Scottish Green members demand talks over ending SNP power-sharing deal

Furious Scottish Green members have demanded the party’s leaders consider ripping up their power-sharing deal with the SNP and quitting Humza Yousaf’s government after climate change targets were scrapped.

Chas Booth, a Scottish Green councillor, said he had written to the party’s executive, demanding an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) be held “as soon as reasonably possible” to consider pulling out of the coalition with the SNP.

He warned the Greens were being “used as a figleaf for the SNP’s woeful and inexcusable climate inaction” after the Scottish Government scrapped its target to cut Scotland’s greenhouse gases by 75 per cent by 2030.

Mr Booth said there had been “anger” on a party members’ call on Thursday evening as a result of the Greens being “part of a Government abandoning climate targets”.

His call was backed by Anthony Carroll, a Glasgow councillor, who said members should have their say again on the coalition deal and accused the SNP of having “shown a lot of contempt in the past year”.

Their demands came after the Rainbow Greens, who represent the LGBT members in the party, called for the party to withdraw from the Scottish Government over the decision to suspend the use of puberty blockers for new child patients.

Harvie ‘embarrassed’ by decision

The double rebellion heaps pressure on Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, the Scottish Greens’ co-leaders, who are both junior ministers in Mr Yousaf’s government.

Mr Harvie in particular was at the forefront of the Scottish Government’s defence of the controversial decision to scrap the 2030 climate change target, admitting he was “embarrassed” by the move.

Friends of the Earth described it as “the worst environmental decision in the history of the Scottish Parliament”, with the Greens facing widespread mockery and questions about what the point was of having them in government.

Nicola Sturgeon boasted that her SNP administration were global leaders on climate change when the targets were introduced in 2019, saying they were the “most stretching” in the world.

Two years later she announced the coalition deal with the Greens, named the Bute House Agreement (BHA) after the First Minister’s official residence in Edinburgh. Both parties support independence.

Internal criticism of the arrangement had previously come from the SNP side, with Kate Forbes, the former leadership candidate, and Fergus Ewing, the former Cabinet minister, at the forefront of calls for it to be reviewed.

But discontent among Green members has grown after the UK’s official climate watchdog said last month that the 2030 target was “beyond what is credible”, with the current rate of progress having to be increased by a factor of nine.

Mr Booth said he was “never a fan” of the agreement but he had “accepted the democratic vote of party members” to go into government with the SNP.

Posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Leith councillor said:

He said party rules meant the meeting must be called if one is demanded by 100 members or 10 per cent of the membership, whichever is fewer.

Mr Carroll tweeted: “I think it’s time for members to have a say on the BHA again.” He said that the Greens “mustn’t settle for SNP long grass-kicking”.

One activist told the Herald that Thursday night’s meeting was a “s***show” and several members “were questioning whether our current leaders were the right ones to lead us into the next Holyrood election.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Greens said: “As a democratic party we encourage members to engage and participate, and there are a number of ways open for people to do that.”

Mr Yousaf said the Greens’ internal discussions were for them but “I still value the Bute House Agreement”. He said his government had brought forward an “accelerated” package of measures to cut greenhouse gases.

Mairi McAllan, the SNP’s Net Zero Secretary, insisted she was “not embarrassed” by the 2030 target being abandoned but she could “understand why some people are disappointed”, adding that “in many ways I am too”.

She told BBC Radio Scotland that when MSPs voted for the target “it was well understood it was likely to be beyond the realms of what was achievable”.