Newly elected Scottish Green leaders to campaign on universal income and free bus travel | Scottish politics
The new managers of Scottish Greens, Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay, promised to campaign for universal income, free bus trips and higher taxation on the wealthy after winning an electoral deaf competition.
Greer and Mackay, who were both MSPS from the back-ban to Holyrood, were appointed co-leaders of the Scottish Greens after a significantly low participation rate of 12.7%-only 950 of the 7,500 party members voted after a discreet summer campaign.
They admitted that the participation rate was worrying. Greer said he had long thought that the party had lost its energy, and important changes in its structures, internal elections and campaign devices were necessary.
“We allowed ourselves to become a radical bureaucracy rather than a radical democracy,” he said. “And we have to see a serious internal reform. We must reform as a party if we want to grow as a party. ”
Mackay denied that it was embarrassing. “I think it’s a concern. And I think that’s why we have to know why [turnout was so low]”She said.
The leadership competition took an additional meaning as it was called after Patrick Harvie, who had been the oldest leader in the United Kingdom, announced earlier that he was standing after 17 years in the position due to poor health.
Harvie had led Scottish Greens to the government, the first time in the United Kingdom the first time, the Greens had shared power, in a revolutionary partnership agreement with the Nicola Sturgeon National Scottish Party in the government in 2021.
His former leadership partner, Lorna Slater, who had been held again to be a co-leader and was to win, was narrowly beaten by Greer in the second voting round by 13 votes.
In fact, which implied that the active members of the party wanted a clear change in direction in Holyrood, Mackay won in the first voting round with 34% of the votes. She won applause for introducing Scottish law on buffer zones around abortion clinics and for her campaigns on single -use vapes and free bus trips for those under 22.
The vote prefigures the result of the competition to elect two new co-leaders for the Greens in England and in Wales. The result should be announced on September 2 after a competition which, unlike the relatively harmonious campaign in Scotland, was under tension by disputes open to the party’s leadership and objective.
Greer and Mackay said they supported Zack Polanski, “the eco-populist” largely led to become a leader in England and Wales during a party group last month.
Speaking after the announcement of the Scottish management in Edinburgh, Mackay, who will remain on maternity leave until January before returning to Holyrood, said that she favored much more vigorous campaigns on the NHS reform, a four -day week and a universal basic income.
“We have to make sure that work allows people to prosper rather than survive,” she said. Addressing journalists after the announcement of the result, it did not know what would cost a universal income – some estimates suggest that it could cost at least 7 billion pounds sterling.
Greer, who was an architect of the Greens’ power sharing agreement with the SNP and has a close employment relationship with Prime Minister John Swinney, said that Scotland’s tax system was “stacked in favor of super rich”.
Scotland already has higher income tax rates for higher employees than the rest of the United Kingdom, partly the Scottish green budget treats SNP. Scotland needed to reform the Council by making it much more progressive and by eliminating land tax reductions for the rich, said Greer.
