SCOTTISH Greens co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater urged members of their party to grab the “extraordinary opportunity” the co-operation agreement would bring.
The Green party are due to vote on whether or not to take the deal forward on Saturday August 28, after a week of discussion.
And, during an announcement on Friday at Bute House, the Greens co-leaders were quizzed on why the party membership should support it.
Harvie said that the agreement was a “fundamentally different” form of coalition which sets out what the party will agree on with the SNP and what they will not, and that there is a “huge amount to be excited about” in the agreement.
READ MORE: Indyref2 listed as first priority in SNP-Scottish Greens co-operation deal
Meanwhile, Slater made the point that Green members will see more key policies from their manifesto implemented than if they were in opposition.
Asked if the members will support the deal, Harvie said: “The Greens as you know pride ourselves on being a very democratic party, this agreement hasn’t been just hammered out between the three of us behind closed doors.
“As soon as the possibility of discussion about this emerged we asked our members what their priorities were and we worked hard to act on those priorities. So as we go into a week of debate within the party and then an all member extraordinary general meeting that will happen next weekend.
“I’m very confident and hopeful that Greens across the country will see this as an extraordinary opportunity and there could not be a more important moment just after we’ve been given a code red for humanity, just before the global climate conference comes to Glasgow, there could not be a more important moment for green politics to take this step forward.
Harvie and Slater made the comments during a press conference on Friday
“I think that the party members will see a huge amount to be excited about in this agreement.”
Slater added: “It’s more a question of that the agreement sets out areas where we will disagree, where the parties will disagree, but we can disagree like grown ups whilst also finding areas of cooperation where we can move forward and make significant progress on job creation and on building up a renewable sector and many other areas.”
Slater explained that the power was with Green party members to decide if they want to, “reduce traffic by investing in railways by putting huge amounts of money, significant money, into active travel, upgrading Scotland’s homes, all these key sources of emissions that will also do things like reduce people's bills and improve quality of life are what they’re looking for”.
READ MORE: SNP-Green deal will see two ministers in Government from Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater's party
On the party’s manifesto, Slater added: “We have more opportunities to implement our manifesto than we ever have.
“Every manifesto is written as a document of intention, whereas this agreement is a document for delivery, that’s a powerful thing and I think that the Scottish Green members will be excited by the idea we can actually deliver everything that's in this document, it's been looked at by civil servants, its had its due diligence, we know we can do these things and its by working together that we get these things done.
“It’s a new type of politics and I expect people to be really excited about the outcomes.”
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