BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
Inside the Scottish Greens’ civil war over austerity
COLL MCCAIL reveals how party members rebelled against the current leadership’s attempts to block democratic debate on opposing SNP budget cuts at their Greenock conference
Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater addresses members, March 2023
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
The Tricontinental Institute for Social Research explores the factors that are bringing today’s highly educated but often underemployed young people out onto the streets, from Chile, to Algeria, to Nepal
The nation’s leading second-hand socialist bookseller that has been running strong for 33 years is changing hands and expanding its vision — now is the time to get involved, buy, donate and support, writes ANDREW MURRAY
PATRICK HARVIE noted the importance of political discipline as he opened the Scottish Green Party conference in Greenock on Saturday. The Greens “must continue becoming the effective and professional political force we are capable of being,” said the party’s co-leader.
Hours after he stepped off stage, the gathering descended into chaos as Green members voted to abandon the day’s proceedings by comprehensively rejecting their proposed agenda. Much to the leadership’s chagrin, the hall emptied for the day without a single motion going to the floor.
In a procedural dogfight that would have tested even this newspaper’s most rule-bookish readers, grassroots Greens scored a major victory over their co-leaders, both of whom — together with most of their MSP group — voted to retain the day’s agenda.
Far from a tedious breach of standing orders, the political disagreement which underpinned these shenanigans may yet have significant ramifications for the rest of Scotland.
When members sought to amend an emergency motion on this year’s Scottish Budget brought by Ross Greer MSP and Gillian McKay MSP, their path was blocked.
The conference’s standing orders committee (SOC) sought to hear the amendment — which would have bound Scottish Green MSPs to vote against any SNP Budget package which included local authority cuts — from the floor rather than by default.
Similar stories
COLL McCAIL rejects the Scottish Establishment’s attempt at an ‘elite lockout’ of Reform UK and says the unions should be wary of co-option by their class enemies in Holyrood just to keep one set of austerity-mongers in power instead of Reform UK
