Looking back to Hamilton, forward to Holyrood

We’re all aware that a year from now there will be a lot of new faces at Holyrood. But one appeared this week, as Davy Russell took the oath as the new MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. A by-election brought on by the tragic early death of Christina McKelvie (an MSP who was extremely well liked across the political spectrum, who is missed deeply) resulted in a minor shock.

Most people broadly expected an SNP win – even if some thought it looked narrower – and some had even predicted that Labour would drop to third place. So Labour’s win resulted in the rapid re-writing of a few pre-written news articles and blog posts.

Of course as we move into the final year of the Holyrood term, everyone is looking at the result and asking “what does it all mean”!

For the Greens, there’s a weary recognition that First Past the Post contests rarely produce good results for us. In an election like this we know all too well that many people feel that they need to vote for one of the “front runners”, and so far there are only a few parts of the country where that’s us. But a by-election like this is an opportunity to get people out campaigning to lay the groundwork for bigger opportunities ahead. With Holyrood 2026 less than a year away, polls are suggesting that we’re on course to consolidate our position in the Central Scotland region. We can thank Gillian Mackay’s work as our MSP for the region for that, as she’s developed a high profile and a record of success on issues like safe access to abortion services, and the campaign to get rid of single use vapes.

How about the other parties? 

Is it the massive upset some are suggesting? Does it pave Anas Sarwar’s path to Bute House? I think that’s all rather overblown.

There’s no doubt it will be a disappointing result for the SNP, or that Labour have reason to celebrate. So my congratulations, of course, to Davy Russell himself. Labour may have felt good about their campaign on the ground, but I think it’s fair to say even they didn’t really expect the win.

But on the swing they’ve achieved, Bute House will still be well out of reach. Nothing is impossible of course, and there is still nearly a year to go, but the UK Labour Government still isn’t making it easy for them.

This is also very far from an SNP collapse. But they would be wrong not to take it as a worrying signal. The decline they saw in recent years, which began with Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as FM and worsened because of their legal woes, seems to have ended. But it hasn’t gone into reverse; they remain very far from the high point of their support, and there’s no sign of the recovery they really want.

After numerous mis-steps culminating in Humza Yousaf’s self-destructive abandonment of the Bute House Agreement, they “sent for Swinney” as someone who was well liked across the party, certainly competent, and with the chance of restoring some unity and steadying the ship.

And I think that’s their problem. 

Simply steadying the ship won’t win back voters. It offers no enthusiasm, no vision, no boldness. In fact part of his approach has been to cut some of the few ambitious elements out of the Government’s programme; delaying, ditching and watering down his policy agenda to the point of blandness.

Perhaps I’m more conscious of this because so much of what’s been lost has been climate and environment policy. Though there are other examples, like ditched commitments to equality, or turning the rent control legislation into a system that locks in above-inflation rent rises, even in places already saddled with the most exploitative rent levels.

But beyond the issues that are particularly high on my own agenda, or dear to the hearts of the Scottish Greens, I struggle to think of even one clear, eyecatching or imaginative policy area that’s seen genuine progress since John Swinney took over.

Far right populism arrives in Scotland

The other main headline from the by-election of course is the rise of Reform. Boosted by billionaires’ cash and an almost obsessive level of media coverage, they are clearly starting to gain levels of support in Scotland that had only been seen down south till now.

Dismay is justified, but completely inadequate. We’re seeing a genuine risk that real power will fall into the hands of a dangerous party which has already done so much harm to the county with Brexit (sure, it’s operating with a different name, but it remains the Farage vehicle, and it’s simply the same poison in a different tin). The racism we’ve continued to see from its representatives is nothing new, and Farage was and is an apologist for both Trump and Putin.

But it’s not enough to tut, and sigh, and worry about the rise of a far right populist party.

We (the whole of our political culture) must offer a compelling set of ideas, values and priorities that people who have good reason to be sick of the status quo can believe in. 

And that’s why the SNP’s steadying of the ship is so dangerous. 

It’s bad from their own point of view because it won’t win back the support they’ve lost, but it’s potentially disastrous for the country if some people end up being taken in by the snake oil on sale from the far right.

There is a deep connection between this bland managerial politics and the threat that’s now emerging. Less than two months ago, the First Minister hosted a summit ostensibly about how to tackle the rise of the far right. The formal output of it was an inoffensive but bland statement about ‘protecting democracy’ and some high level values that nobody could disagree with; more cynically, it was the first indication that the FM wanted to frame Scottish politics as a choice between the SNP and Reform.

NGOs, civil society leaders, academics and community activists were brought together to talk about the threat to democratic norms, and from a great many people in the room there was a very clear message – that the Scottish Government itself is risking making the problem worse, by failing to offer a compelling vision of Scotland’s future, or to take the bold steps needed to make it happen.

Since that summit, there has been literally no discernible action. Nothing seems to be different in the Government’s agenda. The ship may still be steady, but it’s drifting badly.

Which brings me to the Green response.

In contrast with extremism on the right and managerialism in the centre, we have an opportunity to provide what’s missing - a clear and positive vision of the future, as well as concrete achievable steps toward making it happen. 

Green politics is inherently optimistic - we are after all arguing that on our badly degraded planet and in the face of the powerful destructive forces of capitalism, that democratic politics is still capable of making things better. But that optimism doesn’t always come across, and Greens across the whole world have a bad habit of just providing more and more information about how right our policies are, rather than connecting those policies in a clear and relatable way to people’s immediate priorities.

Self reflection on this was a key theme at the European Green Party leaders’ meeting this month, and while it shouldn’t mean changing what Green politics is at its core, it does need to result in a change to how we communicate, and and how we set out the priorities.

We’ve been doing this in Scotland with issues like rent controls and proposals for wealth taxes. They fit very neatly into the theoretical framework of Green economics as it’s always been, but what’s more important is that they save people money and fund public services in the here and now. The temporary rent freeze alone saved tenants in Glasgow and Edinburgh thousands of pounds in avoided rent hikes. Taxes on second homes should be just one element of wholesale change to local taxation, but they send a clear signal that those with the most should pay the most to fund the services we all depend on. Both also make a clear statement about whose side we’re on - that exploitative landlords and wealth hoarders are a problem.

The climate agenda can be presented in the same way. We should never break the link between the policies we pursue and what’s demanded by the science. But emission levels and CO2 parts per million are not the way to build support for action - to do that we need to focus on giving bill payers the benefit of cheap renewable energy, cutting the cost of public transport, creating high quality jobs in industries that will last long into the future, and taking power away from the super-rich and the big polluters who serve their own interests and lay off their workforce as soon as profits dip.

As a party we’ve always been at our best when we show ambition and optimism for a better society. That doesn’t mean promising the impossible, and it certainly doesn’t mean copying the playbook of the far right populists by ignoring reality and just selling a different variety of snake oil. It means campaigning to win, combining vision and ambition with the professionalism needed to turn policies into reality. That’s what we’ve done, on a scale beyond anything before, in the current session of Parliament. That’s the track record we need to build on.