The new SNP/Green Party tie-up means little cheer for workers and their communities.
The Greens have helped Scottish Governments get cuts- based budgets through the Parliament for more than a decade. So—little has changed.
Both parties support returning an “independent” Scotland to the European Union. The EU drove the privatisation agenda. It outlaws comprehensive public ownership and economic democracy.
The SNP can say “look how radical we are—we have Greens in government”. Meanwhile the Greens have abandoned any Green New Deal, swapping bikes for ministerial cars.
Any “independence” they offer is fake—independence in name only. Scotland would still be controlled by transnational corporations and finance capital.
The SNP’s Growth Commission made it clear that our class faces a decade and more of severe austerity. At national and local government levels the Greens have happily supported cuts-based budgets.
This tie-up will neuter the Greens’ parliamentary platform. It will let the SNP off the hook on their failures on Transport, Health, Industrial Policy, Local Government, Education and drug deaths—and on developing any green initiatives.
Many Green supporters are sceptical of the SNP. And many nationalist voters are concerned for their class. We call on them to join the struggle to transform the Scottish Parliament into a workers’ Parliament which is able to intervene both economically and industrially.
Our class needs economic democracy, not a managed capitalist agenda. We need an urgent class-based mobilisation of trade unions and communities to win the redistribution of wealth and power.