The co-leader of the Scottish Greens has said the party will stand dozens of candidates at the General Election on July 4.
Lorna Slater says that the party intends to field more candidates than ever before in Scotland to highlight the climate emergency facing the planet.
Ms Slater, who was a Scottish Government minister until the end of the power-sharing agreement with the SNP earlier this year, added that she was unconcerned if this would split the independence vote, and ruled out any deals with her former coalition partners.
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She told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “Having Scottish Greens in the room at every hustings, at every media event, means that the climate and nature emergencies get a look-in because without us there they tend to get forgotten altogether.”
Asked whether there is a concern that Scottish Greens standing in a greater number of seats might split the independence vote, she said that is “kind of neither here nor there”.
Ms Slater said: “The SNP’s fortunes are a matter for the SNP. The independence movement – and it should be and is – larger than any one political party, so support for independence has been around about half the country for a while now and we aren’t going to get independence just from people elected to Westminster, it actually needs to be a national movement, we need to get support for independence up higher.”
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Asked whether any deals could be done in areas where it is very tight between the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives, for example, and whether the Scottish Greens might step out of the way, she said: “There has been no discussions of deals, there are no deals of that kind, we’ve already chosen our candidates.”
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