This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

The Scottish Greens are to meet this weekend in Greenock for their two day annual conference as members start to gear up for the Holyrood election in 2026.

Polls have pointed to the party led by Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater is on course to increase its seats - a survey published in August suggested it could win up to 10 MSPs - an increase from eight it won in 2021.

But as well as looking forward to the campaign ahead, the Greens will be taking stock of events of the last three years, and in particular the last seven months.

It will be the first time the party has met for conference since the sudden and bitter collapse of the Bute House Agreement in April and the unceremonious sacking of Mr Harvie and Ms Slater as junior ministers.

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Comments made this month to the Herald on Sunday by MSP Ross Greer in light of ongoing negotiations with the Scottish Government over support for its budget suggest a fair degree of distrust still exists in the Greens towards the bigger party.

While this distrust may have begun with the termination of the BHA it has become exacerbated by the scrapping of policies agreed by the two parties when in government.

SNP ditching of policies championed by the Greens has seen the return of peak rail fares, a cut to nature restoration funding, a failure to extend free school meals to pupils in primary 6 and 7 and the dropping of plans for a pilot scheme to allow free bus travel for asylum seekers.

"Reviewing our time in government", the session is simply billed on the party's conference agenda.

Organised by the party's council, the discussion on Saturday afternoon, is expected to look at what members thought well under the Bute House Agreement and what badly.

While Scottish Greens members voted overwhelmingly to approve their party entering government with the SNP in August 2021 doubts surfaced within the year and were aired in October 2022 at a Q& A discussion at the annual conference in Dundee.

MSPs Gillian Mackay and Ross Greer fielded questions from members about the party’s ability to challenge the SNP on a wide range of areas including independence, health, climate change and local government taxation.

Tensions clearly simmered among the grassroots until by April this year members were angrily calling for their leaders to terminate the pact.

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This was pre empted by First Minister Humza Yousaf with the acrimonious collapse leading to the swift resignation of Mr Yousaf.

But months on it will be important to see how the party now assesses its time in government.

Certainly the leadership has always insisted its time in power was of substantial benefit in building up the party, for gaining influence in government and for advancing environmental and equality causes.

And with an election now far off, and polls suggesting the SNP may be the biggest party, but could need another party's support to govern as a majority, the big question observers will be wanting to find out is whether the Scottish Greens would be open to such an arrangement in government again with the SNP.