How did the Scottish Greens end up with so much influence?

There are often complaints that the Scottish parliament lacks the ‘big beasts’ of other European counterparts. It is not a complaint, however, which can reasonably be levelled at Fergus Ewing. Ewing is a giant of Scotland’s independence movement and a giant of Scottish politics.

But perhaps the thing which is most interesting about Fergus Ewing is that he is not a socialist. He has that in common with much of the traditional SNP support, and much of the SNP support outside the central belt — but it increasingly marks him out from the Scottish government, led by his very own Scottish National party.

Last Wednesday, Ewing appeared on Holyrood Sources, the weekly podcast that I jointly host. He was free-flowing and articulate, as we have come to expect, and not long into the podcast he raised the issue of what he called his party’s ‘dalliance’ with the Scottish Greens. It is important to note that Scotland’s Greens are especially unique, even amongst their European peers. Significantly more left-wing and focussed on social rather than environmental matters, the Green Party may be the pound-for-pound most successful party in Holyrood’s history: with 6 per cent of the parliament’s seats and 8 per cent of the national vote, the party has extracted an extraordinary ransom. Their influence over Scottish government policy in recent years has been striking.

With two Green ministers, along with an informal veto over a raft of policy, it is entirely reasonable to place Scotland in the mix of Europe’s most left-wing governments. Whilst we might have historically viewed the SNP as a party of social democracy akin to those in Scandinavia and northern Europe, we must consider the Scottish Greens far more similar to the hard-left parties of southern Europe.

Speaking with Ewing on the podcast, it struck me that First Minister Humza Yousaf finds himself in an odd position given his party’s coalition. Does he consider himself to be closer to the son of Winnie Ewing — a man who bleeds yellow from his half-century in the SNP — or to Ross Greer, the backbench Green MSP who doubles-up as the strategic and intellectual force behind his party’s platform? My own presumption, given the recent direction of party policy, is that it is the latter man, Greer, whom Yousaf considers more of a political and ideological bedfellow.

There are a couple of obvious consequences to that. Ewing and Greer have become the embodiment of the rural vs urban debate which is proving an increasing chasm both within the SNP and in the country as a whole. Should Yousaf continue to double-down on the Green coalition, what then happens to the SNP and to its vote distribution across Scotland? Time will tell or, more appropriately, elections will.

The other obvious consequence is one which does not require the clarity of time. There are Green fingerprints all over Scottish government policy but this hasn’t stopped the Scottish government running into trouble as a result. Yesterday, the Scottish Mail on Sunday reported that the collapse of Circularity Scotland, the private company that was to enforce the deposit return scheme, collapsed last month with debts and liabilities of £86.2 million. There are subsequent concerns that the taxpayer could be left to pay the bill.

But the delayed deposit return scheme aside, from gender reforms to rent controls to highly protected marine areas (HPMAs) to the proposed ban of gas boilers, it is becoming impossible for ordinary voters to know where the Green party ends and the SNP begins.

There is a chance that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s visit to Aberdeenshire today, where he has announced funding for 21,000 North Sea jobs as part of a carbon capture scheme, could cause a split between the Greens and the SNP given their differing stances on how best to transition to net zero. The SNP Westminster group leader Stephen Flynn MP has welcomed news that the Acorn carbon capture project will receive funding and Neil Gray MSP, the Scottish government’s energy secretary, has said that ‘today’s announcement represents welcome, if long overdue, recognition of the enormous potential of the Acorn project’. He has urged the UK government to ‘avoid further delay…to secure the technology’s fastest possible deployment’.

Meanwhile the Scottish Greens climate spokesperson Mark Russell has said that carbon capture ‘is no substitute for investing in renewable jobs and industries and energy efficiency’ and that the technology ‘must not be used as a justification for more north sea drilling’. Could pressure from the Greens alter the SNP’s position? Very possibly — and how interesting that would be.

But Ewing is most troubled by another policy area which is significantly impacted by Greens: road building. The dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness, a road on which last year an average of one person every month was killed, is official Scottish government policy and has been for some time. A variety of mitigating circumstances have been cited for the party’s failure to deliver — with both the pandemic and funding issues serving as particularly useful shields. 

In truth though, this is less about funding than about prioritisation. The road can be built if the government wants to build it. That becomes the central question. Does the government — this SNP-Green government — want to? Ewing appears to think not and looking at the facts, it is increasingly difficult to disagree with him. As I write, just over 10 per cent of the road has been dualled, there is no target end date and the Greens vehemently oppose the building of trunk roads. Ewing is angry, to put it mildly, and has stated that the SNP would not deserve to be in office if it fails to follow through.

The Bute House Agreement (the official name of the SNP-Green coalition deal) is fast becoming the most consequential issue in Scottish politics. It is certain to hold until the general election of 2024 and very likely to hold until the Scottish parliament election of 2026. The state in which it will leave the SNP after that, however, is anyone’s guess.