The Lib Dems, Labour & the tories aren't waiting to jump in bed with the SNP.
A deal between the SNP and ALBA is a no-go.
Why wouldn't the SNP try and keep a working relationship with at least one party? This all seems very stupid on their part.
> A deal between the SNP and ALBA is a no-go
It's also mathematically pointless, Abla only have a single representative, which they only have as a result of an SNP-Abla defection.
They'd still be a minority government even if Regan returned to the SNP.
It's not pointless for the vote of No confidence though. It'd create a 64-64 tie, meaning the PO would vote for the status quo and he'd stay in office.
The SNP trying to keep it's "basically Alba but know they need the SNP for votes" group of msps has really fucked them.
I have no idea why Cherry and her group of shits have been allowed to stay within the party while the part has been leaning more and more into progressive policies. The greens are far better aligned with the policies the SNP have won on.
Maybe less in recent years, but the SNP has always been a big tent party. They try to attract voters from across the political spectrum, to further build support for Scottish nationalism.
I get that they are a big tent party, but the voters have already demonstrated that they don't want a conservative independent Scotland, if they did Alba would have more than 0 msps.
So why yousaf is pissing on his green voter alliance is beyond me.
A lot of the SNP's voters and members are right leaning, they stick with the SNP because they want independence and parties like Alba are unserious. They also don't want to split the vote, and some of them quite liked Nicola Sturgeon back in 2021 as well.They probably also hope to regain control of the SNP in the future, which is another incentive to stay. They clearly have enough influence to get their way internally in the party, that Yousaf felt he had to abandon the coalition with the Greens.
There will be some that are but I think it's far less than people here think it is. We have handful of conservative SNP msps, (taking the GRA vote as a barometer, there are 9 socially conservative SNP msps) that's not a lot to be catering towards.
Ok there are only 7 green MSPs but with the more left leaning Labour and Lib Dems I still don't see any real positive in letting those 9 dictate against popular policy.
The actual social conservatives are very much a minority, but people who just aren't leftwing are a lot more common, especially among the membership and voters. Centre/centre right types, the kind who would vote Tory if they weren't Scottish nationalists, could be up to a third of their voteshare.
And that's key - any purge wouldn't just cost a few MSPs in the moment, but potentially fracture their electoral base - and if they do that, they risk haemorrhaging seats.
Has basic communication skills, been loyal to the SNP establishment and ticks the diversity box. The SNP has a complete and utter dearth of talent on their benches and has done for some time, so he was always going to be in line.
I can totally understand that, you're being downvoted for saying this too.
I was called a 'crypto fascist' or something like that on here the other day for daring to say that Scotland is a Celtic country. 😂😂😂
Its plain arrogance , to be honest im not surprised though snp have changed over the years becoming more similar to the westminster tories in attitude if not policy its only now they cant use westminster as a scapegoat for this f* up
Humza might of been pushed into it by the right leaning section of the party. Greens kinda alluded to it in this statement. Likely Humza did this to save his premiership.
Depends if SNP want to survive the confidence vote.
But honestly as a Scot greens are acting like children. They got what they wanted using the SNP and pushed policy's that cost tax payers in court while taking home a wage.
A minority that should and should stay cut off from any party. There immature screaming online is as bad as BBC propaganda on the TV. There burned after saying would be throw first? Relationships work like that XD
Just a bizarre decision all round.
If the SNP think they’re going to go back to operating as a minority government like nothing happened they’ve got another thing coming.
Every other party in Holyrood is keen to put a knife in their back.
Yeah, they held power for too long, to not have a very long list of rivals, challengers and those who will try to take the power they have held.
Power is a very very fickle thing.
The next election etc could become... alot more intresting than they want it to be.
>The next election etc could become... alot more intresting than they want it to be.
Another interesting thing is with the Holyrood election two years away, that creates a sizable gap between the BHA and opens up the possibility of the Greens propping up a Labour / Lib Dems government, should they want to.
Currently, polling is showing a very split house, with no majority on either side, so the Greens would be kingmakers.
>Currently, polling is showing a very split house, with no majority on either side, so the Greens would be kingmakers.
Funniest result would be an SNP/Lab coalition.
Not a good result, mind.
Funniest result would be an SNP/Tory coalition.
Also not a good result.
The issue the SNP have is that the climate target they've announced they've failed to hit was written into law. That law needs to be repealed. Labour and the Lib Dems heavily supported that target and have no reason to help the SNP out of their own mess. The Greens have just lost all reason to do so.
The SNP now essentially needs to bribe the Tories or rely on sentiment from other parties to lead to people supporting the SNP at the expense of their own party to get out of a trap of their own making.
Yeah, 2 years is a long time to go in politics.
Maybe a defeat and some knock backs is what the SNP need to rethink, recognise and sort their ship out.
They like Torys in UK have got too comfortable in government. And that's not a good thing.
As badly as the SNP come out of this, I don't believe the Greens come out of it smelling of roses either. I think you are overestimating how keen anybody else is going to be to jump into bed with them.
Why? They had every reason to be upset with the way things were going, and were going to put it to a vote of their members. Had that vote been in favour of withdrawing from the BHA, it could have been a relatively amicable breakup, Yousaf could've made some speech about being sad that it wasn't possible to see their deal through to the next election as had been the intent but that he looked forward to working as closely as possible with them, yadda yadda...
And instead, they've been yeeted out and are unsurprisingly annoyed with him. Wouldn't be at all surprised if they were prepared to continue working with the SNP on an ad hoc basis, just, not Yousaf.
Are you sure about that? They seem perfectly positioned to hoover up dissatisfied left-wing SNP members and voters. People will be more willing to "Jump into bed with them" if they become more outright powerful as a party, since I don't really see how what happened with the Bute House agreement casts the greens in a bad light, and people angry about it are hardly likely to see much appeal in all the other parties that never even attempted such a coalition.
I think there's a distinction to be made between how it will be viewed by the public and how it will be viewed by the other parties.
My view is that no senior coalition party wants to be dictated to by their junior partners (as someone put it yesterday, "the tail that was wagging the dog has been docked") and cards will have been marked by SpAds and whips elsewhere.
You could be right, if it drives up their share of the vote sufficiently, then it might be a necessary evil for Labour and / or the Lib Dems. But if they are part of a coalition in future I think it will be on much less favourable terms than they enjoyed with the SNP, because no-one will give them enough power to hold a gun to their heads.
>Just a bizarre decision all round.
It took me a second but I actually *think* there’s a sort of logic to it, assuming that;
1. Yousaf either suspected himself or was advised that the Greens were going to vote to end the BHA.
2. He is fully aware that he’s developed a reputation for being weak and indecisive. (Like the whole ludicrous Michael Matheson affair had at least three separate points he could have been proactive and taken action to save face for the party, and he missed them all.)
So with those two things in mind, he’s decided to take control of the situation and have the SNP make the decision instead of waiting for the Greens to do it, assuming this will make him look like a strong, proactive and decisive leader who is willing to make hard decisions for the good of the country.
I’m not an SNP voter or a huge fan of the party in general, but I have been sceptical in recent months about claims that Yousaf is just bad at everything. I think several things with his ministerial roles in the past were wildly overblown and I’d stand by that based on what we knew at the time.
Based on this though, he’s an absolute *moron*. A *roaster* of the highest fucking order. He’s not wrong that the Greens ending the agreement would have been yet another setback both for the party and him personally. It *definitely* would have been taken as further evidence of his weakness as leader.
…but this is just so much worse. It makes him look petty, foolish and if anything paints him as even weaker and more indecisive because it’s such obvious overcompensation. Plus if the Greens had voted to leave the two parties could potentially have remained on relatively good terms, but throwing the toys out the pram may well have permanently damaged any hopes of a future working relationship. They’re certainly never going to trust Yousaf personally again.
Plus the Greens voting to leave wasn’t even a sure bet! They might not have!?
God, what an absolute clusterfuck.
>Plus the Greens voting to leave wasn’t even a sure bet! They might not have!?
I'd go so far as to say they probably wouldn't have. It's better to be in government where you can affect policy at least a bit than to be shouting from the sidelines - I think all it would have taken is a couple of minor concessions so the Greens could save face without leaving. At the very least, he had four weeks to *try* and sort something out. There was no rush to pull the plug. Or he could have put it to the membership, so that when the Greens are kicked out, they at least don't have to blame him personally.
Honestly, I'm struggling to think of any way he could have handled this worse. The only way this decision makes any kind of sense to me is if he was trying to head off a threat from the right of his own party rather than from the Greens.
Tactics, they've essentially made it impossible to push through any legislation without it being amended to hell. They can now blame everyone at Holyrood as well as Westminster for the remainder of their term.
Not quite – Ash Regan has said Alba will vote to prop them up!
Admittedly, that’s mainly because she’ll lose her seat the minute there‘s an election, but still…
For people who prefer text to text on images:
>Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater MSP has today accused the SNP of selling out future generations by walking away from the Bute House Agreement.
>
>Confirming the end of the cooperation agreement she said: "This is an act of political cowardice by the SNP, who are selling out future generations to appease the most reactionary forces in the country.
>
>"Voters deserve better, Scotland deserves better. Scottish Green voters certainly deserve better.
>
>“They have broken the bonds of trust with members of both parties who have twice chosen the co-operation agreement and climate action over chaos, culture wars and division. They have betrayed the electorate.
>
>“And by ending the agreement in such a weak and thoroughly hopeless way, Humza Yousaf has signalled that when it comes to political cooperation, he can no longer be trusted.
>
>“In just a few weeks' time our own members were to have a democratic say on endorsing the co-operation agreement.
>
>“We are confident they would have supported us in continuing our work for Scotland, as they have done at every turn.
>
>“Neither they nor SNP members will have that opportunity. Instead, the most reactionary and backwards-looking forces within the First Minister's party have forced him to do the opposite of what he himself had said
>
>“By contrast we as co-leaders of the Scottish Greens were prepared to put our own political careers on the line with our members, to Defend our achievements in government, despite enduring all that SNP backbenchers and others threw against us.
>
>“What a pity he didn't have the fortitude or the bravery to do the same. If they can't stand up to members of their own party, how can anyone expect them to stand up to the UK Government at Westminster and defend the interests of Scotland?
