By Richard Wood
The Scottish Greens launched their manifesto on Tuesday 14 April, just shy of three weeks before the election in May. The party are hoping for their best ever Holyrood election result and made those intentions clear at their launch in Glasgow.
My first thought looking at the manifesto was how the title stands out as being very familiar. If you’ve had the same thought it’s because it’s rather reminiscent of a previous Liberal Democrat slogan “demand better”.
The Scottish Lib Dem manifesto is due on Friday while the SNP are expected to publish theirs on Thursday.
This follows Reform, the Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Labour who have all published their plans.
Independence and democracy
Unsurprisingly, the Greens reaffirm their commitment to independence, linking it with their wider policies on democracy in one clear section. Notably the party doesn’t even mention a referendum but calls for the devolution of foreign affairs.
Positive steps to improve Scottish democracy include a proposals for a Trust and Transparency Strategy and the introduction of a recall rule for MSPs.
The ending of cash deposits for election candidates is also welcome as that would democratise Scotland’s nominations process. Automatic voter registration is also a good inclusion, highlighting the absurdity that such a system isn’t already in place.
READ MORE: Manifesto 2026: How would Scottish Labour and Anas Sarwar reform democracy?
Local democracy
The manifesto also has a dedicated section on local democracy.
One eye-catching proposal is the move towards making councillors a full-time position. That is something which needs a lot more thinking and financing to make it feasible.
The party also wants to reform the way vacancies are filled when councillors resign from their position. There’s a lack of detail here, but the obvious alternative to disruptive and non-representative by-elections is co-option. However, any co-option proposals would need to have strong democratic safeguards.
READ MORE: Reform UK’s manifesto: Malcolm Offord’s party on Scottish democracy
What about voting system reform?
Disappointingly, the party lacks any commitment to replace Scotland’s failing Additional Member System.
Their 2021 manifesto also lacked such a commitment while their 2016 document committed them to the Single Transferable Vote.
The party did however outline it’s support for Proportional Representation at all levels of governance in the 2024 UK General Election.
But that all said, it’s striking that there are no proposals to reform Holyrood’s Additional Member System as we hurtled towards what’s likely to be Scotland’s most disproportional election ever.
READ MORE: Will the Scottish Parliament change its voting system?
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