{"id":963375,"date":"2026-05-16T07:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T07:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963375\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T07:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T07:59:13","slug":"greens-holyrood-wins-put-hard-left-coalition-in-reach-in-edinburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963375\/","title":{"rendered":"Greens\u2019 Holyrood wins put hard-left coalition in reach in Edinburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Not that those dreams are likely to be shattered by anything resembling reality, and between now and the council elections next year support is, if anything, likely to harden if John Swinney<\/a> looks to the other parties to help pass legislation on a case by case basis, rather than be in hock to an outfit which very nearly drove the SNP<\/a> onto the rocks in the mad years of the Bute House Agreement.\n<\/p>\n

\n Lorna Slater\u2019s reward for being a hapless government minister with responsibility for the botched deposit return scheme is to unseat another, Angus Robertson, who dodged any accusation of incompetence by not leading on anything remotely significant or difficult. The result is the redrawn Edinburgh Central constituency now has its fifth MSP in 17 years, changing hands at each of the last four elections.\n<\/p>\n

\n But change is in the air in Edinburgh \u2212 if the two traditional UK parties got a kicking last week, it might just be a softening up for next May, and with Labour\u2019s leadership in both Scotland and London looking determined to press on, the rejection it suffered last week is likely to be repeated in May 2027.\n<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n Admittedly Daniel Johnston comfortably held Edinburgh Southern \u2212 and at the count I received a good humoured and probably justified ticking off for describing him as unremarkable in this column a couple of weeks ago \u2013 but few Edinburgh Labour councillors have a strong enough positive personal profile to guarantee they can counter the national mood. The Single Transferable Vote system will save a few, and amidst national chaos a rump of half a dozen or so is currently as much as they can expect.\n<\/p>\n

\n The concern was clear on the faces of a group of well-known national Labour figures huddled round their coffees in the Ingliston cafeteria last Friday. And when they went back to the counting hall leaving a pile of cups and wrappers on the table, one Conservative wag quipped it was typical of them to leave a mess for others to clear up.\n<\/p>\n

\n Whether of the Edinburgh Labour administration\u2019s doing or not, and maybe a mess would be overstating the state of the council\u2019s finances, but the next leadership will inherit as challenging circumstances as the SNP faces in Holyrood<\/a> now, with budget deficits running into millions.\n<\/p>\n

\n If last week\u2019s result is anything to go by, the incoming councillors in pole position to form an administration will be full of big ideas and promises they will be unable to keep. The Green group could easily add to its current ten councillors and be able to form a majority with the SNP \u2212 unless the Lib Dems pick up enough seats from the Nationalists to lead some sort of loose Unionist alliance \u2212 but if their prospectus bears any relationship to their Holyrood<\/a> manifesto then it will go straight to the file marked undeliverable.\n<\/p>\n

\n And then there is Reform. Its returns from local by-elections have been poor, and although it might pick up a handful of seats \u2013 my old ward of Craigentinny could be a target \u2013 its main impact is likely to be an erosion of the Conservative vote, just as it was last week. Support in previously solid areas was more than decimated. And the real fear is that from 18 councillors in 2017, they will be lucky to return five, with veteran leader Iain Whyte, who held Craigentinny last time and is the second longest-serving councillor after Lord Provost Dobie Aldridge, a possible casualty.\n<\/p>\n

\n If an SNP-Green coalition runs the council, the result could be a programme more extreme than that of the SNP-Labour administration of 2017-22, which hi-jacked the pandemic to drive through temporary changes to Edinburgh roads which somehow turned out not to be so temporary after all. And if there are any major building projects in the pipeline, those planning applications should go in now before the closed for business signs go up.\n<\/p>\n

\n Election dejection<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n Two new Edinburgh MSPs have already made a notable contribution to Scottish politics<\/a>, by providing ample evidence that the current election system is bust.\n<\/p>\n

\n It has long been a complaint that list MSPs can get away with a light caseload because they have no direct constituency responsibilities, but more particularly that they owe their seat to party patronage and opaque internal selection procedures, not the electorate.\n<\/p>\n

\n Many Edinburgh Labour members were stunned that former SNP and Alba<\/a> candidate Irshad Ahmed suddenly discovered his inner Unionist and came top of the Labour list, a shoo-in despite previous anonymity in party circles, and ahead of sitting MSPs and councillors.\n<\/p>\n

\n Meanwhile the Greens Q Manivannan, the Indian post-graduate student with no right of permanent residence in the UK whose visa is about to expire, found themself elected from number three on the list.\n<\/p>\n

\n Placing someone with only a passing acquaintance with the city he was standing to represent, ahead of four serving Green councillors, might owe more to his background than commitment to Edinburgh, but it is a nonsense that any foreign national potentially facing deportation can be elected through what is effectively an anonymous process with no guarantee he can turn up for the whole term.\n<\/p>\n

\n I might disagree with virtually everything he says, but long-serving Leith councillor Chas Booth, next in line should Mr Manivannan be compelled to stand down, would be a far more effective, and deserving, MSP.\n<\/p>\n

\n The discredited system should be replaced, perhaps with a multi-member constituency system like council elections, where at least people know who they are voting for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not that those dreams are likely to be shattered by anything resembling reality, and between now and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":963376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-963375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116583200569865318","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}