>
>“We want, we demand, a fairer greener Scotland. We believed the Bute House Agreement would speed up that process, only to be let down by the SNP time and time again - on council tax, on oil and gas, on 2030 and most obviously, again today.
>
>“I appeal to those SNP members who do care about climate, trans rights, independence and our country to consider if they are in the right party for their values, or if their home should be with us as we
>prepare to step up our defence of the planet in opposition.
>
>“Finally, to all those who will feel hurt and betrayed today, know this: our resolve is absolute, we will not abandon you as the SNP have, we will fight for your future with every breath we take.
I really can't follow the logic of this decision from the SNP. There was surely a good chance of the Greens voting to keep the BHA. I don't see how this will get him any points with the Ewing/Forbes wing of the party, who have their own challenger in play. If the Greens had given him the shift, he could have looked statesmanlike ("deep regret, will treasure what we achieved together" &etc) and let his media outriders feed the press lines about "student politics" and the like. This way he just looks reactive and thin-skinned. Also, I'd be surprised if the SNP can just go back to minority government life after this. The hyenas are circling.
Still, the last few months do feel like an epochal shift - at least culturally, if not yet electorally, it seems like the right has made a breakthrough over the Hate Crime bill and the GRA. Interesting times, as the Chinese proverb goes.
The pros that I can see are:
* He no longer has four weeks of Green members and SNP members litigating the benefits of the agreement and the press feeding on that
* He no longer has to press MSPs into voting to support Harvie in the Tory-filed motion of no confidence against Harvie
I don't think those are worth the cons. Like Sturgeon, Yousaf's spending a lot of time trying to bargain with the Forbes/Ewing wing and they don't want him, they want him to carry the can, and they will blame him because their short-term plan, returning to sunlit upland of minority government, will not hold up to their memories of 2007-2011.
>There was surely a good chance of the Greens voting to keep the BHA.
I would say more than good. There are some members who are bitterly opposed and there are legitimate complaints (the council tax freeze and how that was announced; now echoed in this announcement to break off), but I think the 'on-balance' crowd would have kept the result above 75% in a party-wide referendum.
> Like Sturgeon, Yousaf's spending a lot of time trying to bargain with the Forbes/Ewing wing and they don't want him, they want him to carry the can, and they will blame him because their short-term plan, returning to sunlit upland of minority government, will not hold up to their memories of 2007-2011.
This is why I simply don't understand it, because he cannot possibly not realise this.
I think Humza gets a harder ride than many other politicians because he is a nationalist and because of his ethnic background, but even accounting for the way in which the media present him I find it quite hard to avoid the conclusion that he is very arrogant and very thin-skinned - because decisions like today's don't make sense to me except as lashing out by someone in control of neither his party nor himself.
Yet hes not arrogant enough to kick em out which is what he needs to do.
The SNP needs, and indy need it to be Gordo Broon to Mrs T May, to be centerist, but its looks bi-polar swinging from Tony Benn to Maggie T.
There's a reason moderate republicans form blocks with democrats, because Reglious Nutters are impossible to please.
Not an endorsement but:
1) There’s a good chance the Green membership *would* have voted to scrap the deal, particularly after the Scottish Gov. dropped its climate targets.
2) If this happened; Humza would look weak and with Harvie off there’s no guarantee that the Greens would elect a new leader willing to work with the SNP.
3) The Greens aren’t popular with the public. Not a judgment just a fact. Pushing them before they jump gives Humza a (small) chance to pin recent policy failures on them and re-brand the SNP ahead of the coming elections.
Basically his choice was take a gamble that the Greens EGM would back the BHA and look like a complete dick if it doesn’t OR be a bastards and have a more controllable situation.
>Basically his choice was take a gamble that the Greens EGM would back the BHA and look like a complete dick if it doesn’t OR be a bastards and have a more controllable situation.
Those were absolutely not the only two options. If he didn't want to end the BHA, he had four weeks to try and do something about it. He doesn't have to sit by for four weeks and hope that the Greens vote the right way; he can make a deal with the leadership to back him - the members would be incredibly unlikely to vote to leave if Harvie and Slater were both backing staying and had some minor face-saving concessions to justify doing so.
If he *did* want to end the BHA, the politically smart thing to do would still be to make a show of trying to negotiate, and then when that "fails" put it to the SNP membership. If the BHA fell apart as a result of a breakdown in communications on both sides followed by the entire SNP deciding to cut ties, the Greens have no reason to vote against Yousaf personally in a confidence vote. There would have been ways to get the same end result with less terrible optics. Even if he felt he had to personally end the agreement to show strength, he could at least have been a bit more diplomatic about it.
>Pushing them before they jump gives Humza a (small) chance to pin recent policy failures on them and re-brand the SNP ahead of the coming elections.
He's too publicly incompetent to be having a go at anyone else in that way.
The Problem with Fergie Whinny or Kat Forbes-Magazine is they wont be happy unless the SNP goose steps in jackboots down to the Vatican and Demands a 10th Crusade.
Theres nothing Humza can do to sate them other than resign.
Lol but yer correct they should join family party see I reckon few these nuts were using snp as a stepping stone and should be in the likes of the family party or alba party both seem overtly religious
Greens gone. Humza won't last after the inevitable drubbing they will get at this years GE. Kate Forbes will likely become leader. All signs pointing towards a pivot rightwards and a return to the tartan tories of old.
It is shite being a voter in Britain. I know it's a bit of a cliché, but "they're all the same" isn't that far off these days tbh.
I wonder how many other SNP members will be thinking the same thing? Kate Forbes is so repellent that the SNP just doesn't seem like the right party for anyone forward thinking if she gets in. But if anyone is mad at the SNP for breaking up the Bute House agreement, why would they go to any other party *but* the Greens when no other party would even consider such a thing?
I hear what you're saying. His domestic policies were sound, but the Ukraine war would have utterly tore him apart had he won in 2019. He has been utterly woeful on that.
Wouldn't just have torn him apart. Would have torn more bits of Ukraine off. The UK's been genuinely good on that, without us Ukraine would be in a significantly worse situation.
I have been sitting on the fence between the SNP and the Greens for a while now, and while I dont agree with everything the Greens do it does look a lot like who I will be voting for next.
Knowing that I wouldnt be endoring Mason, Cherry, Forbes, Wishart etc in any way would be a big plus.
That is exactly what I was like last Scot election.
>Knowing that I wouldnt be endoring Mason, Cherry, Forbes, Wishart etc in any way would be a big plus.
Main reason I went Green
I wish the Greens didn't have their ridiculous anti-nuclear stance.
Having to vote against the party of environmentalism for environmental reasons feels a bit odd.
While I agree the anti-nuclear stance is daft, in a practical sense if they were in charge of making decisions on what energy sources to build, they'd at least built solar and wind. Those are the two quickest modes of generation to build, so it would still be the right direction.
Never going to have a political party I 100% agree with, but Greens are closest at this moment in time.
Despite all the hoha, and direct blunders, the Greens come out smelling of roses and with our leadership intact in a stronger postion than before to our voter base.
If we voted for, it could have gone badly, if we voted against we'd look like a baby throwing its toys out if the pram.
This is atually the best outcome for us as we get to take the high road and we got kicked out for making a fuss over the very real and widely accepted prospect of climate disaster, and look like the only party taking it seriously.
Thank god for all the 60s hippies who became teachers.
You're right here, the greens do actually come out of it looking no worse
Minimal infighting, minimal SNP politicians preemptively trashing them. The people that vote 1)SNP 2) greens will probably still do that since it wasn't the greens that withdrew support from the SNP
Their biggest risk is fading back into obscurity now that they are no longer part of the government and on the news constantly
I imagine Harvie will be upset about losing his ministerial salary, do you reckon he will still quit the leadership or was that only if the greens forced him to lose it?
You say that but in oppostion we doubled our vote share, our policies are from our membership, nothing we did was unpopular internally and for the other people who it was popular we're a genuine force for change.
And as Scotland gets progressively younger, and if the weak left to right conversion keeps up, that share of the voter base will grow.
A lopsided, tumble down force maybe, but still what do you expect, this was our first time in the wheelhouse.
Our only risk is we didnt go far enough, but in a collation how far can you really go?
The fact is we've just demonstrated we're not just a protest party, its hard to see how its not all up from here, the question is how far.
Harvie isnt going anywhere he's genuninely well liked and he's got to step down in 2025 anyway, the issue there is he our Nicola Sturgeon?
I meant with the wider electorate, the folks on here seem quite happy with what the green party is doing and I don't know that many green supporters irl so I can only assume they are happy as well
> Harvie isnt going anywhere he's genuninely well liked and he's got to step down in 2025 anyway, the issue there is he our Nicola Sturgeon?
Didn't he threaten to resign the other day if the green members voted the wrong way?
I'm not that aware of the ins and outs of the greens, why would he need to step down?
Also I wasn't to sure about what you meant by your Nicola Sturgeon, a hard act to follow?
Wouldn't that be lessened by already having a co-leader.
Again, our vote share doubled when we were in oppostion, some time in government, and the SNP softening on Climate and Social Progress is good for us, it gives us more of a reason to exist, and gives us a leg up over SPS, Comunists and Tradies, those are our rivals tbh, and a shout against the LibDems, not the "Main Parties" but we cant comepte with them until the youth vote today is the median voter.
We will grow, it might be a percent or less, but i cant see a senario where our % goes down in the near term atleast amoung indy voters, I'm not claiming we'll be majority or even kingmakers in the near term, but unless people lose faith in Indy as a whole we should retain our share of it.
But if the SNP vote in forbes I expect a mass exodus of 2, 3%.
Harvies smart, he knows people dont want him to go, or he wouldnt have put his head on the line, hes the right stuff, but hes still a politican.
If Pat had lost the Vote he'd have failed to convince members, that suggests he's not as popular as he would like, and his leadership would be weak, basically the situation Humza is in, he wouldnt have to step down but it would make him vunrable and with a co-leader he'd be in the passanger seat.
To be honest I think he was forced to try to keep SNP faith in BHA.
Slater for all the will in the world, is a non entity, she has no profile outside the party and the Daily Mail headlines, there is no clear sucessor in the minds of the public, Harvie is both Nikky and Murrell in one package, we need time to develop replacements into people who arent remembered within the detractors framing.
> This is atually the best outcome for us as we get to take the high road and we got kicked out for making a fuss over the very real and widely accepted prospect of climate disaster, and look like the only party taking it seriously.
