MONDAY’S letters pages carried five angry letters complaining of the Greens’ highly partisan decision to field 20 candidates against the SNP, in mostly marginal seats. I used to think of Patrick Harvie as a national treasure, until he stood against the very able Patrick Grady of the SNP in the 2017 General Election. It was all unnecessary, as he was already a sitting MSP. So why on earth did he take the risk of letting another Unionist MP into the English Parliament from Scotland?

Why put the Scottish Government at risk for the sake of imposing parking tickets on hospital workers etc with no proper Scottish integrated transport infrastructure in place, which an independent Scotland would strive for? Why not demand Euro and London grants, instead of useless rants, for such projects to be implemented in Scotland instead?

READ MORE: The Greens have zero chance of getting MPs in Scotland

As readers often point out, Norway has an oil fund to transform their infrastructure and economy. Scotland has zilch, and London’s over-subsidised transport system flourishes instead. Where were the Greens then? Instead of complaining of mass theft of all of our resources, they complained instead that we should have nothing: no more roads or airports to compete against our robber neighbours.

Sure, all progressives agree that we should end fossil fuel use. The Scottish Government agrees and has done more on that than anywhere else. Yes, they acknowledge they could do lots more, but only in an independent Scotland, where our massive resources could be used for the benefit of all our people and not for nuclear weapons and foreign wars against people have no quarrel with. Are we to attack Libya for using its oil wealth to benefit its own people? Should we have criticised them for not leaving their oil deposits in the ground? The US and its UK poodle were not slow in seizing oil from anywhere else. That is the bigger imperial picture and a Green Middle East would be crushed just the same and bombed back into the Stone Age.

READ MORE: Everyone is entitled to vote according to their convictions

To be fair, Greens do have progressive policies and real radicals, such as the young Ross Greer, in contrast to his elder ageing hippy peers in woolly hats wi’ woolly bobs, covering woolly thinking heids. Conversely, the Greens are not solely an independence party and also have Unionists, like Robin Harper, former leader, who backed the No campaign in 2014. The Greens in Glasgow City Chambers were hardly progressive, backing the reactionary fading Labour party against the SNP.

We can all argue over SNP’s policies, but cannot deny that first and foremost it is an independence coalition party, with many more policies that can only be decided a democratic independent Scotland. There can only be one option at the ballot box for those seeking the one true goal of independence.

Donald Anderson
Glasgow

[This letter was edited to correct the false claim that Patrick Harvie lost his deposit at the 2017 election]

IT’S with a wry smile that I’ve been reading letters from your SNP-supporting correspondents, suggesting – often vehemently – that the Scottish Greens should keep out of the forthcoming Westminster election “to avoid splitting the pro-independence vote”. A clear case of doing unto others as was done unto them.

As a teenager in the 1960s I joined the Labour Party (well there wasn’t a Green Party then) and we used to berate the SNP for standing candidates with scant chance of success – “you’ll let the Tories in!”

Fortunately for the cause of Scottish independence, the SNP back then just went ahead and continued to field candidates. Fortunately for the cause of saving the planet, the Greens today are following that SNP example.

Eleanor Scott
Evanton