THE Scottish Greens have announced they will be running in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election.
It comes after Scottish Labour released a statement on Monday morning calling on the party to join the race and accusing the party of being an “SNP branch office”.
Labour and the SNP are expected to be the frontrunners in the race called following the recall of the sitting MP, Margaret Ferrier, for breaching Covid-19 regulations.
But, in a statement this morning, Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie (below) said: “At a time when Scots deserve a green party fighting for environmental justice, the Scottish Green Party has taken Humza Yousaf’s shilling and shown for all to see that it is nothing less than an SNP branch office.
“While the SNP-Green coalition of chaos goes from crisis to crisis, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater are acting as human shields for Humza Yousaf.
“The fact is that the Scottish Green Party are now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the SNP who have surrendered all political independence for a shot on the ministerial bicycles.
“Only Scottish Labour is serious about turning Scotland into a green energy superpower and creating thousands of green jobs.”
The Scottish Greens responded soon afterwards, calling the comments “desperate stuff” and announcing they will, in fact, be running in the Rutherglen by-election and launching their campaign on Tuesday.
A party spokesperson said: "This is really desperate stuff from the Labour Party, although it is good to see that even Jackie Baillie acknowledges that the Scottish Greens are the party of environmental justice.
"We have selected our candidate and will be launching our campaign tomorrow. We will put the climate crisis front and centre of our campaign and present a vision for a fairer, greener and better future for the people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West.
"Scotland has had enough of the broken status quo being offered by Sir Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar, who are prepared to punish the most vulnerable with a brutal two child cap and a disastrous Tory Brexit that they are committed to maintaining.
“Business as usual isn't good enough. Only the Scottish Greens can deliver the transformative change that the Westminster parties are so afraid of.”
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