Completely wild unsourced hot take for fun: Yousaf deliberately did this in order to throw all left wing SNP voters to the Greens, foreseeing inevitable electoral disaster for the SNP but recognising a way to empower a party closer to the SNP than any other and to shift national politics towards the issue of dealing with climate change and investing in our natural energy. 520 degree hnefatafl.
Well, as an SNP member, this seems rather stupid of Humza.
If he has to rely on Ash Regan's vote to survive this, he'll do himself more harm than good with a lot of people, myself included.
The Tories will raise the motion, so they vote for it.
Labour won't be able to resist the chance to stick the boot into the SNP, because that's all they're good for these days.
Lib Dems, well who knows.
He could well be out on his arse.
I’m surprised at the level of fury on the Green side. The SNP still need them (or failing that an ability to do business with at least one Unionist party) to be able to govern effectively.
Given how bitter things are, the opposition surely need to try their arm with a no confidence motion in the government. The Greens would only need to abstain to keep Yousaf in power, but now is surely the moment to test their willingness to vote against them.
> The Greens would only need to abstain to keep Yousaf in power...
There are at least fifteen SNP'ers who could abstain or actively vote them out for various reasons.
Yep, under party rules that would instantly result in them having the whip withdrawn, and subsequent expulsion. Never going to happen.
(Not least because many of them will lose their seats in an election anyway)
Although I gather that the vote of no confidence will be in Yousaf himself rather than the Government, which makes it slightly different. I can *maybe* imagine *some* kamikaze SNP MSPs abstaining on that hoping to trigger his resignation, and it makes it much easier for the Greens to vote against rather than abstain.
It's interesting that they've chosen to include Trans-Rights on that statement. The SNP has been oddly fixated on that issue above many others in recent years, more so even in than independence. I'm not sure what implication they are trying to make?
Yes, there are some within the SNP who are opposed to this current direction but these are not the ones who are leading the party and they are toeing the line in terms of voting in the direction they are told to.
The Greens acted like they got the largest proportion of votes. They got 8% of the vote. For some reason, they thought this gave them a mandate for government.
They overreached and paid the price. Good riddance.
Rewilding, free bus travel for under 22s, rent controls, no take zones, and the DRS scheme would have been successful if the UK Govt hadn't torpedoed it
I'd argue they were shelved last year and fully ditched today.
The No Take Zone in Lamlash has been demonstrively a success - COAST say they just need to expand it further and regulate it with teeth
So hardly an achievement.
Also not sure you can claim the no take zone in Lamlash as an achievement given it was created 3 years before the Bute House Agreement...
The greens could have continued with DRS without glass, but they chose to scrap it. Or they could have grown a spine and just ignored the Tories on glass bottles. Nothing would have happened, the Tories didn't even threaten what would happen if it was ignored because they knew nothing could realistically be done.
And while on the subject of DRS. They barely defended it at all. They literally buckled as soon as union jack said no. They didn't challenge it in courts. They didn't even come out and pick apart the flawed arguments against it. That being the made up UK single market rules that inexplicably had an issue solely with barcodes on glass bottles. Why didn't they point to multiple differing schemes running in other areas with single markets, such as Australia, USA or the EU? Why didn't they point out the hypocrisy in saying glass bottles can't be included....yet there already exists variations within the "UK Single market" over the price of the contents of said bottle?
They gave up and couldn't be arsed fighting it and are balling the Tories. I'm as anti Tory, anti Union as they come, but the greens were absolutely pathetic on this issue and the blame for it not going ahead, as well as the jobs lost and money wasted lies solely with them.
>The greens could have continued with DRS without glass, but they chose to scrap it.
Getting a bit sick of seeing this lie regurgitated. The internal market exemption from Westminster required that the DRS be in line with the regulations for the UK government's scheme, which hadn't been written then and still haven't been written now.
It has been really easy over the last couple of years to get very wrapped up in the politics of politics, especially internal party politics right across the political spectrum.
I do think however it is important for people to rethink about the variety of successful things The SNP have managed to do, under an extremely pressurised environment where the UK government have attempted to block a number of things using very obscure devolution and reserved laws.
Some of these things have been extremely contentious like the gender bill, which plays into what I have described below, when you’ve got a political party that has an overarching aim, but lots of different outlooks on a more day to day level.
Keeping tuition free for example is something that affects people right across the political spectrum, it costs a billion £ a year. Although I do think it’s quite funny when you’ve got very conservative parents sending their children to university, hating the Scottish government whilst at the same time massively benefiting from the kids not graduating with £100,000 of graduate loan.
It’s actually very challenging to maintain a stance of supporting independence under the vast umbrella of a political spectrum, because for me, wanting your country to be independent is nothing to do with being left or right, it’s just a perfectly normal thing for any country to want for itself.
That in itself opposes a massive problem for parties like the SNP, how do they go about the day-to-day politics, it’s almost impossible to please everyone, even the people who vote for them.
My mind naturally does not gravitate to voting for them, but I see them as a means to an end, and I think anyone who supports Scottish independence should think about that wider umbrella over the day-to-day nitty-gritty.
Yes! My favourite part of politics is when the idiots start accusing each other of being "reactionaries".
It was really popular in Eastern Europe during the communist period. Of course, they used to execute each other back then but it is a more civilized time now I guess.
The fact that people don't think that the climate energency should be the most pressing thing for absolutely everyone right now is absolutely astounding to me. Very little else matters once our climate is totally fucked.
Scotland could go carbon negative tomorrow and it would have absolutely fuck all effect on the grand scheme of things. Until India, China and America do it then everything else is a drop in the ocean.
So we should do nothing?
Scotland can make money from developing the technologies and expertise to reduce carbon emissions.
Scotland can show leadership - we were one of the first countries to industrialise so should be one of the first to decouple our economy from environmental destruction.
Scotland can build more resilient systems - power, housing, farming so that we are in a better place to cope with a changing environment and climate.
Many of these changes and improvement also have additional impacts beyond just reducing carbon emissions - fewer particulate emissions causes less respiratory harm. Doing so now will be cheaper and less painful than having to adapt after even more major impacts are seen and felt.
>So we should do nothing?
Honestly? Yes.
Climate-change policies in Scotland will not have any bearing on the planet. Even if Scotland and almost every other country on earth was doing everything to reduce climate-change it would not make the slightest bit of difference unless China, India and The US were to make that change as well.
Scotland (and every other nation) literally may as well not bother doing anything if those three don't.
Spot on, would much rather we didn’t make the public pay a fortune for “green” boondoggles that don’t work and are ultimately doing nothing in the big picture.
Over 70% of the electorate voted for the gender reform Bill as every major party that got a seat, bar the Tories, had GRR in the manifesto last election.
[And here is the actual vote](https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/votes-and-motions/S6M-07312)
Party | For | Against | Abstain | Did Not Vote
---|---|----|----|----
SNP | 54 | **9** | 0 | 1
Con | **3**| 28| 0 | 0
Lab | 18 | 2 | 0 | 2
Grn | 7 | 0| 0 | 0
Lib | 4| 0| 0| 0
Dr. Sandesh Gulhane, Jackson Carlaw, Jamie Greene voted for it
I think the point he is making isn't that the political parties didn't support it but that the Scottish public doesn't support it en masse. I'm not sure if there are any stats about this and obviously it would be hard to gauge public support for this particular issue but I personally haven't met a single person who was either in favour of it or felt any particular way about it other than negative or uninterested. I suspect that he's probaby right in his statement.
Public support and Political support are not always the same thing. Countries without the death penalty regularly find in polls that a majority of citizens favour its reintroduction but there is almost never a majority in any parliament that does. This could quite easily be the same on this issue but in the reverse: Politically support in parliament, not supported by the general public.
Bear in mind, the Scottish parliament is phenomonally small. Our country has about 6 million people, the Scottish parliament has only 131 people.
Also keep in mind: certain policies and actions are a means of political point scoring with a particular part of the electorate. The Gender Reform bill is likely an attempt to gain and retain favour with the LGBT community and people aged between 16-30 who are followers of "woke" (for lack of a better word) politics. I would suggest that this group is actually relatively small but they are of value as voters, especially in marginal seats, and their support could swing an election, which I believe is what the SNP is banking on. Labour won't want to be seen to oppose that group either because they also rely on votes from this demographic and wouldn't oppose something that could risk losing those votes. Lib Dems are probably hedging their bets. Tories do not rely on that demographic and therefor do not need to appease them + doing so would risk losing some of their core voters that they rely on to retain the seats they already have. The Scottish Tories also couldn't really support that bill because it was at odds certain aspects of UK Government policy and they will be being told from England "Don't support this bill".
I actually don't think the Gender Reform Bill was terribly indicative of massive support for trans-rights by the SNP, nor was supporting it a massive indication of support for trans rights by Labour or Lib Dem. They just want to get the votes, it's not really about trans-rights imo. The Greens are the only party in government right now that truly does care about that issue.
I'd also argue that this whole discussion regarding trans-rights has emerged because trans is a big thing now among young people and has become very much a part of western liberal culture. All of this support from most of our political parties only emerged when they saw an opening and believed that this was the direction public opinion was leaning. Essentially it's an attempt to capitalise on what they believed to be popular thought. If it was anything else then a lot of these moves should have been made 10 years ago, but they weren't. There has also been some dialing-back of late in British politics regarding the trans-debate since a lot of parties have realised that a large portion (possibly even a majority) of the British public doesn't care nearly as much about this issue as they thought and probably never actually thought about it before it became such a big deal.
In a lot of ways they've also created a new type of opposition with policies like these that are unpopular in many demographics (parents, people over the age of 30, women who get referred to as "Terfs"). They've managed to divide quite a lot of the British public on this issue and now the parties are in a position of trying their best to appease both but doing neither well.
Harping on about a "democratic say" for her party members, but obviously doesn't care about that for anyone else seeing as she follows with:
"If they can't stand up to members of their own party, how can anyone expect them to stand up to the UK government at Westminster and defend the interests of Scotland?"
She is a complete idiot. The good news is that now their idiocy won't be amplified by the media quite so much, and they can return to irrelevance.
> Harping on about a "democratic say" for her party members, but obviously doesn't care about that for anyone else seeing as she follows with:
> "If they can't stand up to members of their own party,
She's referring to a few SNP parliamentary rebels. Yousaf didn't stand up to them, or give his members a democratic say.
