I have some news to share

The super-rich are out of control. They’ve caused a climate crisis and made everyone else’s lives miserable, all so that they can hoard more wealth than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes.

And the hope that Scotland can be a fairer, greener place to live has all but disappeared.

I believe the Scottish Greens can bring back that hope. It’s why today I am launching my campaign to be co-leader of our party.

We are at our best when we’re delivering the change people desperately need in their lives, whether that is free bus travel for young people, the emergency rent freeze or cancelling school meal debts. But there is so much more we could do.

When I joined the Scottish Greens there were more pupils at my high school than party members. With just two MSPs and a handful of councillors we were primarily a party of protest. We put pressure on those in power to be less shit and reminded people that a better Scotland was possible, but our ability to actually deliver change was limited in the extreme.

Protest will always be necessary and vital to our work. In recent years though, we’ve seen how absolutely transformative it is when Greens are in a position to turn our vision into reality, even within the limits of devolution. 

We set up Scotland’s first Nature Restoration Fund, secured record levels of funding for climate action, got ten million more passengers onto trains in a single year by removing peak fares in 2023-24 and made countless other changes.

Those policies have all had a huge impact, but they aren’t enough. We need to do so much more to make people’s lives easier and tackle the climate crisis.

To achieve that we need to take on the super-rich and dismantle a system they’ve rigged in their own favour.

People are rightly angry at how hard it is just to get by, but that’s the fault of greedy landlords, tax avoiders and billionaires. Asylum seekers, immigrants and trans people are not to blame. 

We must show who is really at fault and bring back the hope that a fairer, greener Scotland is possible.

I know that the Scottish Greens can achieve huge breakthroughs at the Holyrood and local elections if we take a laser-like focus to ending the cosy tax breaks, corporate subsidies and other schemes the extremely wealthy use to leech off the rest of us, then put that money into transformational policies which cut people’s bills and save the planet.

As a starter, I want to see us go into next year’s election with a commitment to extend free bus travel to everyone living in Scotland. Half the population can already get on the bus for free, thanks in large part to Green MSPs delivering concessionary travel cards for young people. Now it’s time we extend that to working-age adults too.

With travel costs really biting and transport emissions still rising, that is the kind of bold change required.

Delivering a transformation in the face of intense resistance from the super-rich and their backers in Parliament and the media won’t be easy though. The Scottish Greens need to change and grow stronger if we’re to win the struggle for a better world.

In the coming weeks I’ll set out the kind of reforms I think we need to make within our party to do that. Our policies and vision are already there, but our organisation needs some work if it's to live up to our collective belief in genuine radical democracy.

For now though, I’m setting out my stall - a Scottish Green Party focused on delivering the changes people and planet really need and one brave enough to take on and defeat the rich and powerful in pursuit of that goal.

To keep up to date with my campaign, subscribe to this newsletter.