There has been some very optimistic chatter about Green collaboration with RISE recently. I understand why, superficially, given there will be some things we’ll definitely agree on with them (ending the monarchy, opposition to Trident etc).
If another referendum takes place we would of course be on the same side again. On other issues, though, we don’t know whether RISE will follow the SSP line, so it’s too early to tell whether we’ll disagree with the platform they’ll offer in May.
Despite the high number of lower-income Edinburgh households that don’t have access to a car, Colin Fox lined up with the Tories to oppose a congestion charge for Edinburgh that would have funded public transport. Is that still RISE policy? Do they still want to replace a flawed wealth tax (i.e. council tax) with another tax on salaries, even though it’d let share income and other wealth go untaxed? Will they support decriminalisation of sex work, as Greens do? Or will they, like the SSP, keep pushing the failed Nordic model, which exposes sex workers to more violence? Are they still for an impractical free public transport policy, which we wisely voted down last year?
Anyway, Adam Ramsay wrote an optimistic (to be generous) piece about cooperation with RISE yesterday, setting out a list of options from full merger (heaven help us) through to dividing up the list and constituencies between us. If this were a preferential election system, like STV, then we could consider a mutual recommendation for second preferences, although it’d be more beneficial to talk to the SNP about that first.
Until that point, we have only ever won list seats for Holyrood, and the only way RISE can win any seats is by competing with us for votes and slots on the list. Like all other parties in Scotland, we’re in competition with them. Like all other parties in Scotland, we’ll work with them if they win seats and where we agree (for example, even the Tories used to be reliably against ID cards, so we voted with them on that). The fact that there will be many policies we share doesn’t make them a major opportunity, it makes them a threat, albeit a minor one.
But don’t take my word for it, it’s time to listen to Colin Fox instead. He understands how the electoral system works, and that parties have to compete for votes. We’re not just a target for him, we’re his number one target.
That’s their right, much as his baseless nonsense about independence irritates me. It’s called democracy. But we need to point out that we have first class MSPs and excellent prospects of electing more, unlike RISE, and we need to illustrate why the Green vision for Scotland is so important and worth voting for. Let’s not kid ourselves that we can do that by promoting a rival party. Of course, though, as Adam says, let’s not spend our time attacking them – the people worth critiquing are the SNP for their failure to redistribute downwards, the Tories for their war on the poor, Labour for their inability to oppose, and all three for their lamentable positions on climate change and the rest.
#1 by Adam Ramsay on August 30, 2015 - 12:48 pm
Hi James,
A few things.
First, I don’t think I’ve said anywhere that this is an opportunity for Greens. I agree it’s a threat – not in the sense that they will replace us, but they might take some votes we may otherwise have got and so cost us MSPs.
So, second, the question is how we manage that threat. I think the way to deal with that is, largely, to show they are redundant. And I think they are – while there are policy disagreements as you outline, I doubt they are big enough to swing many voters either way (not that they aren’t important to me). I think that to spend time attacking them would be a mistake. In other words, we shouldn’t talk much about them, and we should talk about how great we are. So, essentially, I think we agree.
Third, we should, however, think about why it is that people have chosen to join them instead of us – particularly BME activists. Some of them are, for example, people I know from my days in People & Planet who I doubt disagree with the Greens on any substantial policy. Some introspection (though probably after the election) never goes amiss, particularly in predominantly white organisations questioning why we are so.
Fourth, what happens next I think depends very much on what happens in 2016. If they get no seats (which I think is very possible) then finding ways to encourage them not to run against us would be good. If they get one, then tbh, I suspect future relationships with them will depend to some extent on who that one is. If they get more than that (which I think is unlikely), then there will be other questions. All I’m saying really is that we should be willing to think creatively about this – pre-election collaboration with such groups is the norm for Greens in much of Europe, and it’s how the Labour party was formed. I think we need to learn from that.