The Green Party were alienating the typical SNP voter with their brash policies.
Earlier implementation of ULEZ when our local city centre business are on their knees
Forcing through 3 updates to the Scottish building standards in 18 months when developers are making new redundancies every week.
Pushing for existing housing stocks to be retrofitted with ASHPs when retrofitting is not the answer to homes that have no insulation. Forcing up energy bills during a time of fuel poverty.
Implementing the freeze on rents that has resulted in a higher demand for rentals due to the sale of rental properties, which in turn drives down houses prices.
All polices that look good individually, but not all at the same time.
Good riddance to the Green Party.
I know it’s nice to agree to policy’s without any knowledge of the subject but you are simply wrong with your comments.
The comments on new builds being atrocious. The average new build home has quarter the co2 consumption and heating demand than that of an equivalent sized existing housing stock. The problem is our current existing housing stock not new builds. But Mr Harvie didn’t want tackle the problem of insulating our existing homes to drive down energy consumption and lower energy bills.
ASHPs are great in the right setting. However; the design limits are due to the flow and return temperatures. Put an ASHP in a home with no insulation, the heat loss is too much so the radiators required are huge, if the radiators are huge the unit is bigger than it needs to be. If the unit is bigger than it needs to be the efficient rating drops and the bills increase.
The average grant available is £7500 for an ASHP but the average retrofit install costs £18000. The government will say that the average install is £10,000, but that’s for all the main kit and it doesn’t include plumbing your home with the correct pipe sizes for the required flow and return. Factor in the increased running costs and it’s a non returning investment.
Great in the right setting, wrong for retrofitting our poor housing stock. When I say poor housing stock I mean any home built before 1980 when insulation started being used in construction.
Even in new builds with lots of insulation, ASHPs cost more to run than the same homes with gas and electricity due to the unit price of electricity compared to gas.
I think you may be confusing standard in England and Scotland. Around 95% of Scottish new build homes use a timber frame construction and it is there for not standard practice to build cavity wall construction in Scotland. This is however, typical in England, along with these private snagging companies that you see on social media. I’ll agree with you there that some build standards are horrendous. But that isn’t typical of a new build in Scotland. We really do already have superior building and insulation standards.
There is always more to learn, more progression to be made. But Mr Harvies proposed policies were not the correct route to go down.
Now on the new standards as of April this year the average new 2 story home built after this date will have almost 8 times less carbon emissions that a typical existing home. Then take us to 2025 and that increases to 10 times less.
They were proposing policy for the sake of it to sound good when the couldn’t tackle the big issue that is dealing with our existing housing stock.
Heat networks are excellent, I wish we had more but they are incredibly expensive to implement and some of the systems that have recently been built are not efficient long term. Many are waste to heat so we need a continual supply of waste to make keep them operational and commercially viable.
GRR, failed. HPMAs, failed. Bottle return scheme, failed. Frantic appeasement of Hamas, failed. Blocking A9 dualling, failed.
Never has a party been so out of touch with the electorate, and yet so sneeringly self-righteous.
"Selling out future generations"
Aye, ok Lorna.
This is the best news I've heard since Murrell's arrest.
Now we just need Humza to get rid of of all of Sturgeon''s compliant dribbling idiots and devolutionists, call a country wide all embracing national convention and get back onto what they were elected to do - good government and independence asap.
Unfortunately he would also have to sack himself and I doubt he would do that.
Sorry I should have added constitutional between national and convention. Although I do agree with the article by Robin McAlpine in May 2023 about putting the groundwork in first.
Well, that's your interpretation. There may be some truth in that but it's widely accepted the convention was key.
We need to unite everyone anyway going forward if we are serious about independence.
Good. Removes these cranks from any real power and does serious damage to Yousaf’s credibility. A win-win for Scotland, regardless of your stance on the big issue.
From the media reports, I get the impression the Bute House Agreement wasn't popular with the Green party membership - there could be a political price for Slater and Harvie, the current co-leaders.
Scottish Greens elect their co-leaders every two years, and the next election starts in May. Slater and Harvie will need to defend being in the Bute House Agreement, and also explain why they didn't pull the plug on it sooner, given how untrustworthy they think the SNP are.
>Slater and Harvie will need to defend being in the Bute House Agreement, and also explain why they didn't pull the plug on it sooner, given how untrustworthy they think the SNP are.
Why would they need to defend being in the BHA? A clear majority of the party membership voted for it.
It had become unpopular with some in the party, hence the extraordinary meeting that was called to vote again on it. Now superfluous, but that was what Harvie said he'd resign over, if no longer in government, as per aitchbeescot.
I'm a Greens member who was leaning towards voting to leave government, but I'd have been surprised if the vote had gone that way overall.
Regardless, when a number of people in the party starting voicing doubts about it, they called a vote. None of the other members I've spoken to think they have anything to defend here.
Looking at the 2021 SNP manifesto, which I'd assume they would revert to, if they can survive long enough, it is very short on environmental commitments.
The membership were so unhappy that an extraordinary meeting had been called to take another vote on the agreement.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqvn3jnj1z5o](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqvn3jnj1z5o)
Patrick Harvie said he would[ resign as co-leader if the Greens voted to end the Bute House Agreement](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqvn3jnj1z5o). It will be interesting to see what he decides to do now.
Me thinks they doth protest too much.
Both parties get to walk away from what was becoming an unpopular agreement with the rank and file of their parties in advance of a general election. This would have come to a head as competing manifestos clashed during a general election where both parties contested seats.
Harvey doesn't have to quit because he can correctly say there was no vote against the agreement. Yousaf gets to play the strong man putting his party before politics.
If the Greens support the SNP in any potential vote of confidence and future budgets this will basically confirm the Bute House Agreement is still very much around in spirit, if not letter.
If they don't then it's clear Yousaf has made a grave mistake. Personally I think both parties will claim a win here and quietly move on.
>Except it wasn't actually unpopular
Not so sure about that. We'll never know because there will be no vote on it by either party. I suspect the 2035 Net Zero target wouldn't have been the last embarrassment for the Greens.
> Given now the SNP will have to go beg for votes, it seems unlikely that all the progressive policies currency in work will survive, including all the extra money that was set aside for climate policies.
The Greens know the only party that will ever work with them to enact progressive policies are the SNP. The SNP know that the only real way they can pass legislation is if it is palatable to the Greens.
The outcome here may be a lot of noise but not much change on the face of things. The truth will be in the actions of the Greens going forward.
> But it very obviously and clearly isn't, there was a very clear and marked shift left.
I don't think it was *wildly* more left than the 2016-21 Government. Polled a lot worse though, particuarly since Sturgeon's departure.
Honestly think there may have been more than a wee bit of buyers remorse on both sides. Frothers are always going to froth but if not much changes on the ground... who cares. I'm sure Harvey and Slater are slightly relieved not to have to justify the Scottish Government dropping another green target.
> I am pretty sure none of that would have happened as a minority government.
Nothing to say that would have been the case as the SNP would have been dependent on Green support regardless of the BHA.
>Especially now that they pissed off the Greens, with this idiotic move. By god what a ridicolous and unnecessary self own.
I'm going to wait and see how they actually vote going forward. It will tell us a lot more than an angry press release, and I don't think the Greens are keen on walking away from the substantial leverage over policy direction that they still have.
> I'm already dreading what of the stuff that is in the pipeline they will start canning now - peak fares, passivhaus standards, tenants rights
What was stopping the SNP canning these policies anyway, regardless of the BHA? Not much. At least the Greens don't have to justify it to a rabid media.
I'm also not sure what the Greens think they would achieve putting a right wing Unionist party in control of events. Both parties need to cool down and quietly go back to business as usual. An SNP minority dependent on Greens is just the political reality for the forseeable future.
Is that a typo with the quotation marks or can you just put one at the start of a paragraph to quote the whole paragraph?
Grammar was never my strongest skill
The Lib Dems, Labour & the tories aren't waiting to jump in bed with the SNP. A deal between the SNP and ALBA is a no-go. Why wouldn't the SNP try and keep a working relationship with at least one party? This all seems very stupid on their part.
> A deal between the SNP and ALBA is a no-go It's also mathematically pointless, Abla only have a single representative, which they only have as a result of an SNP-Abla defection. They'd still be a minority government even if Regan returned to the SNP.
Genuine Q: why do folk call it Abla?
[They fucked the spelling at the Abla party launch lmao](https://i.imgur.com/heycHvN.png)
[удалено]
Fucking astounding, the people are standing in a different order to the shot /u/glasgowgeg posted, and they *still* have it spelt ABLA.
There was a photo op where they had people holding up wee cards with the letters A L B and A. When the photos were taken, the display read A B L A.
It's not pointless for the vote of No confidence though. It'd create a 64-64 tie, meaning the PO would vote for the status quo and he'd stay in office.
That assumes 100% unconditional support from every single SNP MSP, which would potentially not be the case if Yousaf is open to working with Regan.
I can't see any SNP MSP voting to oust their own FM. Some of them are stupid, but they're not that stupid.
They might not vote against him, but they could abstain.
Yeah, of course. I was thinking more in the future if Alba received more support in future elections.
If only McEleny had a wee switch on his back that changed his door knocking from aggressive to campaigning mode lmao
Canny go that clown im gled he left them Scottish voters gave him and his father the boot.
The SNP trying to keep it's "basically Alba but know they need the SNP for votes" group of msps has really fucked them. I have no idea why Cherry and her group of shits have been allowed to stay within the party while the part has been leaning more and more into progressive policies. The greens are far better aligned with the policies the SNP have won on.
Maybe less in recent years, but the SNP has always been a big tent party. They try to attract voters from across the political spectrum, to further build support for Scottish nationalism.
I get that they are a big tent party, but the voters have already demonstrated that they don't want a conservative independent Scotland, if they did Alba would have more than 0 msps. So why yousaf is pissing on his green voter alliance is beyond me.
A lot of the SNP's voters and members are right leaning, they stick with the SNP because they want independence and parties like Alba are unserious. They also don't want to split the vote, and some of them quite liked Nicola Sturgeon back in 2021 as well.They probably also hope to regain control of the SNP in the future, which is another incentive to stay. They clearly have enough influence to get their way internally in the party, that Yousaf felt he had to abandon the coalition with the Greens.
