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Harvie eyes ‘strongest possible’ Green group as he warns of rise of the right


By PA News



Patrick Harvie has said he wants to see the “strongest group of Green MSPs possible” at Holyrood next year, as he warned of the growing threat from the far right and parties like Reform UK.

With the Scottish Greens having enjoyed a “string of best ever election results” both locally and nationally in recent years, the party’s co-leader declared there is “no reason at all why we couldn’t do the same again and build the Green presence at Holyrood”.

The Greens won eight seats at Holyrood in the 2021 election – though they lost one MSP when Alison Johnstone became the Parliament’s Presiding Officer.

While Mr Harvie said he hopes they will make gains next year, it will be under a new leadership team after he announced earlier this month that he will not be putting himself forward after almost 17 years in the post.

With the rise of the far right... we see people who want to undermine the idea that politics and democracy are capable of changing society for the better
Patrick Harvie

This weekend’s Scottish Green Party gathering in Stirling will see him give his final conference speech as co-leader, and he said “inevitably” he will be “reflecting a little bit on the journey we have been on”.

But he also warned Conservative and Labour politicians against mimicking policies put forward by the right in a bid to counter parties like Nigel Farage’s Reform.

Polls have suggested Reform UK could win its first ever group of MSPs in next May’s ballot, with one survey in March putting Mr Farage’s party in third place behind the SNP and Labour.

Mr Harvie, who hopes to return to Holyrood next year for his sixth term as an MSP, said: “The rise of the far right should concern everybody.”

Scottish Green co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater toured the Stirling Reuse Hub, which aims to reduce waste, ahead of their conference in the city on Saturday (Jane Barlow/PA)
Scottish Green co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater toured the Stirling Reuse Hub, which aims to reduce waste, ahead of their conference in the city on Saturday (Jane Barlow/PA)

He said this is not just about the increase in support for Reform itself, as he claimed the “Conservatives and even in some instances Labour” are “basically echoing what the far right are doing”.

The Glasgow MSP said: “Some of them try to persuade themselves that copying the far right is the way to beat them, and it isn’t, it fails every time.

“You will never defeat them by copying them, they have to be opposed, their ideas have to be challenged openly.

“I genuinely think politics, I know from outside it can seem like a bit of a shallow game, and I think there are some people who treat it that way.

“But what it should be about is making a difference in people’s lives, turning ideas into reality, into political change in our society.

“With the rise of the far right, in this country and around the world, we see people who want to undermine the idea that politics and democracy are capable of changing society for the better.

“Greens want to win that argument, and demonstrate that people can have faith that politics can make their life better.”

Speaking to the PA news agency ahead of his party conference, Mr Harvie said devolution was “when the Scottish Greens really began the journey to becoming a serious political force”.

The journey saw Mr Harvie and his fellow party co-leader Lorna Slater join the Scottish Government after the 2021 Holyrood election, thanks to a powersharing agreement with the SNP.

That deal ended abruptly last year, when then first minister Humza Yousaf scrapped the Bute House Agreement.

However Mr Harvie stressed the achievements his party has made, saying: “There are three-quarters-of-a-million young people with a free bus pass in their pockets right now because of work the Greens did, there are tenants across Scotland who saved thousands of pounds and have avoided rent increases because of work the Scottish Greens did.

“We won the case for progressive tax reforms so that the very wealthiest start paying their fair share, and that is why Scotland can afford policies like the Scottish child payment, because of the work the Scottish Greens did.”

He said the Greens will look to “build on the track record we’ve got”, but they will also show that “when the SNP went back into minority Government, they started going the wrong way, on climate policy, on investment in nature, watering down things like the rent control protections for people, bringing back peak time rail fares”.

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