General election: Cracks in SNP-Green coalition look set to widen as tensions grow – Euan McColm

Some SNP politicians are privately seething about their party taking repeated hits because of blunders by Scottish Green ministers

“I don’t know why we don’t go the whole hog,” says one SNP MSP, “and pay for their election broadcasts. The amount they’re already getting out of us, we might as well.” It’s no challenge to find SNP members who’ve long since grown weary of their party’s Holyrood power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens.

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon may have believed handing ministerial position to Green co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater was a price worth paying to ensure the Scottish Government’s agenda had majority support but, almost three years after the signing of the grandly titled Bute House Agreement, enthusiasm for the deal among SNP parliamentarians is muted.

Privately, a number of senior nationalists are utterly disparaging about their Green colleagues who, they believe, have damaged SNP support while building their own vote. The announcement by Harvie at the weekend that the Scottish Greens would contest more constituencies – 32 – than even before at the next general election has only added to the irritation some SNP parliamentarians feel about the political partnership.

All smiles as Humza Yousaf and Scottish Green minister Lorna Slater take part in a pro-independence march, but others in the SNP are unhappy with the party's power-sharing deal (Picture: Jane Barlow/PA)

Platforming Green party leaders

Of course, the Greens are perfectly entitled to stand candidates in whichever constituencies they choose. Likewise, SNP politicians are perfectly entitled to worry that while the Scottish Greens are unlikely to win any Westminster seats, they could take enough votes in marginal seats that they let Labour candidates through.

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A recent council by-election win – the party’s first – in Glasgow’s Hillhead has made some nationalists especially twitchy. One SNP parliamentarian said: “The Bute House Agreement’s been amazing for the Greens and s**t for us. We’ve taken the hits for everything they’ve screwed up and they’ve had this new platform to build Harvie and Slater’s profiles.”

Common among those anti-coalition SNP members I’ve spoken to is the belief that the Greens stand to further slow the march towards independence. Fewer nationalists in parliament means fewer politicians to make the case for leaving the UK.

Taking Greens for granted

Those in the SNP – such as First Minister Humza Yousaf – who continue to support the power-sharing deal with the Greens say it is essential to ensure stable government; without the majority provided by the agreement, SNP budgets might not pass, ministers might be brought down in confidence votes.

I’m afraid I’m not buying apples from that particular cart. It’s very difficult indeed to imagine a scenario where the Greens, as an opposition party, might side with unionist MSPs to bring down a nationalist government. Could the Scottish Green leadership really explain to its avowedly nationalist members that siding with Labour and the Conservatives to end SNP rule was the right thing to do? Nicola Sturgeon handed power and profile to the Scottish Greens when she could have taken their support in budget and confidence votes for granted.

Some high-profile SNP MSPs – Fergus Ewing, former Finance Secretary Kate Forbes, and others – have been perfectly happy to make public their concerns about the value of the power-sharing deal. If the Scottish Greens end up splitting the vote and costing the SNP marginal seats at the next election, expect many more to join that particular chorus.