The Scottish Greens have announced their candidate for the upcoming Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election.

Running for the Greens will be Cameron Eadie, a 20-year-old student who unsuccessfully ran for the party in another by-election last month to be a councillor in East Kilbride.

Eadie said: “I’m standing on the Green ticket to put climate first. A vote for me will send a message to the establishment party in Westminster that they need to act now on climate, there’s no time left to sit on their hands.”

The Glasgow University student was speaking at his campaign launch outside Rutherglen Town Hall accompanied by party leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, as well as the Central Scotland MSP Gillian Mackay.

Read more: Scottish Greens to stand in Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election

Eadie will run against the SNP’s Katy Loudon, who is running to replace the SNP's Margaret Ferrier following constituents' vote to remove her as the MP after she broke Covid rules, taking a train from London to Glasgow while knowingly having a positive Covid test; Scottish Labour’s Michael Shanks; Thomas Kerr of the Scottish Conservatives; and Gloria Adebo for the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

Widely tipped to be a tight race between Labour and the SNP, questions were raised over why the Greens decided to field a candidate for a seat they have never previously stood for, potentially splitting the pro-independence vote.

The Greens are currently in a power-sharing agreement with the SNP in the Scottish Government, known as the Bute House Agreement.

Patrick Harvie said: “It’s to reaffirm that we are a political party looking to argue for votes across Scotland. If you look at some of the issues that are excluded from the Bute House Agreement, it covers things that are reserved - things that Westminster MPs will have a vote on - an unequivocal antinuclear stance by being against Scotland joining NATO, for example. 

“An unequivocal position on oil and gas licensing, things like the free ports issue, where the Scottish Government and the Scottish Greens don’t agree - those are decisions driven at UK level and I think it would be great if constituents here had an MP like Cameron who could stand up for a Green position on those issues at Westminster.”

Read more: Labour demand SNP set earliest date for key by-election - October 5

The Greens also spoke about the gravity of the climate crisis being a factor in pushing them to field a candidate, with Lorna Slater MSP talking about hopes to continue fielding more candidates across the country:

“The climate crisis is at a critical juncture just now. We are seeing wildfires across the globe, extreme weather events. We know that unless there is a Scottish Green at the table, climate doesn’t get a look in. It’s really important that we stand to make sure that climate and nature get a look in. 

“The Scottish Greens have been growing enormously, we’ve been very successful in the last few years and we really want to get in a position where we are able to field candidates for every seat in every election.”

Before the announcement that they would contest the election, Scottish Labour’s Jackie Bailie MSP had claimed the Scottish Greens would be a “SNP branch office” if they did not stand for the seat.

The seat has swung between the SNP and Labour since the SNP won the seat in 2015, Labour reclaimed it in 2017 and the SNP's Margaret Ferrier won again in 2019.

Eadie, who was born in Wishaw, says that alongside the climate crisis, his campaign will focus on securing a return for Scotland to the European Union and eradicating child poverty.