History
The Scottish Green Party was a constituent part of the former UK Green Party until 1990, when the Scottish Green Party became a separate entity. The separation was entirely amicable, as part of the green commitment to decentralisation: the Scottish Green Party supports a referendum on Scottish independence.
The Scottish Green Party benefits from the fact that the British government created a Scottish Parliament, which is elected using the additional member system of proportional representation. In the first election to this Parliament, in 1999, the Scottish Green Party got one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) elected by proportional representation, Robin Harper, the UK's first Green Parliamentarian. On 1 May 2003 the Scottish Greens added six new MSPs to their previous total.
In the 2007 elections, the Party lost five seats in Holyrood. However in the council elections, taking place under the new Single Transferable Vote voting system, they gained three Councillors on the City of Edinburgh Council and five Councillors on Glasgow City Council.
On 11 May 2007, the Greens signed an agreement with the Scottish National Party, which meant that the Greens voted for Alex Salmond as First Minister and supported his initial Ministerial appointments. In return, the Nationalists backed a climate change bill as an early measure and promised to legislate against ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Firth of Forth. The SNP also agreed to nominate Patrick Harvie, one of the Green MSPs, to convene one of the Holyrood committees: Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change.
On 28 January 2009, the two Green MSPs were instrumental in the defeat of the Government's budget, though a slightly amended version was passed easily the following week.
On 31 May 2009, Cllr Martin Ford, formerly a Liberal Democrat, joined the Scottish Green Party in protest to the plans by Donald Trump to develop on an important environmental site at Menie. On 13 October 2009, he was joined by fellow former Liberal Democrat Cllr Debra Storr. Both Councillors continued to serve on Aberdeenshire Council as members of the Democratic Independent group. Councillor Debra Storr stood down at the 2012 Scottish local elections to concentrate on her professional career. Councillor Martin Ford was successfully re-elected, this time standing as a Scottish Green Party candidate.
Read more about this topic: Scottish Green Party
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