On Monday, September 22, the University of Stirling’s Green Party society hosted Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow (Region) and former leader of the Scottish Greens. The society held a Q&A session with the former party leader, and here’s a rundown on what he had to say.
Having grown up in Dumbarton, Harvie had been in touch with politics since the age of five, when his mother was an anti-nuclear activist. “I have memories of being in the back of someone’s living room whilst all the grown-ups were chatting”
He got involved in student politics during his time at the University of Manchester, joining the Labour Party. “It wasn’t for me, I think it was the vibe of student politics that turned me off at the time. This was 1991 or 92, so it was under John Smith, who people say was the best Prime Minister that Labour never had. I didn’t quite realise how bad it would get, in regards to the war in Iraq, the cutting of social services… even anti-immigration stuff, even then, Labour were kind of chasing the right-wing to be anti-immigrant as well”.
Following his time at university, he became an LGBTQ+ youth worker, and he talked about the struggle of living under Section 28 in Scotland. “As a youth worker, you don’t expect to walk past a billboard saying ‘Protect Our Children’, meaning from people like me.”
“The campaign was to replace the past homophobic hangover of the Thatcher government. It was used as a weapon of fear to prevent any kind of support for LGBTQ+ people, and the idea of a campaign to replace this was quite brave of the incoming Scottish Government. I don’t think anyone expected quite how big the campaign would be.”
On political change, he encouraged attendees to get involved in politics, even when the world seems daunting at the moment. “The need for people who passionately believe that the world can be better is so important”.
He added, “It’s also a really scary time at the moment. Things like the anti-transgender movement, which started as a fringe obsession, have snowballed into the biggest threat from the far-right.”
On the possible rise of the far-right, and the possibility of a presence of Reform UK in Holyrood, Harvie had this to say:
“It’s really difficult to predict, it’s pretty volatile at the moment, a lot of the Tories seem to genuinely think that they’re going to get wiped out, some polls suggest that Reform will get a huge chunk of the Tory vote, some say half, some say that they’ll start eating into Labour’s vote, but not by much. And I think, as far as I can tell, the SNP are confident that it’ll only take a handful from them, but there’s a range, there’s seven months to go.
It’s possible that they’ve peaked early and that they’ll start to decline, I certainly think that’s possible in the UK general election in 2029, the more that comes out about the scale of corruption involving where they get their money from, there’s going to be a lot of people questioning where they stand, and a lot of that depends on Labour being able to stand up and say where they stand.”
Harvie also tackled the idea of where the far right is getting their rise from. “A lot of people are saying, ‘Reform are right, but please don’t vote for them'”, he said, as he suggested that right-wing groups are getting their support from issues that do exist, but he disagrees with the possible solutions.
“I think we need a UK Government that’s willing to say that these people are liars, that these people are grifters, and that these people are serving the interests of the super-rich. And we need to start calling them out from across the political landscape, the Scottish Greens are certainly going to give it a shot to make that message understood, but we also have to connect. There’s a reason that people are so pissed off and moving parties”.
On how to tackle anti-migrant sentiments, Patrick Harvie said: “The most effective thing that we can do, whether that’s as individuals or as organisations, student politics has a role to play in this too, and what government policy really needs to do, is building a human relationship.
People don’t tend to feel scared of one another when they know one another, and that human connection is one of the things that is difficult when public services are slashed and community centres are closed. And stay hopeful, that’s the other thing”.
On advice on how to do this, and to young people interested in getting involved in politics, Harvie said: “This is a moment of incredible opportunity. We seem to be getting a membership bounce since there’s been a change in leadership, and in the chaos that’s happening in the Corbyn and Sultana project. A lot of people who feel disillusioned with that have seemed to join the Greens as well.”
On the emergence of “Your Party”, he added: “I hope that we’ll be pulling in the same direction rather than fighting against each other, but I don’t see it happening in the end”.
He also talked about the current state of politics being chaotic, but added that: “That must never be a source of major anxiety, it has to be used as a spur to take action, and say ‘Actually, better is possible.’”
The Scottish Greens used to be a part of the Scottish Government, going into coalition with the SNP in August of 2021 under Nicola Sturgeon, whom Harvie described as “the best First Minister Scotland has had”.
“Particularly during COVID, I saw how incredibly hard she worked, how dedicated she was, and how professional she was.”
He added: “I think Scotland was very very lucky to have a First Minister who was disciplined, hard-working, and also willing to be told that she was wrong by the experts. Obviously, the SNP’s legal scandals since have tarnished that”.
On the collapse of the Bute House Agreement and the end of the Scottish Greens time in government in 2024, Harvie said: “It was a little bit annoying, the way it was done, there was disappointment about not being able to complete pieces of work, and it’s hard to know that there were things that you were getting right, that someone else is now getting wrong”
“I wouldn’t call it a sense of betrayal, you know that you’ve got two parties, not just on a leadership level, but both parties balloted members to enter this coalition, and there was the intent to make it last five years. Important stuff is going to take five years.
“Rent control legislation will be fundamentally weaker than it could have been, it will be fundamentally weaker than it should have been.”
He added that the end of the Bute House Agreement was “clearly a misjudgement, even Humza Yousaf reflected on that, but there was no way that we could have bailed out his government.”
“It’s baffling that he didn’t see that”.
The event’s hosts, Stirling’s Scottish Green Society, offer membership to Stirling students for only £3. “We’re one of the few societies that has reduced its membership fees”, said Adam Johnston, the society’s Co-Convenor and the night’s host.
The group also connects to Stirling’s local Scottish Green branch, and hopes to attend Stirling East’s by-election on the 30th of October.
For more information about how to get involved in Stirling’s Scottish Greens Society, see their Instagram: @stirlingunigreens
Featured Image Credit: Jess Urquhart.