What the SNP-Green partnership means for Nicola Sturgeon

The agreement between the SNP and the Scottish Greens represents a number of historic firsts, and may well help Nicola Sturgeon in her struggle for independence, but it could also signal a rather more turbulent and difficult time for her government in its new “partnership” (and not coalition, please note).

Soon, Green ministers will take up seats in the Scottish government. It is a remarkable moment. Never before have Green Party representatives been in power at this level in the UK. The most they have won previously is overall control of one local authority (Brighton and Hove), plus power-sharing in 14 principal authority councils, including Oxfordshire, and they are the joint largest party in Bristol. So the change in Scotland from merely supporting an SNP administration (in most areas, especially budgets), to being more closely aligned is a historic one.

Although there was never much doubt that the Greens would back the SNP government in crucial votes, as they have for the past few years, the new deal means that Sturgeon's government, just short of an overall majority in the Scottish parliament can plan for its new few years in power. In particular, it means assurance that the SNP will be able to lobby and legislate for a second referendum on independence in due course. The Westminster government will not be able to rejoinder that the Scottish government doesn’t command a formal majority in the Scottish parliament. The mandate for a second referendum is marginally strengthened and given a “cross-party” gloss. To that extent, Sturgeon will be relieved to have completed this part of the process.

However, this will also be the first coalition-that-is-not-a-coalition in UK history (not counting a brief period of “agreement to differ” at the beginning of the National Government in 1931-2). So this is no coalition in the accepted sense of the term or on the UK model of the Cameron-Clegg Con-Lib administration of 2010 to 2015 (with very limited and specific opt-outs, for example on electoral reform).

Yet it is more than a parliamentary pact, because it involves the Greens in executive decisions with Green MSPs as ministers working with SNP ministers. It is in fact related to experiments in loose multi-party government in New Zealand.

The Greens, it seems will sign up to most aspects of policy and be responsible for those they have committed to. Crucially, though, not everything, and they are not bound by collective responsibility across government, and reserve their position on environmental matters, for example.

While this sounds flexible and sensible, and does allow the Greens to have their cake and eat it, it could prove more troublesome for Sturgeon. Whether leading majority or minority administrations, Sturgeon has been noted for her orderly style and taste for being in control of matters. She is a woman of personal and political discipline; the Greens, not so much. Her more anarchic, free-wheeling partners will no doubt cause her some headaches and irritation along the way, and the feelings may be mutual. Relations are unlikely to get so sour as to endanger the life of the government, but it will make a complicated set of challenges for Sturgeon that bit more tricky to manage, especially as she attempts to elbow her way into some sort of role at the UK-hosted COP26 conference in Glasgow in November.

Much then depends on how the Greens behave. In Germany they have long since matured into a more pragmatic party of government, with impressive electoral performances to show for it. Their leader, Annalena Baerbock, is a perfectly plausible candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor of Germany at the elections later this year. Albeit with proportional representation to help, the German Greens show what can be done, especially when the main centre-left party (SPD or, arguably, Labour) is in seemingly terminal decline. The Greens haven’t much hope of seizing Westminster, but they could easily quietly grow in places such as Scotland – providing they display a responsible attitude, get the credit for achievements and avoid the charge of “betrayal” and the blame for when things wrong. They could ask Nick Clegg about what happens then.