SNP MSPs are getting heartily sick of being tied to Scottish Green 'cranks' – Euan McColm

As Scottish Green members prepare to vote on the party’s continued presence in government, one nationalist politician asks: ‘Are we really letting these people dictate to us?’

“What I want to know,” says an exasperated SNP backbencher, “is how we’ve ended up with a leader being held to ransom by f***ing cranks.” The announcement by the Scottish Greens that there is to be an emergency meeting next month at which members will vote on the party’s continued participation in the power-sharing deal at Holyrood has provoked an already unhappy SNP group.

While Humza Yousaf has made public his hope that the so-called Bute House Agreement will endure, many of his colleagues would like to see the back of the Greens. There’s a growing feeling among SNP backbenchers that the First Minister should, rather than trying to tickle his colleagues’ tummies, call an end to their partnership.

Pressure from Scottish Green members on co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater – both currently Scottish Government ministers – to walk away from power started last week following two major developments. First, there was the announcement that the Scottish Government was to scrap climate change targets and then there was a backlash from Green members – including MSPs – against the review by renowned paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass of the treatment of gender-confused children and young people by the NHS in England.

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Trumpesque response to Cass report

Cass’s four-year-long study may have concluded that the science on which the prescription of so-called “puberty blocker” drugs was inadequate, but senior Scottish Greens were quick to undermine her work. When the NHS in Scotland announced it had followed England’s lead and stopped new prescriptions of these experimental drugs, Harvie and Slater faced demands from Green members to walk away from government.

Scottish Green party co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater listen as Net-Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan ditches the Scottish Government's 2030 emissions reduction target (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA)

The duo swiftly decided to tough it out, announcing next month’s meeting and, in Harvie’s case, shamefully going on to cast doubt on Cass’s work. In a Donald Trumpesque appearance on BBC Scotland at the weekend, Harvie said there were “far too many criticisms” of the Cass review for him to accept it as a “valid scientific document” (imagine Harvie agreeing with a similar argument from a climate change denier).

It’s true there have been criticisms of Cass but these have largely come from gender ideologues who don’t like the findings. Harvie – a moral pygmy – preferred to placate his supporters than to address Cass in good faith. His decision to put discredited gender ideology before scientific evidence marks him out as a most unserious politician.

‘Things have changed’

Throw a dart into an SNP meeting room and you’ll hit someone who feels the same. “We’ve been pathetic on the Cass stuff,” says one Nat MSP. “It was bad enough Humza ignoring it for days but then to have Harvie out there rubbishing it is intolerable.”

Yousaf’s predecessor Nicola Sturgeon brought the Greens into power to create a pro-independence majority in government. The smaller party would help her advance the independence cause while also seeing off any confidence votes.

“That was then,” says one SNP MSP, “things have changed. Is Humza really going to wait for weeks to see whether a bunch of Green members give him what he wants? Are we really letting these people dictate to us? He should give us back some dignity and end the Bute House Agreement now.”

After hearing Patrick Harvie's shameful response to Hilary Cass's vital work, I think that’s excellent advice.