IT would be “impossible” for the Scottish Greens to strike a governing deal with Labour, the party’s new co-leaders have said.
Both Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay – the MSPs who on Friday were confirmed in their new roles at the top of the Scottish Greens – also said that they would look at major reforms of their own party’s structure in a bid to increase membership engagement.
Just 12.7% of the Greens’ roughly 7500 members voted in the leadership election, which Greer said was “disappointing”.
However, he said the low turnout was partly explained by the fact that members are “broadly pretty happy” with how things have been, and the leadership contest was “not a debate between two fundamentally different philosophies for what kind of party we should be”.
Pushed on the low turnout, Greer went on: “That's exactly why, during the campaign, I said that we have become a radical bureaucracy masquerading as a radical democracy.
“We are offering the people of Scotland transformational change. Our agenda is one that will tackle the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis.
“What I also offered members of our party was transformational change, changes in our structures and in our internal processes. I've been elected on that platform.
“I am now going to embark on that discussion, kickstart that debate with our party members at our coming conference, at our party council, about the changes that we need to make so that we'd never see a turnout this low again.”
Mackay said she felt the Scottish Greens had become “a bit too committee heavy, a bit too top heavy, and having meetings about meetings”.
She said the party needed to focus instead on getting “members equipped to go knock doors and have that confidence and ability to go and do that”.
Asked which, she said: “Well, I don't think we'd ever work with the Tories for a start.
“I think where Labour are at the moment is so far away from where they were even five, six years ago, there's members of Labour that I don't think will recognise their own party currently.
“But anything we do has to be with the consent of our membership as it has been done before, and I wouldn't want to pre-empt what our members would think or say about any offer that came forward.”
Asked if they might then negotiate with Labour and put it to a membership vote, Mackay said: “I think Labour would be very, very difficult currently, given what we're seeing down south, I think Labour would probably be impossible.
“What we're seeing down south from Keir Starmer’s government – and what Anas [Sarwar] seems to be quite happy to follow up here – is a cruel immigration policy that's totally at odds with everything Ross and I said this morning and what we want to see.”
She further ruled out any deal with Reform UK, saying: “Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That's the most emphatic ‘no’ I think I can possibly give.”
Asked about the possibility of working with Labour, Greer said: “I think the differences between us and Labour were significant enough to begin with and are growing by the day.
“You've got a Labour Party that is desperately trying to mimic Nigel Farage in every way, shape, and form. That is taking them very far away from the vision of a fairer, greener Scotland that we believe in.
“I cannot imagine a situation where we would be able to come to an agreement with the Labour Party that opposes rent controls, opposes the expansion of free school meals that is currently enabling a genocide in Gaza.
“That is so far beyond our vision for Scotland and the world.”
On the SNP, he added: “There is no point in going into government if you cannot deliver on your own agenda, so there is absolutely no way that we would join an SNP government just to implement SNP policies.”
The comments go a step beyond what former co-leader Lorna Slater said in January, when she described striking a deal with Labour as "difficult".
Before being elected, Greer had said that he wanted to see his party pick more fights in order to heighten its public profile.
Asked if this aligned with her vision, Mackay said: “I think we do need to pick fights, but I also have a thing for being quite collaborative across the chamber, so I think that's where Ross and I actually complement each other very nicely.”
Asked if that meant their leadership could be “good cop, bad cop”, Mackay said: “We can be the other way around where we want to be – but I think it does complement each other that Ross isn't afraid to pick fights where he needs to.
“Neither am I on occasion, but I'm also not immune to doing that collaborative piece where we need to to make sure that our vision for things is realised and represented.”