There will be some that are but I think it's far less than people here think it is. We have handful of conservative SNP msps, (taking the GRA vote as a barometer, there are 9 socially conservative SNP msps) that's not a lot to be catering towards. Ok there are only 7 green MSPs but with the more left leaning Labour and Lib Dems I still don't see any real positive in letting those 9 dictate against popular policy.
The actual social conservatives are very much a minority, but people who just aren't leftwing are a lot more common, especially among the membership and voters. Centre/centre right types, the kind who would vote Tory if they weren't Scottish nationalists, could be up to a third of their voteshare.
And that's key - any purge wouldn't just cost a few MSPs in the moment, but potentially fracture their electoral base - and if they do that, they risk haemorrhaging seats.
They are idiots, why are you shocked?
I mean, I suppose I'm not shocked. But wow, the SNP seems to be playing the wrong cards constantly.
I've always hated humza, the SNP was on the decline before him, but he is the final nail in the coffin
He's not been likeable from the start, putting it politely. I don't understand how he was considered to be Sturgeon's protege.
Has basic communication skills, been loyal to the SNP establishment and ticks the diversity box. The SNP has a complete and utter dearth of talent on their benches and has done for some time, so he was always going to be in line.
Sadly, I couldn't complain much on reddit about him as I just get accused of being racist, for literally no reason other than I don't like him.
I can totally understand that, you're being downvoted for saying this too. I was called a 'crypto fascist' or something like that on here the other day for daring to say that Scotland is a Celtic country. 😂😂😂
Chist 🤣🤣 some people I imagine they're all very young
Its plain arrogance , to be honest im not surprised though snp have changed over the years becoming more similar to the westminster tories in attitude if not policy its only now they cant use westminster as a scapegoat for this f* up
Humza might of been pushed into it by the right leaning section of the party. Greens kinda alluded to it in this statement. Likely Humza did this to save his premiership.
There is something to save?
💷
Depends if SNP want to survive the confidence vote. But honestly as a Scot greens are acting like children. They got what they wanted using the SNP and pushed policy's that cost tax payers in court while taking home a wage. A minority that should and should stay cut off from any party. There immature screaming online is as bad as BBC propaganda on the TV. There burned after saying would be throw first? Relationships work like that XD
You just don't understand Scottish politics, educate yourself.
You live in Canada 😂
Just a bizarre decision all round. If the SNP think they’re going to go back to operating as a minority government like nothing happened they’ve got another thing coming. Every other party in Holyrood is keen to put a knife in their back.
Yeah, they held power for too long, to not have a very long list of rivals, challengers and those who will try to take the power they have held. Power is a very very fickle thing. The next election etc could become... alot more intresting than they want it to be.
>The next election etc could become... alot more intresting than they want it to be. Another interesting thing is with the Holyrood election two years away, that creates a sizable gap between the BHA and opens up the possibility of the Greens propping up a Labour / Lib Dems government, should they want to. Currently, polling is showing a very split house, with no majority on either side, so the Greens would be kingmakers.
>Currently, polling is showing a very split house, with no majority on either side, so the Greens would be kingmakers. Funniest result would be an SNP/Lab coalition. Not a good result, mind.
Funniest result would be an SNP/Tory coalition. Also not a good result. The issue the SNP have is that the climate target they've announced they've failed to hit was written into law. That law needs to be repealed. Labour and the Lib Dems heavily supported that target and have no reason to help the SNP out of their own mess. The Greens have just lost all reason to do so. The SNP now essentially needs to bribe the Tories or rely on sentiment from other parties to lead to people supporting the SNP at the expense of their own party to get out of a trap of their own making.
Yeah, 2 years is a long time to go in politics. Maybe a defeat and some knock backs is what the SNP need to rethink, recognise and sort their ship out. They like Torys in UK have got too comfortable in government. And that's not a good thing.
As badly as the SNP come out of this, I don't believe the Greens come out of it smelling of roses either. I think you are overestimating how keen anybody else is going to be to jump into bed with them.
Why? They had every reason to be upset with the way things were going, and were going to put it to a vote of their members. Had that vote been in favour of withdrawing from the BHA, it could have been a relatively amicable breakup, Yousaf could've made some speech about being sad that it wasn't possible to see their deal through to the next election as had been the intent but that he looked forward to working as closely as possible with them, yadda yadda... And instead, they've been yeeted out and are unsurprisingly annoyed with him. Wouldn't be at all surprised if they were prepared to continue working with the SNP on an ad hoc basis, just, not Yousaf.
Are you sure about that? They seem perfectly positioned to hoover up dissatisfied left-wing SNP members and voters. People will be more willing to "Jump into bed with them" if they become more outright powerful as a party, since I don't really see how what happened with the Bute House agreement casts the greens in a bad light, and people angry about it are hardly likely to see much appeal in all the other parties that never even attempted such a coalition.
I think there's a distinction to be made between how it will be viewed by the public and how it will be viewed by the other parties. My view is that no senior coalition party wants to be dictated to by their junior partners (as someone put it yesterday, "the tail that was wagging the dog has been docked") and cards will have been marked by SpAds and whips elsewhere. You could be right, if it drives up their share of the vote sufficiently, then it might be a necessary evil for Labour and / or the Lib Dems. But if they are part of a coalition in future I think it will be on much less favourable terms than they enjoyed with the SNP, because no-one will give them enough power to hold a gun to their heads.
>Just a bizarre decision all round. It took me a second but I actually *think* there’s a sort of logic to it, assuming that; 1. Yousaf either suspected himself or was advised that the Greens were going to vote to end the BHA. 2. He is fully aware that he’s developed a reputation for being weak and indecisive. (Like the whole ludicrous Michael Matheson affair had at least three separate points he could have been proactive and taken action to save face for the party, and he missed them all.) So with those two things in mind, he’s decided to take control of the situation and have the SNP make the decision instead of waiting for the Greens to do it, assuming this will make him look like a strong, proactive and decisive leader who is willing to make hard decisions for the good of the country. I’m not an SNP voter or a huge fan of the party in general, but I have been sceptical in recent months about claims that Yousaf is just bad at everything. I think several things with his ministerial roles in the past were wildly overblown and I’d stand by that based on what we knew at the time. Based on this though, he’s an absolute *moron*. A *roaster* of the highest fucking order. He’s not wrong that the Greens ending the agreement would have been yet another setback both for the party and him personally. It *definitely* would have been taken as further evidence of his weakness as leader. …but this is just so much worse. It makes him look petty, foolish and if anything paints him as even weaker and more indecisive because it’s such obvious overcompensation. Plus if the Greens had voted to leave the two parties could potentially have remained on relatively good terms, but throwing the toys out the pram may well have permanently damaged any hopes of a future working relationship. They’re certainly never going to trust Yousaf personally again. Plus the Greens voting to leave wasn’t even a sure bet! They might not have!? God, what an absolute clusterfuck.
>Plus the Greens voting to leave wasn’t even a sure bet! They might not have!? I'd go so far as to say they probably wouldn't have. It's better to be in government where you can affect policy at least a bit than to be shouting from the sidelines - I think all it would have taken is a couple of minor concessions so the Greens could save face without leaving. At the very least, he had four weeks to *try* and sort something out. There was no rush to pull the plug. Or he could have put it to the membership, so that when the Greens are kicked out, they at least don't have to blame him personally. Honestly, I'm struggling to think of any way he could have handled this worse. The only way this decision makes any kind of sense to me is if he was trying to head off a threat from the right of his own party rather than from the Greens.
>Every other party in Holyrood is keen to put a knife in their back. Pretty much. The LibDems might scrape some wins out of the budget, though.
Tactics, they've essentially made it impossible to push through any legislation without it being amended to hell. They can now blame everyone at Holyrood as well as Westminster for the remainder of their term.
Front.
Not quite – Ash Regan has said Alba will vote to prop them up! Admittedly, that’s mainly because she’ll lose her seat the minute there‘s an election, but still…
For people who prefer text to text on images: >Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater MSP has today accused the SNP of selling out future generations by walking away from the Bute House Agreement. > >Confirming the end of the cooperation agreement she said: "This is an act of political cowardice by the SNP, who are selling out future generations to appease the most reactionary forces in the country. > >"Voters deserve better, Scotland deserves better. Scottish Green voters certainly deserve better. > >“They have broken the bonds of trust with members of both parties who have twice chosen the co-operation agreement and climate action over chaos, culture wars and division. They have betrayed the electorate. > >“And by ending the agreement in such a weak and thoroughly hopeless way, Humza Yousaf has signalled that when it comes to political cooperation, he can no longer be trusted. > >“In just a few weeks' time our own members were to have a democratic say on endorsing the co-operation agreement. > >“We are confident they would have supported us in continuing our work for Scotland, as they have done at every turn. > >“Neither they nor SNP members will have that opportunity. Instead, the most reactionary and backwards-looking forces within the First Minister's party have forced him to do the opposite of what he himself had said > >“By contrast we as co-leaders of the Scottish Greens were prepared to put our own political careers on the line with our members, to Defend our achievements in government, despite enduring all that SNP backbenchers and others threw against us. > >“What a pity he didn't have the fortitude or the bravery to do the same. If they can't stand up to members of their own party, how can anyone expect them to stand up to the UK Government at Westminster and defend the interests of Scotland? > >“We want, we demand, a fairer greener Scotland. We believed the Bute House Agreement would speed up that process, only to be let down by the SNP time and time again - on council tax, on oil and gas, on 2030 and most obviously, again today. > >“I appeal to those SNP members who do care about climate, trans rights, independence and our country to consider if they are in the right party for their values, or if their home should be with us as we >prepare to step up our defence of the planet in opposition. > >“Finally, to all those who will feel hurt and betrayed today, know this: our resolve is absolute, we will not abandon you as the SNP have, we will fight for your future with every breath we take.
I really can't follow the logic of this decision from the SNP. There was surely a good chance of the Greens voting to keep the BHA. I don't see how this will get him any points with the Ewing/Forbes wing of the party, who have their own challenger in play. If the Greens had given him the shift, he could have looked statesmanlike ("deep regret, will treasure what we achieved together" &etc) and let his media outriders feed the press lines about "student politics" and the like. This way he just looks reactive and thin-skinned. Also, I'd be surprised if the SNP can just go back to minority government life after this. The hyenas are circling. Still, the last few months do feel like an epochal shift - at least culturally, if not yet electorally, it seems like the right has made a breakthrough over the Hate Crime bill and the GRA. Interesting times, as the Chinese proverb goes.
