THE SNP’s alliance with the Scottish Green Party has become a liability. Even the most sycophantic of Nicola Sturgeon’s coterie must now see that. The Greens conference at the weekend confirmed that interests and objectives of the SNP and their coalition partners are irreconcilable.

The Greens are a party that opposes economic growth in principle, just as the Scottish Government is trying desperately to boost it. The Greens prefer to import Vladimir Putin’s bloodstained oil and gas rather than use our own energy under the North Sea. They want to leave Nato just as the alliance is being threatened by Putin’s missiles. They argue, perversely, that the bloodshed in Kyiv could end if only Nato got rid of its nuclear deterrent.

The Scottish Greens give student politics a bad name. Patrick Harvie has damaged the cause of independence by demanding a referendum during the first European war since 1945. Nor is Scotland impressed by the Green leader’s latest defamatory attacks on JK Rowling or his messianic belief that human biology is transphobic.

Financing Putin’s war machine by continuing to import Russian oil and gas will not hasten for one second the transition to net zero. There is nothing green about hydrocarbons bought at the expense of Ukrainian lives. Nor indeed Saudi Arabian crude, imported from an authoritarian regime that executed 81 men only last weekend

Professor Alex Kemp, one of the world’s leading authorities on hydrocarbons, is adamant that North Sea oil and gas could make a significant contribution, here and now, to reducing imports and improving security of supply. But the Greens, who now seem to exercise a veto on rational thought in the Scottish Government, have locked Nicola Sturgeon into the dogmatic idiocy of “keeping it in the ground”.

Scotland’s oil and gas will be needed until the supply of renewable energy becomes plentiful and reliable enough for us to do without fossil fuels. This is glaringly apparent to every voter in Scotland. Only in the SNP is it forbidden to state the obvious.

Read more: We won't save the planet by going Green. Economic growth is the only way

The Scottish Greens' co-leader, Lorna Slater, a minister in the Scottish Government remember, also called for Scotland to leave Nato. This at the very moment Europe is facing an existential threat from Russian imperialism. She seems to think that breaking up the US-led military alliance now would make Putin go homewards to think again. Is she aware she is channelling Donald Trump? He was the last Nato sceptic who said Europe should be left to its own devices.

Ms Slater told BBC Scotland that the European Union is an “alternative to Nato”. Does she seriously think the EU is going to create, overnight, a military machine capable of challenging Russia and China in a new Cold War? Until two weeks ago, EU countries like Germany were still banning arms sales to Ukraine.

There may have been legitimate issues about Nato expansion in the past, but to advocate the abandonment of collective defence during this crisis is, to coin a phrase, unpardonable folly.

Equally irresponsible is Ms Slater’s claim that the destruction of Ukrainian hospitals is somehow Nato’s fault for possessing nuclear weapons. She seems to be the source for Nicola Sturgeon’s claim at the weekend that “the only thing [Nato’s] nuclear weapons are deterring is proper help to Ukraine”. The First Minister went on to call for Nato to reconsider a no-fly zone over Ukraine – in other words declare war on Russia.

Read more: The week that Nicola Sturgeon went nuclear

Thus does the pious pacifism of the environmental elect turn into its opposite: a reckless call to arms. If only it weren’t for Trident Our Boys would be right in there giving Putin a bloody nose. Yet, anyone with an ounce of sense can see that it is not Nato’s nuclear weapons that are preventing a no fly zone but Vladimir Putin's nuclear weapons – and his willingness to use them. This is the brutal nuclear reality belied by Ms Slater's unilateralist sophistry .

Russian forces are already over-extended, largely because of Britain’s gift of 3,600 NLAW anti-tank weapons along with thousand of anti-aircraft missiles. If Nato started shooting down Russian planes and demolishing missile batteries, Putin would resort to battlefield nuclear weapons. It would be his only option to force victory.

The Russian dictator has already abandoned all civilised norms by targeting civilians and nuclear plants in Ukraine. I doubt he would heed Ms Slater’s call to desist. “No one is safe from nuclear weapons until everyone is,” she told BBC Scotland, apparently unaware that she was speaking the logic of nuclear deterrence.

Perhaps Lorna Slater should ask President Zelenskyy whether giving up nuclear weapons will deter Russian aggression? She’d get a dusty answer. “We gave up the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world in 1994 for peace and democracy and look what happened,” said the heroic Ukrainian MP, Kira Rudik, yesterday. Bill Clinton promised Ukrainians that their national integrity would be guaranteed by the West. They were deceived

Ukraine now realises that it should have made membership of Nato a precondition of nuclear disarmament. The Baltic States and Poland saw the way the wind was blowing and made sure they signed up to Nato’s nuclear umbrella as soon as they possibly could. It has of course been SNP policy to do exactly the same.

The Greens don’t subscribe to the SNP’s foreign and defence policies, and nor do they support the Scottish Government’s economic agenda. The SNP is not a party that believes in “degrowth” – a policy that would lead to permanent recession and mass unemployment. Nor do the vast majority of voters think the word “woman” should be censored.

So what is this coalition for?

Apologists say it necessary to secure a majority in parliament for an independence bill. But there already existed a majority since the Greens also support independence. The Green-SNP coalition began as a PR exercise for the COP26 environmental summit. It also served to bolster the beleaguered duopoly – the Murrells – that has been running the SNP as a family affair. It’s time the party took back control. Call Patrick Harvie’s bluff and send the Greens packing.

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