Scottish Green co-leader ‘undecided’ about who to back in constituency vote

Scottish Green co-leader Ross Greer insisted he has “genuinely not decided” who to vote for in his Holyrood constituency.

With Greens only standing in six of the 73 constituencies at Holyrood, the party’s co-leader does not have the option of backing his party for the seat where he lives.

While he stressed he – and everyone else in Scotland – could back the Greens on the regional list section of the ballot, Mr Greer was pressed to say who he would be voting for for his constituency MSPs.

He insisted: “I’ve genuinely not decided yet with my constituency vote.”

However, the Scottish Green co-leader told BBC Radio Scotland’s Breakfast programme that “to be honest, the more I look around the parties, I can’t vote for a Labour Party that helped commit a genocide in Palestine for example”.

He added: “What I do with my constituency ballot paper is probably going to be for the privacy of me in the polling station, I don’t know if I’m going to announce it before then.”

But with 56 MSPs also elected via Holyrood’s regional list ballot, Mr Greer stressed: “Everyone in Scotland will have the opportunity to vote Green on their peach ballot, their regional ballot paper.

“Everyone in Scotland can vote Green.

“My job is to persuade people to vote Green – I know I’m going to vote Green with my regional ballot paper.”

Mr Greer also argued that First Minister John Swinney is “absolutely wrong to be opening the door to new oil and gas fields”.

His comments came after the SNP leader appeared to soften his stance on approving new oil and gas fields in the wake of the Gulf crisis, with Mr Swinney saying recently that energy security should be considered along with climate impacts.

With the Greens having previously served in government as junior partners to the SNP Mr Greer stated: “Clearly the Greens would only be part of a government that was serious about tackling the climate emergency.

“Nicola Sturgeon was serious about tackling the climate emergency, I think it is sad that since then the SNP has really dropped the ball.”