sturgeon’s commitment to fight Westminster’s veto of that bill, and have also stated their opposition to self-identification for trans people, a key element of securing Green cooperation.

The new SNP leader will have to be formally voted in as first minister at Holyrood on Tuesday. Slater told delegates in Clydebank yesterday: “We will only vote for the SNP’s new leader to become first minister if they are committed to the politics of cooperation; if they respect and share our values of equality and environmentalism; if they will prioritise climate justice, and if they agree that trans rights are human rights and that our trans siblings cannot be used as political fodder by Westminster.”

To cheers, co-leader Harvie said a commitment to progressive values, including the Green-led campaign for safe access zones to abortion clinics, a full ban on conversion practices, and challenging “the UK government’s abuse of the section 35 power to block the gender recognition reform bill”, were “necessities”.

Speaking at one of his final campaign visits in Dundee yesterday, Yousaf urged fellow candidates not to jeopardise the Bute House agreement: “I would say to anybody who ends up being the next leader of the SNP, you have to find a way of cooperating with the Greens. If you don’t, you end up not just in a minority government but, I have to say, in one of the most toxic parliaments I’ve ever been in.”

Slater said the Scottish Greens would hold a meeting tomorrow to discuss the leadership outcome and “choose whether we want to continue in government”.

Harvie also said the Scottish government’s failure to reach strict targets to cut emissions by 75% by 2030 was “the reason we need to be in the room”. The urgency of global heating demanded, he added, a government with “guts and political courage” that is willing to do things that might be “politically controversial”.

‘We will only vote for the SNP’s new leader to be first minister if they respect and share our values’ Lorna Slater, Green co-leader

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2023-03-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://guardian.pressreader.com/article/281535115240932

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