Gillian Mackay and Ross Greer have been elected to lead the Greens, representing a new generation for the party following the departure of Patrick Harvie at the helm after 17 years and Lorna Slater – who narrowly missed out on a return to leadership – after six.
In one of their first joint interviews, the pair told the Sunday National they want to recreate the hope that defined the Yes campaign of 2014 by “relentlessly” focusing on key policies that will cut people’s bills and tackle the climate emergency, maximising the powers of the Scottish Parliament, and pushing the boundaries in “grey areas” between reserved and devolved powers.
But they both admitted there were “big internal issues” in the party they need to iron out after the leadership contest attracted an extremely low turnout of just 12.7%.
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Earlier this month, Greer pledged to publish an independence strategy “in full” if he became co-leader and has now said he wants it to be a “joint project” with Mackay.
He told the Sunday National: “I do want to publish that strategy in full, and I want to give our members the opportunity to debate it, and I certainly would want it to be a joint project [with Mackay].
“We need to demonstrate to people that their lives are better when decisions are made here. I want us to maximise the powers we’ve got, I want to get into those grey areas between what’s devolved and what’s reserved because there’s a lot of good we can do there, particularly when it comes to workers’ rights.
“If we can do that, either we have improved the conditions for workers in Scotland or we’ve forced the UK Government to come in and veto us, and politically all that does is make the case for independence clearer.
“Our focus needs to be on building support for independence itself to the point where the pressure on the UK Government is simply irresistible. We do that by being relentlessly ambitious and by people seeing we’ve improved their lives, but that we could do so much more if these powers were in Edinburgh.”
Mackay added: “It’s about creating that narrative of hope as well, and I think that has gone from the independence movement right now.
“We are bogging ourselves down in technicalities when actually a lot of 2014 was on hope and what Scotland could be. We need to refocus with that and make sure that’s given to people.”
Greer said the incredibly low turnout, with not even 1000 ballots cast, shows he and Mackay need to look at how they can make it more fun and simpler for members to get involved with the party.
“None of us are going to pretend we’re happy with the turnout in this leadership election,” he said.
“We need to make it much easier and more enjoyable for members to get involved in the party.
“We are a party committed to radical democracy, but I think we’ve tried so hard to enact that that we’ve tipped over the other end and become a bit of a radical bureaucracy.
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“It takes far too much of an investment of time to get involved with the party. We spend way too much time in internal meetings talking to each other, which means we’re not spending that time out speaking to voters.”
Mackay rejected the notion that the low turnout diminishes their mandate.
“I don’t think it diminishes the mandate we have,” she said.
“We’ve set out a clear vision for what it is we want to do with the party, and I think people have chimed with that and voted for us.”
Aged just 34 and 31 respectively, Mackay and Greer hope they can bring a different energy to the party and represent a “radical, hopeful outlook”.
Mackay, who has recently given birth to her first child, said she is looking forward to bringing that fresh perspective into the chamber as a co-leader too.
With Mackay not returning to Holyrood officially until the new year, Greer will spend the first few months being the main face of the party, but he has insisted he will not be running the show solo.
Greer said: “It’s not that I will be running the party solo between now and January. Even when Gillian comes back, it’s not us that will be ‘running the party’.
“We will provide it with political leadership, we will be its main spokespeople, but I’m looking forward to getting stuck in with the rest of the parliamentary group between now and March because there’s so much legislation coming through, so many opportunities to stamp some Green change onto these bills.”
Mackay said: “I am really grateful to Ross because without a co-leader who’s willing to do all of this while I am not here, there’s absolutely no prospect I would have been able to do this. So that, for me, is a really powerful thing to come out of this.”
