THE Scottish Greens are driving change in Scottish politics, Patrick Harvie will tell his party today, as he points to a growing list of policies embraced by the SNP Government.
On the opening day of the Greens’ weekend conference in Edinburgh, the Glasgow MSP will say he is now focused on extracting more gains from the forthcoming Scottish budget.
While other parties are playing “catch up”, the Greens should be proud of giving Scots “a vision of what’s possible”, the party’s co-convener will say.
In recent weeks, SNP ministers have backed the Green idea of a fracking ban, a smacking ban, and ordered research into Green proposals for a land value tax and a universal citizen’s income, although early work on the latter suggests it is prohibitively expensive.
Finance Secretary Derek Mackay is also studying Green proposals for overhauling income tax bands and rates as part of the annual Scottish budget process.
With the SNP running a minority administration, Mr Mackay relied on Green votes to pass the 2017/18 budget in exchange for smaller cuts to council services.
Mr Harvie will say: “The list of Green achievements at Holyrood is long and getting longer.
“We’re leading the change on issues from air pollution to rent control, and from the fracking ban to the announcement of a publicly owned energy company and it’s clear that the positive Green agenda we’ve been pushing for years is making real progress.
“We were the first to call for meaningful action on issues like climate change, radical land reform and equal marriage, and these are now mainstream - though it often takes the rest of the political landscape a decade to catch up.
“We must never stop pushing at the boundaries; we must never become the kind of party that tries to win by offering a safe, unchallenging middle-ground agenda.
"We’ll keep leading the change in Scottish politics, advocating investment in the post-oil economy that lies ahead, finding new ways of sharing our wealth more fairly and living within environmental limits.
"Other parties will no doubt still take their time to catch up, but the radical Green agenda will keep moving the political agenda in the right direction.”
The conference is the first since the local and general elections, when the party marginally increased its councillor numbers and stood just three candidates for Westminster.
A lack of money saw all central funds focused on Mr Harvie’s failed bid in Glasgow North.
Also speaking at Edinburgh Napier University will be the Swedish deputy minister for finance Per Bolund MP and Green MLA Clare Bailey, who has been leading the campaign to change Northern Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws.
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