Green calls to end Bute House deal after Harvie and Slater ‘not able to convince’ SNP over climate

Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie, co-leaders of the Scottish Greens (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP via Getty Images)

A senior Green councillor has urged members to tear up the Bute House Agreement with the SNP after warning Humza Yousaf’s party is “not prepared” to meet his party’s “demands for bold action”.

The Scottish Greens have been forced to let members vote on whether to continue with the Bute House Agreement amid anger and frustration from some members over the party supporting the Scottish Government scrap its landmark legally-binding 2030 climate target.

When the Bute House Agreement was drawn up by Nicola Sturgeon in 2021, the then-first minister insisted that the deal would kick-start “steps to accelerate our transition to net zero”.

Green councillor Chas Booth

But almost three years on, the Scottish Government has been forced to axe its legally-binding 2030 target to cut 1990 levels of carbon emissions by 75 per cent.

That has led to Green members raising concerns over the Bute House Agreement at a fiery meeting on Thursday night.

The meeting led to Green councillor for Leith, Chas Booth, writing to the party’s executive, demanding an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) be held “as soon as reasonably possible to consider withdrawing from the Bute House Agreement”.

Mr Booth, who has been a Green councillor for 12 years, has now torn into his party’s co-operation agreement with the SNP - criticising SNP Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan’s new climate policies as “recycled announcements” and insisted that his party should step away from Bute House if it cannot “convince the SNP to deliver the bold and meaningful climate action needed”.

Scottish Greens co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater alongside SNP Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan (Photo: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

Speaking to Scotland on Sunday, Mr Booth said: "Like many party members, I was angry and dismayed to hear the announcement scrapping the 2030 climate target.

“While I agree the Scottish Government must focus on action to bring down emissions, that is not an argument for scrapping the target. While targets don’t guarantee the action needed to reach them, it becomes considerably more difficult to deliver action without a target.

“I also have real concerns that the action announced by the minister this week was little more than recycled announcements, and falls a long way short of what the science demands. If the SNP is not prepared to contemplate what the science requires, and is not prepared to meet Green demands for bold action, then Greens should leave government.”

He added: "The majority of party members I've spoken to share my view that scrapping the 2030 target calls the Bute House Agreement into question.

“If the Scottish Greens are not able to convince the SNP to deliver the bold and meaningful climate action needed, then we need to consider stepping away from the agreement.

“I will of course keep an open mind and listen carefully to evidence put forward by Green MSPs that staying in the Bute House Agreement would deliver greater emissions cuts than leaving, but nothing I’ve heard so far convinces me this is the case. As things currently stand, I would vote to end the Bute House Agreement, and would urge fellow party members to do the same.”

Patrick Harvie, who co-leads the Greens with Lorna Slater, has suggested to Scotland on Sunday that if the Scottish Government was not prioritising fighting the climate crisis, he would support his party ending the Bute House Agreement – but has insisted action is being ramped up.

Asked by Scotland on Sunday whether he would consider ripping up the Bute House Agreement due to the climate target U-turn, Mr Harvie said: “If what we were seeing was a lack of climate action, then yeah, we would not be part of that kind of government.

“What we are seeing is an acceleration of action – shifting the focus from targets on to action. Targets are only useful if they focus the mind on taking action. For far too long, for some politicians, targets have been seen as a substitute for taking action.

“This government is delivering accelerating climate action. I deeply regret that it’s happened too late to make 2030 possible. But it is not too late to make 2045 possible if we commit now to make sure the second half of this journey is one where we see climate action accelerated.”

Mr Harvie has insisted that “with the Bute House Agreement, we accelerated action”.

Asked if he was confident in the leadership of the SNP under the First Minister to face up to the climate crisis, Mr Harvie said: “I’m absolutely confident that a government with a will to implement the politically-difficult policies that we have announced can achieve that 2045 target.”

Mr Harvie and Ms Slater have made a request to the party’s standing orders committee as well as party members including Mr Booth appealing to the Greens’ executive committee for the Bute House Agreement to be reconsidered.

Ms Slater said: “The intention, as a democratic party, is to give members the opportunity to debate and decide how the party moves forward, how we continue to build on the progress we have made on our manifesto commitments and to deliver our vision of a fairer, greener Scotland.

“We have achieved more for people and planet in the past 32 months than other parties have in decades. Now we want to hear from our members on how they want us to continue this progress.

“Not everything in politics is easy, as we have seen over recent years, months and days, but our strength as a green movement is in standing up against those destructive forces who would set fire to everything we have achieved if given half the chance.”

Mr Yousaf said: “Of course, I still value the Bute House Agreement and the co-operation with have with the Greens.”