Just who do the Scottish Greens think they are? They provide a mere seven seats to the SNP’s 64 and they won 1.3 per cent of the vote in the constituency section of the Holyrood elections in 2021 (they had 8.1 per cent in the regional section). In return for that meagre offering they think they have the right to end economic growth in Scotland. No wonder at all then that Kate Forbes and Ash Regan are unbothered by the prospect of the Greens leaving government – maybe even pushing them out should they win the SNP leadership – and only Humza Yousaf has signed up to their ‘non-negotiable’ demands for ‘climate justice’ and trans rights. It ought to be pretty obvious to anyone in the SNP that the Greens are more trouble than they are worth.
In return for their meagre offering the Greens think they have the right to end economic growth in Scotland
What, exactly, is ‘climate justice? It seems only to be a euphemism for shrinking the economy. The Greens have a lot of policies for cutting out areas of the economy, such as stopping all investment in North Sea oil and gas and ‘refocusing food production and farming to restore nature’, but without any obvious plans to create new industries and jobs.
And anyone who thinks that committing yourself to carbon targets and uttering platitudes about ‘green jobs’ helps you grow a zero carbon economy needs to study what exactly is happening across the world. It is China and the US who are building themselves ‘green’ economies, and yet neither has a legally-binding target for net zero. They are doing so through huge investment incentives and protectionism combined with a shameless policy of cheap energy. Europe, by contrast, has tied itself down with net zero targets – and is closing down a myriad of industries as a result: North Sea oil and gas, steel, Dutch farming.
But perhaps a shrinking economy doesn’t matter so much when you want to stop measuring the size of it altogether. In the words of the Scottish Greens’ economic spokesperson Maggie Chapman: ‘We must move away from the artificial and archaic framework of GDP if we are to deliver the effective, revolutionary, transformative economy that is fundamentally human.’ Fundamentally human, presumably, in the same way that the Great Depression was fundamentally human. If you want to give up measuring GDP, then thanks for warning us. It won’t help the planet but it will help to disguise a descent into national poverty.
When you think that the 2008-2009 recession involved a peak-to-trough fall in GDP of just 6 per cent in Britain, it won’t take much of a fall in economic output to cause mass job losses and resulting poverty. The only difference is that, without a formal measure of economic growth, Scotland couldn’t officially be in recession. Why not go the whole hog and abolish unemployment figures and wage statistics, too – then we could avoid even more negative headlines?
As for the Scottish Greens’ other non-negotiable red line of trans rights, this includes the gender self-identification bill – exactly what provoked the party’s leadership crisis in the first place. It was Nicola Sturgeon’s insistence that a rapist be housed in a women’s jail which precipitated her resignation as First Minister, whether she likes to admit it or not.
During the SNP leadership contest, Yousaf has been adamant that his party and the Scottish Greens must continue to work together under the Bute House Agreement. Forbes, however, is less keen on the SNP’s coalition partners, particularly after the Greens have repeatedly expressed concerns about working with her throughout the leadership contest and spent time criticising her at their spring conference. Responding to their threats, she has been clear on her stance, saying today: ‘I can govern Scotland without them.’
Minority government might be a pain; it’s certainly an uncomfortable thought for anyone who remembers the latter years of government of Theresa May or Jim Callaghan. But, on balance, it seems entirely preferable to committing yourself to the denouncing of human biology and the end of economic growth.
Not Zero: How an Irrational Target Will Impoverish You, Help China (and Won’t Even Save the Planet) by Ross Clark is published by Forum Press
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