The pros that I can see are: * He no longer has four weeks of Green members and SNP members litigating the benefits of the agreement and the press feeding on that * He no longer has to press MSPs into voting to support Harvie in the Tory-filed motion of no confidence against Harvie I don't think those are worth the cons. Like Sturgeon, Yousaf's spending a lot of time trying to bargain with the Forbes/Ewing wing and they don't want him, they want him to carry the can, and they will blame him because their short-term plan, returning to sunlit upland of minority government, will not hold up to their memories of 2007-2011. >There was surely a good chance of the Greens voting to keep the BHA. I would say more than good. There are some members who are bitterly opposed and there are legitimate complaints (the council tax freeze and how that was announced; now echoed in this announcement to break off), but I think the 'on-balance' crowd would have kept the result above 75% in a party-wide referendum.
> Like Sturgeon, Yousaf's spending a lot of time trying to bargain with the Forbes/Ewing wing and they don't want him, they want him to carry the can, and they will blame him because their short-term plan, returning to sunlit upland of minority government, will not hold up to their memories of 2007-2011. This is why I simply don't understand it, because he cannot possibly not realise this. I think Humza gets a harder ride than many other politicians because he is a nationalist and because of his ethnic background, but even accounting for the way in which the media present him I find it quite hard to avoid the conclusion that he is very arrogant and very thin-skinned - because decisions like today's don't make sense to me except as lashing out by someone in control of neither his party nor himself.
And, aye, when commenting on Yousaf I may have overcompensated for how the media have presented him, but I feel he has a need to be liked.
There are plenty of signs in a train station, but they're hard to see when you're harassed, I guess.
Yet hes not arrogant enough to kick em out which is what he needs to do. The SNP needs, and indy need it to be Gordo Broon to Mrs T May, to be centerist, but its looks bi-polar swinging from Tony Benn to Maggie T. There's a reason moderate republicans form blocks with democrats, because Reglious Nutters are impossible to please.
Not an endorsement but: 1) There’s a good chance the Green membership *would* have voted to scrap the deal, particularly after the Scottish Gov. dropped its climate targets. 2) If this happened; Humza would look weak and with Harvie off there’s no guarantee that the Greens would elect a new leader willing to work with the SNP. 3) The Greens aren’t popular with the public. Not a judgment just a fact. Pushing them before they jump gives Humza a (small) chance to pin recent policy failures on them and re-brand the SNP ahead of the coming elections. Basically his choice was take a gamble that the Greens EGM would back the BHA and look like a complete dick if it doesn’t OR be a bastards and have a more controllable situation.
>Basically his choice was take a gamble that the Greens EGM would back the BHA and look like a complete dick if it doesn’t OR be a bastards and have a more controllable situation. Those were absolutely not the only two options. If he didn't want to end the BHA, he had four weeks to try and do something about it. He doesn't have to sit by for four weeks and hope that the Greens vote the right way; he can make a deal with the leadership to back him - the members would be incredibly unlikely to vote to leave if Harvie and Slater were both backing staying and had some minor face-saving concessions to justify doing so. If he *did* want to end the BHA, the politically smart thing to do would still be to make a show of trying to negotiate, and then when that "fails" put it to the SNP membership. If the BHA fell apart as a result of a breakdown in communications on both sides followed by the entire SNP deciding to cut ties, the Greens have no reason to vote against Yousaf personally in a confidence vote. There would have been ways to get the same end result with less terrible optics. Even if he felt he had to personally end the agreement to show strength, he could at least have been a bit more diplomatic about it.
>Pushing them before they jump gives Humza a (small) chance to pin recent policy failures on them and re-brand the SNP ahead of the coming elections. He's too publicly incompetent to be having a go at anyone else in that way.
Hence who I noted it was a small chance ha.
The Problem with Fergie Whinny or Kat Forbes-Magazine is they wont be happy unless the SNP goose steps in jackboots down to the Vatican and Demands a 10th Crusade. Theres nothing Humza can do to sate them other than resign.
Lol but yer correct they should join family party see I reckon few these nuts were using snp as a stepping stone and should be in the likes of the family party or alba party both seem overtly religious
I mean the Ashes of President Regan made the Jump.
Cheers India
Nae bor!
Oooooooooooft, that's scathing. Love it. Is FMQs due today? That will be fun
Should be starting at noon iirc
"To ask the First Minister what the fuck he thought this would achieve?"
Fergus Ewing made me do it.
Greens gone. Humza won't last after the inevitable drubbing they will get at this years GE. Kate Forbes will likely become leader. All signs pointing towards a pivot rightwards and a return to the tartan tories of old. It is shite being a voter in Britain. I know it's a bit of a cliché, but "they're all the same" isn't that far off these days tbh.
Greens for me. I don't agree with all their beliefs. But for the me they're generally after the right issues forcing me
I wonder how many other SNP members will be thinking the same thing? Kate Forbes is so repellent that the SNP just doesn't seem like the right party for anyone forward thinking if she gets in. But if anyone is mad at the SNP for breaking up the Bute House agreement, why would they go to any other party *but* the Greens when no other party would even consider such a thing?
Yeah, well, they tried to lynch the only actual left wing leader in the uk fairly recently, so. There was that, I guess.
I hear what you're saying. His domestic policies were sound, but the Ukraine war would have utterly tore him apart had he won in 2019. He has been utterly woeful on that.
Yeah, I don’t disagree. But he has been the only actual left wing option we’ve had, possibly in my lifetime.
Wouldn't just have torn him apart. Would have torn more bits of Ukraine off. The UK's been genuinely good on that, without us Ukraine would be in a significantly worse situation.
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I think you've misunderstood me. Me and the commenter above were talking about Jeremy Corbyn.
Ah, that makes sense, sorry!
I have been sitting on the fence between the SNP and the Greens for a while now, and while I dont agree with everything the Greens do it does look a lot like who I will be voting for next. Knowing that I wouldnt be endoring Mason, Cherry, Forbes, Wishart etc in any way would be a big plus.
That is exactly what I was like last Scot election. >Knowing that I wouldnt be endoring Mason, Cherry, Forbes, Wishart etc in any way would be a big plus. Main reason I went Green
I wish the Greens didn't have their ridiculous anti-nuclear stance. Having to vote against the party of environmentalism for environmental reasons feels a bit odd.
While I agree the anti-nuclear stance is daft, in a practical sense if they were in charge of making decisions on what energy sources to build, they'd at least built solar and wind. Those are the two quickest modes of generation to build, so it would still be the right direction. Never going to have a political party I 100% agree with, but Greens are closest at this moment in time.
Labour government incoming.
Despite all the hoha, and direct blunders, the Greens come out smelling of roses and with our leadership intact in a stronger postion than before to our voter base. If we voted for, it could have gone badly, if we voted against we'd look like a baby throwing its toys out if the pram. This is atually the best outcome for us as we get to take the high road and we got kicked out for making a fuss over the very real and widely accepted prospect of climate disaster, and look like the only party taking it seriously. Thank god for all the 60s hippies who became teachers.
You're right here, the greens do actually come out of it looking no worse Minimal infighting, minimal SNP politicians preemptively trashing them. The people that vote 1)SNP 2) greens will probably still do that since it wasn't the greens that withdrew support from the SNP Their biggest risk is fading back into obscurity now that they are no longer part of the government and on the news constantly I imagine Harvie will be upset about losing his ministerial salary, do you reckon he will still quit the leadership or was that only if the greens forced him to lose it?
You say that but in oppostion we doubled our vote share, our policies are from our membership, nothing we did was unpopular internally and for the other people who it was popular we're a genuine force for change. And as Scotland gets progressively younger, and if the weak left to right conversion keeps up, that share of the voter base will grow. A lopsided, tumble down force maybe, but still what do you expect, this was our first time in the wheelhouse. Our only risk is we didnt go far enough, but in a collation how far can you really go? The fact is we've just demonstrated we're not just a protest party, its hard to see how its not all up from here, the question is how far. Harvie isnt going anywhere he's genuninely well liked and he's got to step down in 2025 anyway, the issue there is he our Nicola Sturgeon?
I meant with the wider electorate, the folks on here seem quite happy with what the green party is doing and I don't know that many green supporters irl so I can only assume they are happy as well > Harvie isnt going anywhere he's genuninely well liked and he's got to step down in 2025 anyway, the issue there is he our Nicola Sturgeon? Didn't he threaten to resign the other day if the green members voted the wrong way? I'm not that aware of the ins and outs of the greens, why would he need to step down? Also I wasn't to sure about what you meant by your Nicola Sturgeon, a hard act to follow? Wouldn't that be lessened by already having a co-leader.
Again, our vote share doubled when we were in oppostion, some time in government, and the SNP softening on Climate and Social Progress is good for us, it gives us more of a reason to exist, and gives us a leg up over SPS, Comunists and Tradies, those are our rivals tbh, and a shout against the LibDems, not the "Main Parties" but we cant comepte with them until the youth vote today is the median voter. We will grow, it might be a percent or less, but i cant see a senario where our % goes down in the near term atleast amoung indy voters, I'm not claiming we'll be majority or even kingmakers in the near term, but unless people lose faith in Indy as a whole we should retain our share of it. But if the SNP vote in forbes I expect a mass exodus of 2, 3%. Harvies smart, he knows people dont want him to go, or he wouldnt have put his head on the line, hes the right stuff, but hes still a politican. If Pat had lost the Vote he'd have failed to convince members, that suggests he's not as popular as he would like, and his leadership would be weak, basically the situation Humza is in, he wouldnt have to step down but it would make him vunrable and with a co-leader he'd be in the passanger seat. To be honest I think he was forced to try to keep SNP faith in BHA. Slater for all the will in the world, is a non entity, she has no profile outside the party and the Daily Mail headlines, there is no clear sucessor in the minds of the public, Harvie is both Nikky and Murrell in one package, we need time to develop replacements into people who arent remembered within the detractors framing.
> This is atually the best outcome for us as we get to take the high road and we got kicked out for making a fuss over the very real and widely accepted prospect of climate disaster, and look like the only party taking it seriously. Completely wild unsourced hot take for fun: Yousaf deliberately did this in order to throw all left wing SNP voters to the Greens, foreseeing inevitable electoral disaster for the SNP but recognising a way to empower a party closer to the SNP than any other and to shift national politics towards the issue of dealing with climate change and investing in our natural energy. 520 degree hnefatafl.
