HARVIE TO SPEAK ON SYRIZA, UK ELECTION AND POLITICS OF HOPE
In a high profile speech at the Royal Society of Edinburgh tonight (Thu 5 Feb) Patrick Harvie MSP, Co-convener of the Scottish Greens, will ask “Whatever happened to the politics of hope?”
At the event, organised by the David Hume Institute, Mr Harvie will argue that the victory in Greece for Syriza, an anti-austerity coalition which includes Greens, and the demise of two-party politics in the UK, shows a growing public appetite for radical policies.
It comes as the Scottish Greens enjoy a membership surge, polling putting them ahead of the Libdems across the UK and at Holyrood, and the Ashcroft poll for Glasgow North putting Greens on 10 per cent. The consistent campaigning by Greens on fracking has also led to Labour and the SNP recently adopting new positions on the issue.
Patrick said:
"In 2014 Scotland remembered that politics isn’t supposed to be something that’s done to us. It’s something we must take part in together.
"Since then we’ve seen mounting hard evidence of the connections between the social, economic and ecological crises we’re living through, but we’ve also seen a growing recognition that politics in the UK has broken out beyond the three familiar variants on a theme, and most recently we’ve seen the victory of Syriza in Greece. Was there ever a more important time to begin charting a new path?"