From Green to Red: How Your Party is growing in Scotland

The Your Party Scotland conference

Could you tell our readers a bit about your political background?

I was a Scottish Green Party member for nine years. I left in October and I have been involved with trying to form Your Party since August. 

You know, I spent a lot of time in the Greens both internally and as a campaigner and candidate.  

I tried to push the party’s narrative and policies and focuses to the left and to make them more, broad-based and grassroots-focused. You could argue whether I was successful or not. But when Your Party came around, I saw an opportunity to be a part of an organisation that is challenging every party from the left.

I was drawn to Your Party instead of being in a political party that isn’t necessarily socialist and isn’t necessarily deeply rooted in communities. 

This is an opportunity that only comes around once a political generation. And I think that I would be remiss not to try and make the best of it. 

What would you say to people who look at the manoeuvrings at the top of Your Party and feel demoralised by the whole thing? 

The first thing is—and I’ve said this at meetings I’ve spoken at—I totally understand why people are frustrated. 

I think we need to accept that manoeuvrings as you described it are going to happen in political parties. But I think that we have shown particularly in Scotland that we’re kind of largely above that. 

We haven’t really taken part in any of the kind of factional infighting that we’ve seen down south, and we have tried to build from the ground up rather than the top down. And I think that that’s exciting.

I think the collective leadership will solve a lot of the problems that we’re seeing because people will have to work together. If you want to pass things on a collective committee, there needs to be broad support for it and some level of consensus.

What could the new CEC do to turn the party outwards? 

The next step has to be empowering branches. Activists across the country have put in an absolute ton of work trying to make things work in the local area and to try and engage people. 

But we’ve kind of reached the limits of what we can do in the current system. They’ve been campaigning but without membership lists or money. 

So I think the first thing in the CEC should be doing is empowering these branches and other groups, such as youth movements, within the party. 

Niall Christie

I think that naturally those organisations will be more outward looking because they will be focused on collaboration. And they will be there to represent the people who and at in their area or within their group.

The other thing is the CEC needs to have an eye on elections. As much as elections are not the be all and end all of politics, they are very important, particularly at a time when you’re seeing Reform UK on the rise.

Regardless of whether we decide to run candidates in May, we should be supporting the socialist candidates we can. 

What do you think Your Party should do in the Scottish elections?

We’re not going to run in May, take seats everywhere and be the opposition. However, there are areas where we can win seats—where there’s a base of support, where there are people who are already embedded in protest movements, the trade unions and socialist organisations. 

There are areas of Scotland where we have hundreds of members and where we can focus resources and get some sort of result. And, actually, a good result in May isn’t necessarily winning seats.

If we want to be a political party, we are going to want to run in elections at some point. And to be able to do so, we need to be able to train up activists.

We need to have people who know how to campaign and what that looks like. We also need to be able to fundraise. We need to be able to recruit members. The election is a good opportunity for that—and also we need to know what the base of our support is.

How that looks will be up to members at the conference in Dundee. 

The big show in town on the left in England is the Green Party and a lot of the excitement has gone to Zack Polanski. What can Your Party do to be a force on the left? 

My experience of the Greens is that there are some excellent and very, very committed socialists in both Scotland and in England and Wales. But the Greens aren’t always like Polanski’s party. 

I think the problem at the moment is that a lot of people see the Green Party as being Polanski.  But that isn’t necessarily the case when you look at councils in England and Wales where the Greens have taken up union busting. 

And the Scottish Greens were in government with the Scottish National Party and still passed cuts budgets in councils. 

There will inevitably be push back internally within the Green Party against this left wing agenda, and socialism will rub off the Greens.

Why we left the Scottish Greens to join Your Party: interview with Glasgow councillors

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Your Party should be building to make sure that when that happens there is an organisation waiting there that is explicitly socialist. 

We believe in not just electoral politics, but being involved in the movement and building from the grassroots. There are some people in the Greens who do that well, but institutionally that is not the Green Party. 

I think there is a degree of patience that this required from Your Party members and supporters around the Greens. 

What’s your pitch in the Your Party CEC election? 

I think we need somebody who can be a strong voice. We need somebody who can look at other parts of the country and say, ‘No, actually, Scotland needs to say this.’  One of the reasons for that is because Scotland and Wales are underrepresented in my opinion—we only have on seat on the CEC compared to the regions in England. 

I think we also need somebody who is independently minded. I’m not on any of the slates at the moment, although I would say I’m getting more broadly sympathetic to the Grassroots Left side of things. 

I have been staunchly non-partisan about setting up Your Party in Scotland. The interesting thing is that it has brought together people who have historically not been in the same organisation or under the same banner.

That’s something we need to be aspiring to be doing more—unity, not just for the party, but for movement-building and more broadly.