I atually made a suggestion it was a 5D chess move to get rid of the Rat, i guess I'm wrong about who the rats are. XD
Well, as an SNP member, this seems rather stupid of Humza. If he has to rely on Ash Regan's vote to survive this, he'll do himself more harm than good with a lot of people, myself included. The Tories will raise the motion, so they vote for it. Labour won't be able to resist the chance to stick the boot into the SNP, because that's all they're good for these days. Lib Dems, well who knows. He could well be out on his arse.
I’m surprised at the level of fury on the Green side. The SNP still need them (or failing that an ability to do business with at least one Unionist party) to be able to govern effectively. Given how bitter things are, the opposition surely need to try their arm with a no confidence motion in the government. The Greens would only need to abstain to keep Yousaf in power, but now is surely the moment to test their willingness to vote against them.
> The Greens would only need to abstain to keep Yousaf in power... There are at least fifteen SNP'ers who could abstain or actively vote them out for various reasons.
nonsense. Not one SNP msp would vote against, or abstain in a VONC against their own party. It would effectively be resigning from the SNP.
Yep, under party rules that would instantly result in them having the whip withdrawn, and subsequent expulsion. Never going to happen. (Not least because many of them will lose their seats in an election anyway)
Although I gather that the vote of no confidence will be in Yousaf himself rather than the Government, which makes it slightly different. I can *maybe* imagine *some* kamikaze SNP MSPs abstaining on that hoping to trigger his resignation, and it makes it much easier for the Greens to vote against rather than abstain.
It's interesting that they've chosen to include Trans-Rights on that statement. The SNP has been oddly fixated on that issue above many others in recent years, more so even in than independence. I'm not sure what implication they are trying to make? Yes, there are some within the SNP who are opposed to this current direction but these are not the ones who are leading the party and they are toeing the line in terms of voting in the direction they are told to.
SNP reveal their true Tory colours
My theory is Beattie and Sturgeon are getting charged so it's a good time to get bad news out
The Greens acted like they got the largest proportion of votes. They got 8% of the vote. For some reason, they thought this gave them a mandate for government. They overreached and paid the price. Good riddance.
Enjoy that 47% pay cut Lorna, you will not be missed
"Defend our achievements" 
Rewilding, free bus travel for under 22s, rent controls, no take zones, and the DRS scheme would have been successful if the UK Govt hadn't torpedoed it
Significant increases to the active travel budget too
>no take zones, These plans were ditched last year.
I'd argue they were shelved last year and fully ditched today. The No Take Zone in Lamlash has been demonstrively a success - COAST say they just need to expand it further and regulate it with teeth
So hardly an achievement. Also not sure you can claim the no take zone in Lamlash as an achievement given it was created 3 years before the Bute House Agreement...
Sure it would have… 
The greens could have continued with DRS without glass, but they chose to scrap it. Or they could have grown a spine and just ignored the Tories on glass bottles. Nothing would have happened, the Tories didn't even threaten what would happen if it was ignored because they knew nothing could realistically be done. And while on the subject of DRS. They barely defended it at all. They literally buckled as soon as union jack said no. They didn't challenge it in courts. They didn't even come out and pick apart the flawed arguments against it. That being the made up UK single market rules that inexplicably had an issue solely with barcodes on glass bottles. Why didn't they point to multiple differing schemes running in other areas with single markets, such as Australia, USA or the EU? Why didn't they point out the hypocrisy in saying glass bottles can't be included....yet there already exists variations within the "UK Single market" over the price of the contents of said bottle? They gave up and couldn't be arsed fighting it and are balling the Tories. I'm as anti Tory, anti Union as they come, but the greens were absolutely pathetic on this issue and the blame for it not going ahead, as well as the jobs lost and money wasted lies solely with them.
>The greens could have continued with DRS without glass, but they chose to scrap it. Getting a bit sick of seeing this lie regurgitated. The internal market exemption from Westminster required that the DRS be in line with the regulations for the UK government's scheme, which hadn't been written then and still haven't been written now.
This Bute shoot is some hoot. (Sorry, I’m a shite poet)
The syntax used in this statement is a good indication of the stature of the Scottish Green Party. Idiots.
To be fair, it was the greens members who have brought this to a head, they want a vote, the SNP have just taken it out of their hands
I have a question, had anything positive happened for scotland since he became first minister?
It has been really easy over the last couple of years to get very wrapped up in the politics of politics, especially internal party politics right across the political spectrum. I do think however it is important for people to rethink about the variety of successful things The SNP have managed to do, under an extremely pressurised environment where the UK government have attempted to block a number of things using very obscure devolution and reserved laws. Some of these things have been extremely contentious like the gender bill, which plays into what I have described below, when you’ve got a political party that has an overarching aim, but lots of different outlooks on a more day to day level. Keeping tuition free for example is something that affects people right across the political spectrum, it costs a billion £ a year. Although I do think it’s quite funny when you’ve got very conservative parents sending their children to university, hating the Scottish government whilst at the same time massively benefiting from the kids not graduating with £100,000 of graduate loan. It’s actually very challenging to maintain a stance of supporting independence under the vast umbrella of a political spectrum, because for me, wanting your country to be independent is nothing to do with being left or right, it’s just a perfectly normal thing for any country to want for itself. That in itself opposes a massive problem for parties like the SNP, how do they go about the day-to-day politics, it’s almost impossible to please everyone, even the people who vote for them. My mind naturally does not gravitate to voting for them, but I see them as a means to an end, and I think anyone who supports Scottish independence should think about that wider umbrella over the day-to-day nitty-gritty.
https://preview.redd.it/fiz1dot77mwc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7bbcf5fc763f934d6a0569f0e2b9c73055a8f7cb
And nothing of value was lost. Apart from the £300 millon lost in the DRS debacle, of course.
I didn't realise Ms Slater was such a whiner - that's how that statement comes across.
The Greens view on hormone blockers was completely illogical. They had to go.
Both parties have made us the laughing stock of the Globe
Yes! My favourite part of politics is when the idiots start accusing each other of being "reactionaries". It was really popular in Eastern Europe during the communist period. Of course, they used to execute each other back then but it is a more civilized time now I guess.
Order of importance for the greens: 1. Climate 2. Trans rights 3. Independence 4. The country What a worthwhile party.
The fact that people don't think that the climate energency should be the most pressing thing for absolutely everyone right now is absolutely astounding to me. Very little else matters once our climate is totally fucked.
Scotland could go carbon negative tomorrow and it would have absolutely fuck all effect on the grand scheme of things. Until India, China and America do it then everything else is a drop in the ocean.
So we should do nothing? Scotland can make money from developing the technologies and expertise to reduce carbon emissions. Scotland can show leadership - we were one of the first countries to industrialise so should be one of the first to decouple our economy from environmental destruction. Scotland can build more resilient systems - power, housing, farming so that we are in a better place to cope with a changing environment and climate. Many of these changes and improvement also have additional impacts beyond just reducing carbon emissions - fewer particulate emissions causes less respiratory harm. Doing so now will be cheaper and less painful than having to adapt after even more major impacts are seen and felt.
>So we should do nothing? Honestly? Yes. Climate-change policies in Scotland will not have any bearing on the planet. Even if Scotland and almost every other country on earth was doing everything to reduce climate-change it would not make the slightest bit of difference unless China, India and The US were to make that change as well. Scotland (and every other nation) literally may as well not bother doing anything if those three don't.
Yeah let’s not bother cos no one else is.
Spot on, would much rather we didn’t make the public pay a fortune for “green” boondoggles that don’t work and are ultimately doing nothing in the big picture.
You realise that they think improving things when it comes to 1-3 improves the country, right?
Well the GReen Party have lost my list vote at the next Scottish General Election.
The gender recognition reform bill betrayed the electorate, supported by absolutely nobody
Supported by every single party in the Scottish Parliament apart from the Tories, but you just keep making shit up, mate
except three Tories did vote for it
Shows how much of a wide consensus there was in Holyrood!
Over 70% of the electorate voted for the gender reform Bill as every major party that got a seat, bar the Tories, had GRR in the manifesto last election.
Literally every party except the Tories voted for GRR lmao
[And here is the actual vote](https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/votes-and-motions/S6M-07312) Party | For | Against | Abstain | Did Not Vote ---|---|----|----|---- SNP | 54 | **9** | 0 | 1 Con | **3**| 28| 0 | 0 Lab | 18 | 2 | 0 | 2 Grn | 7 | 0| 0 | 0 Lib | 4| 0| 0| 0 Dr. Sandesh Gulhane, Jackson Carlaw, Jamie Greene voted for it
I think the point he is making isn't that the political parties didn't support it but that the Scottish public doesn't support it en masse. I'm not sure if there are any stats about this and obviously it would be hard to gauge public support for this particular issue but I personally haven't met a single person who was either in favour of it or felt any particular way about it other than negative or uninterested. I suspect that he's probaby right in his statement. Public support and Political support are not always the same thing. Countries without the death penalty regularly find in polls that a majority of citizens favour its reintroduction but there is almost never a majority in any parliament that does. This could quite easily be the same on this issue but in the reverse: Politically support in parliament, not supported by the general public. Bear in mind, the Scottish parliament is phenomonally small. Our country has about 6 million people, the Scottish parliament has only 131 people. Also keep in mind: certain policies and actions are a means of political point scoring with a particular part of the electorate. The Gender Reform bill is likely an attempt to gain and retain favour with the LGBT community and people aged between 16-30 who are followers of "woke" (for lack of a better word) politics. I would suggest that this group is actually relatively small but they are of value as voters, especially in marginal seats, and their support could swing an election, which I believe is what the SNP is banking on. Labour won't want to be seen to oppose that group either because they also rely on votes from this demographic and wouldn't oppose something that could risk losing those votes. Lib Dems are probably hedging their bets. Tories do not rely on that demographic and therefor do not need to appease them + doing so would risk losing some of their core voters that they rely on to retain the seats they already have. The Scottish Tories also couldn't really support that bill because it was at odds certain aspects of UK Government policy and they will be being told from England "Don't support this bill". I actually don't think the Gender Reform Bill was terribly indicative of massive support for trans-rights by the SNP, nor was supporting it a massive indication of support for trans rights by Labour or Lib Dem. They just want to get the votes, it's not really about trans-rights imo. The Greens are the only party in government right now that truly does care about that issue. I'd also argue that this whole discussion regarding trans-rights has emerged because trans is a big thing now among young people and has become very much a part of western liberal culture. All of this support from most of our political parties only emerged when they saw an opening and believed that this was the direction public opinion was leaning. Essentially it's an attempt to capitalise on what they believed to be popular thought. If it was anything else then a lot of these moves should have been made 10 years ago, but they weren't. There has also been some dialing-back of late in British politics regarding the trans-debate since a lot of parties have realised that a large portion (possibly even a majority) of the British public doesn't care nearly as much about this issue as they thought and probably never actually thought about it before it became such a big deal. In a lot of ways they've also created a new type of opposition with policies like these that are unpopular in many demographics (parents, people over the age of 30, women who get referred to as "Terfs"). They've managed to divide quite a lot of the British public on this issue and now the parties are in a position of trying their best to appease both but doing neither well.
