Talk:Scottish Greens

Gaelic

Does this party have any stance about Scots and Gaelic languages?

If not, then why is it so important to translate it to Gaelic? I'm not against it, but then it should be translated to Scots too. --Amir E. Aharoni 13:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The reasons is that an ideological faction on wikipedia demands it perpetuate a false impression that gaelic and (their own loosely defined version of ) scots are actually commonly spoken languages in scotland, and on an equal footing with english. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.209.6.40 (talk) 10:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Gaelic and Scots are two of the three internationally recognised indigenous languages in Scotland. Scots and ENglish are very similar and mutually intelligible in a lot of cases, but one can effect total confusion among English speakers when going into "full on" mode. BTW, Scots isn't just "slang" or lazy Modern English; it is related to Middle English and there are any number of terms which don't translate directly into English, but are interspersed with modern English usage. Polls have shown that there are significant numbers of people in Scotland who understand and still speak the language, even where they don't realise it.2.101.148.111 (talk) 09:55, 27 April 2016 (UTC) Lance Tyrell

Ahead of the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections there were several parties that mentioned languages in their manifestos. Within the manifesto published by the Scottish Greens was: "We support cultural ventures in all the languages of Scotland, including measures to encourage the use of Gaelic, the Scots tongue and the languages of those from minority ethnic backgrounds". . Drchriswilliams (talk) 07:22, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Is "Pàrtaidh Uaine na h-Alba" really what they call themselves in Gaelic? That's the wrong word for green, I'd have thought? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gordonjcp (talk • contribs) 22:27, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

@Gordonjcp: That phrase does appear in some official party newsletters. What aspect did you think was wrong? Drchriswilliams (talk) 07:22, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

@Drchriswilliams: "Uaine" as opposed to "glas". Uaine is green like paint or chemicals, glas is green like grass and trees.

Policy

The section on the the party's policy refers to "four interconnected principles" and then lists 5 dot-point statements.

Are there five principles or should two of them be amalgamated? --Mckinlayr 13:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

According to two should be amalgamated. I'll change it now Jh39 (talk) 17:54, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Does the statement "These principles taken together give the Scottish Green Party a holistic view that is in common with all Green Parties around the world" need some supporting reference?
Is there perhaps a relevant document published by the Global Greens?
Laurel Bush (talk) 15:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The statement seems to be a claim by the party itself
It should be referenced as such
Laurel Bush (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I have now done a little rewrite, with some website references
Laurel Bush (talk) 17:04, 28 December 2009 (UTC).

Fair use rationale for Image:Scotgrn.PNG

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Confused intro

Excepting the 2007 election, the Party had increased its vote at every comparable election since 1999.

This sounds like party spin - one could equally talk about the vote going up and down in cycles. And at the moment the general election pages (bar 2005) are either showing just the English & Welsh Greens or showing all Green candidates under one total (which the media often do).

Although it currently only stands for the Scottish Parliament,

Is this a recent formal decision by the party? It stood in the last Westminster, European and local elections. Timrollpickering 19:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This is basically wrong. Anihl (talk) 18:23, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

As these unsourced statements have been disputed by two separate editors I have now removed them from the article. If someone wishes to restore them, please provide a reference to a reliable source. Road Wizard (talk) 19:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

We Campaign?

The We Campaign is not a Scottish Green Party project - and is not a valid reference from the five principles listed here. Why has it been linked? Anihl (talk) 18:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

The link was established by GregManninLB (talk · contribs) in this edit. I can see no valid reason for the link and it appears to be wildly out of context from the sentence. I will remove it now. Road Wizard (talk) 18:44, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Scottish Green party cooperation

Compromise. The article lists Green Party of England and Wales, the Green Party in Northern Ireland and the Green Party of Ireland. I propose to state that the Scottish Green party cooperates with the other Green Parties of UK and ROI. It's more factually accurate than GB&I or BI. --HighKing (talk) 00:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

But that's not a compromise, Bardy, because it achieves your objective of removing BI. Does it not co-operate with Green parties on the Isle of Man? TharkunColl (talk) 00:27, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there an Isle of Man Green party?? Anyway, the cooperation mainly stems from cooperation in the EU parliment as part of the EU Green Party, but there's also cooperation of sorts at a global level --HighKing (talk) 00:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

And BTW, my objective is for accuracy. Yes, I'm focussing on usage of the term British Isles, but who knows what I'll focus on next. I rather like the idea of making sure that usage of North America includes Canada and Mexico, and not a shorthand for USA. Not sure yet... --HighKing (talk) 00:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Political position and Scottish independence vs 'autonomy'

The political ideology section on the infobox used to state Green politics and Scottish independence. However, Scottish independence has now been replaced with 'Scottish Autonomy' by user Allotmentsrule, with autonomy linking to an article about devolution. The same user also changed the political position section from 'Left-wing' to 'Green'.

