OPINION: Why the Southside needs Green policies
From childcare costs to independence, local Green councillor Elaine Gallagher on the key concerns in Glasgow’s Southside – ahead of the Scottish Parliament election, where her neighbouring councillor Holly Bruce is standing for the Scottish Greens this May.
Holly Bruce with Scottish Green campaigners outside Queens’ Park
By Elaine Gallagher, Scottish Green Party Councillor for Southside Central Ward | Photos by Laura Vroomen
Electoral politics is being overturned this year; the parties of the status quo have been replaced in the public consciousness by a different fight – between the extremist right-wing in the form of Reform UK, and the progressive politics of the Greens.
English, sorry, “British” newspapers focus on Westminster politics and rightly on the recent by-election success of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW), in Gorton and Denton. Hannah Spencer, a working-class woman in a working-class constituency, led a canvassing campaign of thousands of activists who knocked on people’s doors all through the neighbourhood and asked what people wanted from their representatives in Parliament.
In May, we have the chance to elect our representatives to the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood, arguably a much more important election for Scottish people. In Westminster, no matter which parties are elected, the Scottish contingent are outnumbered and dictated to by the English party apparatus. This is why the Scottish Green Party hold that independence is important for Scotland.
The Scottish Greens are allied but separate from the GPEW and the Northern Irish Greens. People can be members of all of them and Scottish Green campaigners went to Manchester last month to help out. GPEW members will be coming to Scotland to help elect Greens to Holyrood, and the process will be exactly the same: campaigners right now are going round the doors, not just to tell people what Greens’ policies are, but to ask people what they want and need.
Councillor Elaine Gallagher in front of the climate emergency mural in Govanhill
So what do people want and need?
On the doorsteps, people are saying that their concerns are primarily the increasing rents and other costs of living. Childcare is expensive but people are in a Catch-22 of needing to have multiple jobs to pay for the other costs of living, so they need childcare and have to pay for that too.
Public transport is being run at a profit for the operators and not as a service for the public; fare prices are continually increasing and routes are underserved either because the operators don’t have staff or the routes are unprofitable. People needing to work in the evenings or night-time or wanting to go out in the evening are depending on taxis and ride-share apps for safe transport home.
People also have wants and needs in their local area that are the responsibility of the city council, but meeting them either depends on funding from national government or else higher council taxes. Environmental health in the Southside is in desperate need of more workforce, to clean the streets and lift the bins, and enforce littering and fly-tipping laws. Homeless people need a place to stay and help to get themselves a better life. Lighting needs repaired to make the streets safer.
Many of these needs have been helped by having Scottish Green MSPs in Holyrood, campaigning for improvements to the lives of Scottish people and funding for councils. One of the first successes of the last term has been free buses for under-22s. This is being expanded in the Highlands to a bus fare cap of £2 for everyone. The Scottish Child Payment was increased to £25, rents and short-term lets were regulated, tenants’ rights were improved against rogue landlords, and peak fares were abolished on ScotRail. Another success has been to create buffer zones around hospitals and clinics so that women are not harassed by American-funded anti-abortion activists.
In her term as a Glasgow City Councillor, Holly Bruce has led the way on improving the lives of women and children in the city.
Her work on feminist city planning has led her to be invited to speak across the country and internationally, and most recently she has led on improving the provision of public toilets and park lighting.
Holly says:
“In Holyrood, I will press for meaningful action on climate change and nature restoration, especially in transport and home heating, where we have devolved competence. People want Government to act, in ways that make their lives easier not harder. That’s what Green policy is about, it’s money in energy efficiency, warmer homes and cheaper bills. It’s free transport, less pollution, more mobility, and safer streets for women.
“I’m prepared to demand better from those in power. Rents are too high, the cost of living is through the roof, and the climate is in crisis. The people of the Southside deserve better.