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Scottish Green members hold unprecedented power. How will they use it?

For the first time in UK political history, a party membership has direct influence over government policy

By Adam Ramsay
Scottish Green members hold unprecedented power. How will they use it?
Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie at a demonstration outside Scotland’s biggest polluter, December 2019 | Colin Fisher/Alamy Live News
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Never before in the UK has the membership of a political party wielded so much direct power over the programme of a government.

On Saturday, an extraordinary general meeting of the Scottish Green Party will debate whether to accept an offer from the SNP, which would see Green MSPs appointed as government ministers and a long list of the party’s policies adopted. Any member will be entitled to attend, and to decide.

If the proposed deal is supported by the membership, it will then have to be signed off by the party’s council, with representatives of each local area, internal party group and committee.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0