What is actually meant by 'autonomy' here, and is it really appropriate? I'm a Scottish Green Party member, and my understanding is that the party is still notionally in favour of Scottish independence. This issue was discussed at length at the 2008 Autumn Conference, and I understand that it resulted in a clarification that Greens' position on independence was distinct from the SNP's position, but I don't think that the result of this was a rejection of independence in favour of either the status quo or LibDem-style devolution-max or whatever. Admittedly, there's no mention of this issue whatsoever in the recent 2009 European Manifesto, but it's arguably not particularly relevant to this particular election, and I don't have the most recent version of the full policy document to hand either. At any rate, I've changed it back, unless anybody has information that the party have recently scrapped their policy of Scottish independence since the 2007 election.

As for the political position -- obviously both 'left-wing' and 'green' are highly subjective terms, and I don't think it needs to be the case of one or the other. However, I feel the 'green' element has already been emphasised in the infobox, as next to the political position it says 'Green politics'. Equally, the policies of the Scottish Green Party are clearly 'left-wing' at least by Scottish, British and Western European standards -- they are undoubtedly the most left-wing party with current representation in the Scottish Parliament, for instance. I've changed it back for now. Does anybody have any reason for why 'left-wing' is inappropriate here?

Benjaminkje (talk) 19:14, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

When it comes to these sort of questions parties advocating change seem to use an astounding variety of words to the point of obstufication/confusion. Leaving aside the issue of just what "independence" means within the EU (a not insignificant point when the largest party with "Independence" in its name is UKIP), you get "nationalist", "nation", "autonomous", "sovereign", "separatist" and all manner of bizarre constructions no-one can understand (anyone else remember Plaid Cymru's then-leader Dafydd Wigley trying to explain his party didn't want Wales to be independent but to have a seat at the UN, citing Soviet era Ukraine as their model?!). But is Scottish independence/whatever word a key defining feature of the Greens' ideology? Timrollpickering (talk) 23:19, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean. In the case of the Scottish Green Party, they certainly used the word 'independence' in their 2007 election manifesto, but yes, I agree that it can be rather confusing as to what this actually means. However, I'd argue that in a Scottish context, it's more or less universally accepted that 'Scottish independence' means the establishment of a Scottish state outwith the United Kingdom -- the question of EU membership tends to be put to one side, rightly or wrongly.

As to whether Scottish independence is a key defining feature of the Scottish Greens' ideology, I'd say that no, it isn't, ultimately. However, the issue of Scottish independence tends to be a defining feature of Scottish politics, the so-called 'constitutional question' having arguably been the main political issue in Scotland since the late 1960s, with parties increasingly perceived primarily in terms of 'Unionist' vs. 'Nationalist' by the media. So although from the Scottish Green Party's point of view, Scottish independence would ideally be no more defining than land value tax or a citizen's income scheme, I'd argue that it inevitably ends up being much more defining as a result of the particular political context here. Benjaminkje (talk) 21:00, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I've seen it more in Wales but certainly the point about the EU has been raised by some as a counter to the charge that they want "independence" (and the potential negatives involved), albeit without actually clearly defining what they do want. It just adds to the uncertainty on the matter. (For another mess try to work out what the "autonomism" advocated by Action démocratique du Québec is - see the article talk page for more.)

What is clearer is that the Scottish Greens certainly don't pitch themselves heavily on the nation question - for instance their policy page doesn't highlight the issue whilst it's also not one of their defined principles. Whether we should let media perceptions override this is another matter. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems to me citations are needed re use of labels like left wing, right wing, and Scottish independence, and I am not sure were to go for these except political news media
A party's own propaganda can be very bland and non-committal, and if media perceptions are not challenged by a party then perhaps they do represent how the party is happy to be seen
Laurel Bush (talk) 13:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Recent commentary and reporting appear to describe the Scottish Greens as left-wing, and I have not been able to find reliable sources from the past decade that characterise the party as centre-left. There are good earlier academic sources that do use "centre-left", but these predate more recent developments in the party’s positioning..

Given this, would it be more accurate for the article to describe the party simply as "left-wing", unless newer reliable sources explicitly support the continued use of "centre-left"? It would be preferable to base the description on the most recent high-quality sources available.