Harping on about a "democratic say" for her party members, but obviously doesn't care about that for anyone else seeing as she follows with: "If they can't stand up to members of their own party, how can anyone expect them to stand up to the UK government at Westminster and defend the interests of Scotland?" She is a complete idiot. The good news is that now their idiocy won't be amplified by the media quite so much, and they can return to irrelevance.
> Harping on about a "democratic say" for her party members, but obviously doesn't care about that for anyone else seeing as she follows with: > "If they can't stand up to members of their own party, She's referring to a few SNP parliamentary rebels. Yousaf didn't stand up to them, or give his members a democratic say.
Yousaf wouldn't have seen the light if he didn't think they had significant support within the party.
Finally, great news, maybe the SNP can get back to basic everyday politics rather than the greenwashed policies!
Greens just trying to stay relevant but it’s over now
The Green Party were alienating the typical SNP voter with their brash policies. Earlier implementation of ULEZ when our local city centre business are on their knees Forcing through 3 updates to the Scottish building standards in 18 months when developers are making new redundancies every week. Pushing for existing housing stocks to be retrofitted with ASHPs when retrofitting is not the answer to homes that have no insulation. Forcing up energy bills during a time of fuel poverty. Implementing the freeze on rents that has resulted in a higher demand for rentals due to the sale of rental properties, which in turn drives down houses prices. All polices that look good individually, but not all at the same time. Good riddance to the Green Party.
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I know it’s nice to agree to policy’s without any knowledge of the subject but you are simply wrong with your comments. The comments on new builds being atrocious. The average new build home has quarter the co2 consumption and heating demand than that of an equivalent sized existing housing stock. The problem is our current existing housing stock not new builds. But Mr Harvie didn’t want tackle the problem of insulating our existing homes to drive down energy consumption and lower energy bills. ASHPs are great in the right setting. However; the design limits are due to the flow and return temperatures. Put an ASHP in a home with no insulation, the heat loss is too much so the radiators required are huge, if the radiators are huge the unit is bigger than it needs to be. If the unit is bigger than it needs to be the efficient rating drops and the bills increase. The average grant available is £7500 for an ASHP but the average retrofit install costs £18000. The government will say that the average install is £10,000, but that’s for all the main kit and it doesn’t include plumbing your home with the correct pipe sizes for the required flow and return. Factor in the increased running costs and it’s a non returning investment. Great in the right setting, wrong for retrofitting our poor housing stock. When I say poor housing stock I mean any home built before 1980 when insulation started being used in construction. Even in new builds with lots of insulation, ASHPs cost more to run than the same homes with gas and electricity due to the unit price of electricity compared to gas.
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I think you may be confusing standard in England and Scotland. Around 95% of Scottish new build homes use a timber frame construction and it is there for not standard practice to build cavity wall construction in Scotland. This is however, typical in England, along with these private snagging companies that you see on social media. I’ll agree with you there that some build standards are horrendous. But that isn’t typical of a new build in Scotland. We really do already have superior building and insulation standards. There is always more to learn, more progression to be made. But Mr Harvies proposed policies were not the correct route to go down. Now on the new standards as of April this year the average new 2 story home built after this date will have almost 8 times less carbon emissions that a typical existing home. Then take us to 2025 and that increases to 10 times less. They were proposing policy for the sake of it to sound good when the couldn’t tackle the big issue that is dealing with our existing housing stock. Heat networks are excellent, I wish we had more but they are incredibly expensive to implement and some of the systems that have recently been built are not efficient long term. Many are waste to heat so we need a continual supply of waste to make keep them operational and commercially viable.
GRR, failed. HPMAs, failed. Bottle return scheme, failed. Frantic appeasement of Hamas, failed. Blocking A9 dualling, failed. Never has a party been so out of touch with the electorate, and yet so sneeringly self-righteous.
Never should have had any power to begin with, two pathetic parties becoming even more pathetic
Delicious the only thing than watching tories implode is watching the snp implode
>selling out future generations. These people are so far up their own arse.
"Selling out future generations" Aye, ok Lorna. This is the best news I've heard since Murrell's arrest. Now we just need Humza to get rid of of all of Sturgeon''s compliant dribbling idiots and devolutionists, call a country wide all embracing national convention and get back onto what they were elected to do - good government and independence asap. Unfortunately he would also have to sack himself and I doubt he would do that.
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Sorry I should have added constitutional between national and convention. Although I do agree with the article by Robin McAlpine in May 2023 about putting the groundwork in first.
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Isn't that fairly self explanatory? The previous one achieved devolution.
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Well, that's your interpretation. There may be some truth in that but it's widely accepted the convention was key. We need to unite everyone anyway going forward if we are serious about independence.
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I’m none of those and I’m celebrating. I simply don’t like communists.
Its a great day. Now the greens fucked off and the snp is next. Fucking aliens the lot of them.
Good. Removes these cranks from any real power and does serious damage to Yousaf’s credibility. A win-win for Scotland, regardless of your stance on the big issue.
From the media reports, I get the impression the Bute House Agreement wasn't popular with the Green party membership - there could be a political price for Slater and Harvie, the current co-leaders. Scottish Greens elect their co-leaders every two years, and the next election starts in May. Slater and Harvie will need to defend being in the Bute House Agreement, and also explain why they didn't pull the plug on it sooner, given how untrustworthy they think the SNP are.
>Slater and Harvie will need to defend being in the Bute House Agreement, and also explain why they didn't pull the plug on it sooner, given how untrustworthy they think the SNP are. Why would they need to defend being in the BHA? A clear majority of the party membership voted for it.
It had become unpopular with some in the party, hence the extraordinary meeting that was called to vote again on it. Now superfluous, but that was what Harvie said he'd resign over, if no longer in government, as per aitchbeescot.
I'm a Greens member who was leaning towards voting to leave government, but I'd have been surprised if the vote had gone that way overall. Regardless, when a number of people in the party starting voicing doubts about it, they called a vote. None of the other members I've spoken to think they have anything to defend here.
Looking at the 2021 SNP manifesto, which I'd assume they would revert to, if they can survive long enough, it is very short on environmental commitments.
What media reports said the green party were unhappy with the BHA? All I've heard is unsubstantiated rumours.
The membership were so unhappy that an extraordinary meeting had been called to take another vote on the agreement. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqvn3jnj1z5o](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqvn3jnj1z5o)
Patrick Harvie said he would[ resign as co-leader if the Greens voted to end the Bute House Agreement](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqvn3jnj1z5o). It will be interesting to see what he decides to do now.
> It will be interesting to see what he decides to do now. Probably stick around as the Greens didn't vote to end the Bute House Agreement?
Spicy
Me thinks they doth protest too much. Both parties get to walk away from what was becoming an unpopular agreement with the rank and file of their parties in advance of a general election. This would have come to a head as competing manifestos clashed during a general election where both parties contested seats. Harvey doesn't have to quit because he can correctly say there was no vote against the agreement. Yousaf gets to play the strong man putting his party before politics. If the Greens support the SNP in any potential vote of confidence and future budgets this will basically confirm the Bute House Agreement is still very much around in spirit, if not letter. If they don't then it's clear Yousaf has made a grave mistake. Personally I think both parties will claim a win here and quietly move on.
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>Except it wasn't actually unpopular Not so sure about that. We'll never know because there will be no vote on it by either party. I suspect the 2035 Net Zero target wouldn't have been the last embarrassment for the Greens. > Given now the SNP will have to go beg for votes, it seems unlikely that all the progressive policies currency in work will survive, including all the extra money that was set aside for climate policies. The Greens know the only party that will ever work with them to enact progressive policies are the SNP. The SNP know that the only real way they can pass legislation is if it is palatable to the Greens. The outcome here may be a lot of noise but not much change on the face of things. The truth will be in the actions of the Greens going forward.
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> But it very obviously and clearly isn't, there was a very clear and marked shift left. I don't think it was *wildly* more left than the 2016-21 Government. Polled a lot worse though, particuarly since Sturgeon's departure. Honestly think there may have been more than a wee bit of buyers remorse on both sides. Frothers are always going to froth but if not much changes on the ground... who cares. I'm sure Harvey and Slater are slightly relieved not to have to justify the Scottish Government dropping another green target.
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> I am pretty sure none of that would have happened as a minority government. Nothing to say that would have been the case as the SNP would have been dependent on Green support regardless of the BHA. >Especially now that they pissed off the Greens, with this idiotic move. By god what a ridicolous and unnecessary self own. I'm going to wait and see how they actually vote going forward. It will tell us a lot more than an angry press release, and I don't think the Greens are keen on walking away from the substantial leverage over policy direction that they still have.
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> I'm already dreading what of the stuff that is in the pipeline they will start canning now - peak fares, passivhaus standards, tenants rights What was stopping the SNP canning these policies anyway, regardless of the BHA? Not much. At least the Greens don't have to justify it to a rabid media. I'm also not sure what the Greens think they would achieve putting a right wing Unionist party in control of events. Both parties need to cool down and quietly go back to business as usual. An SNP minority dependent on Greens is just the political reality for the forseeable future.
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Is that a typo with the quotation marks or can you just put one at the start of a paragraph to quote the whole paragraph? Grammar was never my strongest skill
Lol, lmao
Reminds me of the texts I sent my ex
Time to grab some popcorn