If others are aware of recent sources that still describe the party as centre-left, it would be useful to include them here. McLayH (talk) 19:12, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Hi McLayH. Can you please list the sources you are referring to in regards to left-wing? Please be aware of WP:RSOPINION and WP:SYNTH. Helper201 (talk) 13:37, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

Here's one of the party describing itself as centre-left in 2024:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/30/snp-first-minister-centre-left-scottish-greens-patrick-harvie?utm_source=chatgpt.com

There's also plenty of recent literature disputing that they are an outright left wing party based on their record:

https://www.holyrood.com/news/view%2Cscottish-greens-councillors-defect-to-your-party?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/04/scottish-green-party-snp-climate-crisis

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/03/privatising-scotlands-trees

https://novaramedia.com/2026/05/12/scotland-has-more-pro-independence-msps-than-ever-before/ ~2026-19553-83 (talk) 17:07, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

Full Manifesto

My website has a full copy of the Scottish Green Party manifesto. We're driving towards having a copy of all English-language political manifestos of every political party in the world on our site in the same/similar format. Most of the content on the Scottish Green Party website is contained in PDF files. As more and more manifestos are added over time, my site could become a useful resource for Wikipedia. Declaration of Interest: I own the site so shouldn't add the link myself. Full Scottish Green Party Manifesto

Looks useful, but I believe there is supposed to be also a "Policy Reference Document" - which may be difficult to get hold of
Laurel Bush (talk) 15:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Co-Leaders

There are a couple of problems with the Co-Leaders section of the page. I fixed these a while ago but the same errors have returned, namely:

1) Lorna Slater has been the party's Co-Leader since 2019. The current section confuses Parliamentary Leader with the Party Co-Leader. If Parliamentary Leaders are to be introduced, this should have its own section rather than provide an inaccurate account of the party's leadership. 2) There is no such thing as 'Male Co-Leader' or 'Female Co-Leader.' The only requirement is that one of the Co-Leaders be a woman, but it is also possible that two women could serve as Leaders. ShetlandElects (talk) 15:48, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

The article says, "A maximum of one of the co-leaders may identify as a man", so presumably both co-leaders could be men provided that at least one of them identified as non-binary or as a woman. JezGrove (talk) 08:14, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

History

Nordrhein-Westfalen-CanlntoSpace I think the "History" section might now be too long to comfortably read and navigate. It also takes up a disproportionately large amount of the page compared to other sections. Maybe you could create a page called History of the Scottish Greens, like History of the Labour Party (UK) and put what is currently written in the history section here over there. Then perhaps revert back to the previous version of the "History" section before you began adding to it. Helper201 (talk) 23:55, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Yep, I agree. When I was writing it, I was kinda basing it structurally of the Labour Party (UK), whcih with hindsight I also think is really annoying to read. Going to have a nose for some better examples and see, but you are correct.

But yeah, far, far far too much, I'll mull over it. And then stop, because I've written way too much of this article haha. Nordrhein-Westfalen-CanlntoSpace (talk) 00:09, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Made some changes, but going to come back to it. Not entirely sure how to tackle the Government parts, both in 07 and present which could be shorter.

However, looking at pages like Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and Green Party (Ireland) I think we need to be careful not to go too concise. But I think there's potentially another article (or pre-existing article for it to be moved to) for the government stuff, it is way too long. Nordrhein-Westfalen-CanlntoSpace (talk) 01:29, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

History of the Green Party of England and Wales. This page might be helpful to look over if you consider making a similar page on the history of this party. Helper201 (talk) 03:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Removed sections

@Scotlandgiants, I have removed the two sections that you added at the start of the post as the information contained was unnecessary. There is already a section on electoral performance and the party's history. ~~~ Horarum (talk) 18:31, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Political positions

The wiki says the Scottish Greens have eco-socialism as a faction, when the party leadership has been open about the adoption of it as main party policy.

https://www.facebook.com/100058168417672/posts/pfbid0MNSgcAFodztVzGL4W8zfLEM1TRmMA1E6bSRHfuFheCwN2R8YdcYgKYS6RXitvRugl/

I suggest we remove the “factions” subtitle and make it part of the main body.

The party is also listed as centre-left to left wing, but the party has moved to the left in recent years. they believe in leaving NATO, abolishing nuclear weapons, a large wealth tax, much greater public spending, and fairly radical trans rights. This cannot be defined as centre-left, which is more like the SNP/Labour parties or the Lib Dems, all of which the Greens are seen as to the left of.

The party has also openly adopted left wing populism as confirmed here by Gillian Mackay: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25452970.greer-mackay-no-place-greens-gender-critical/

Therefore, I propose we change their position from “centre-left to left wing” to “left wing populism”. This is also fair given Reform UK Scotland are described right wing populists, the party Mackay wishes to borrow communication tactics from. Yobomojo (talk) 17:14, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

We need reliable third-party sources to call the party these things. Mackay didn't even call the party left-wing populist, she just said the party needed to take tactics to use them for left-wing populism. Helper201 (talk) 22:21, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

The source provided calling the greens centre left is now 13 years old, from a different political era entirely and is now outdated.

Here, the BBC say the party are “firmly on the left of politics, in case there was any doubt”.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cevv9dkwekeo

This justifies no longer calling them centre-left.

Here, the Guardian describes them as offering “left-populist” policies

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/12/reform-scotland-elections-hostility-right-leftwing-identity-myth

In this Holyrood magazine article, the party is called “the eco-socialist party”.

https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,poll-greens-to-become-scottish-parliaments-second-biggest-party

Here, Ross Greer literally says the party is left wing populist:

” If that’s left-wing populism then yes, that’s what we are.”

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25937219.radical-scottish-greens-say-stealing-snps-voters/

Is this enough evidence to call the party Left-wing populist, remove the centre-left label and make eco socialism not just a faction? Yobomojo (talk) 23:40, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

The thing is the source for centre-left is an academic one, meaning it is regarded as high quality, certainly more so than news articles. The BBC one is fine but I don't think it alone justifies the removal of centre-left, as centre-left is part of the left. The Guardian article is an opinion piece, so can't be used for such a factual claim, per WP:RSOPINION. Again, opinions of people from the party aren't great, especially not due weight for the infobox. We need reliable third-party source to be making such statements. As for the Holyrood source, its fine but that leaves us in a bit of a bind, as we now have one source calling the party eco-socialist and another saying it is only a faction. Helper201 (talk) 01:48, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

In this detailed and objective academic study, the author clearly describes the Greens as to the left of the centre-left SNP:

” It is politically impossible for the centre-left pragmatists of the SNP to get behind many of the Greens’ redder policies even if they largely agree on the direction of travel.”

“the Scottish Greens are certainly more radical than the SNP on paper. For example, the party advocates for economic degrowth”

https://scottishelections.ac.uk/2021/09/17/twindependence-day-are-there-electoral-risks-in-the-snp-scottish-green-deal/

You said “The BBC one is fine but I don't think it alone justifies the removal of centre-left, as centre-left is part of the left.” This misses the point. The BBC article says the party want to “ bring radical change, and unabashedly so”, “with plans that don't have to add up.”. They also said their manifesto included food price caps, a UBI, reducing BoE independence and a 4 day work week with no reduced pay. This goes well beyond centrism. One paper from before even the independence referendum, let alone Brexit, the Bute House agreement and their new leaders, is insufficient to prove this position.

On your point “that leaves us in a bit of a bind, as we now have one source calling the party eco-socialist and another saying it is only a faction.” I suggest we remove citation 6 and replace with this one I suggested earlier:

https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,poll-greens-to-become-scottish-parliaments-second-biggest-party

Eco-socialism may have begun as a minority faction, but it’s clearly the faction that are in control of party leadership so should not be put in a unique “faction” box seperate from other ideologies. Having it as a subheading in the factions section is sufficient. Yobomojo (talk) 15:29, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Stating their policies and saying they are X or Y is WP:SYNTH and therefore redundant. What we need is reliable independent sources explicitly calling the party left-wing themselves i.e. not people from the party. We also need more sources to explicitly call the party eco-socialist, not editors claiming that eco-socialists "control of party leadership", which, even if true, would not mean the whole party is as such. For example, we didn't change the UK Labour Party page to left-wing or only having democratic socialism in the infobox when Corbyn was the party's leader. Helper201 (talk) 00:39, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

“ What we need is reliable independent sources explicitly calling the party left-wing themselves i.e. not people from the party.”

This BBC source previously mentioned:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cevv9dkwekeo

calls the party just left wing. I simply can’t find any recent source calling the party centre-left. You said that “centre-left is part of the left” earlier to try to justify keeping centre-left. However, I see that as undermining your argument since therefore surely the catch-all label of left wing is sufficient for their political position?

In this other article, the BBC described them as “firmly on the left”, meaning they are quite left wing, reinforcing just describing them as left wing.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cevv9dkwekeo

The description at the top of the page also just calls them left-wing. Yobomojo (talk) 17:03, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

The source says "firmly on the left", that's not justification for removing centre-left. Left-wing was included in the lead but it could be changed to centre-left to left-wing, that's just because left-wing is a broad encompassing label, that is cited. The infobox allows for more nuance by including centre-left. You seem to have linked the same article twice above. Helper201 (talk) 10:36, 30 May 2026 (UTC)