THERE is something new in Scottish (and indeed British) politics and it’s not often you can say that. I’m talking about the SNP-Green “co-operation” deal, now given the imprimatur of both parties. Of course, both sides deny it is a formal coalition and the arrangement gives each one enough wiggle room to criticise the other when they need to satisfy their respective client bases.

But even if the deal is something less than a formal, disciplined coalition, it is also something more than a simple “confidence and supply” pact. The latter never include ministerial positions for the junior partner.

The SNP-Green alliance is causing lots of angst among the commentariat. Andrew Neil – still in France on his unexplained furlough from GB News – was roused to pen a diatribe for Saturday’s Daily Mail. A splenetic Neil denounced the Scottish Greens (and therefore the new coalition) as “anti-business, anti-capitalist, anti-monarchy, anti-individual freedom, anti-car, anti-UK, anti-wealth and, above all, anti-economic growth”. Even the Taliban come out more liberal on that score.

I used to work for Mr Neil. I remember him telling me it was not cost-effective for a journalist to spend more than an hour writing a newspaper column. One suspects that Mr Neil spent all of 10 minutes penning this rhetorical masterpiece, from his poolside in the south of France. The only interesting comment in the whole piece is his verdict that “a lot of the SNP-Green agenda will never see the light of day. Sturgeon … will quietly bury much of it …”

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What Nicola Sturgeon gets from the agreement is quite clear: the arrangement (including non-Cabinet Green ministers) provides her government with the perfect political credentials to upstage Boris and Co at the Glasgow COP26 meeting in November.

Even if Boris is daft enough to exclude the FM from the proceedings, the presence of Scottish Green ministers will ensure lots of international photo-ops. It’s also the case that flying in political formation with the Greens covers the left flank of the SNP government for the next five years.

The current SNP leadership has shifted rightwards to make an accommodation with Big Business and the pro-EU professional classes, who largely voted No in the 2014 independence referendum. These groups remain soft on separation from the UK but (since Brexit) are clearly open to convincing. Hence the FM’s recruitment of a raft of senior business figures to make SNP economic policy. And hence also the recruiting of the Greens as political camouflage.

My problem with all this is that the SNP leadership’s tack to the right will fail because it will alienate core working-class supporters of independence. I appreciate those in the movement who argue “first win independence” and then worry about delivering left-wing policies. My counter argument is that you won’t assemble a stable majority for indy if you hand the movement over to the affluent middle-class or business interests. Even if you deliver an independent Scotland, it will be one designed to look after the elite rather than the poor.

This is why the precise terms of the SNP-Green partnership agreement are key to Scotland’s political future. If they comprise on a genuine left-wing manifesto, then excellent. But if the pact turns out to be flannel – as I predict – then working-class and youthful supporters of independence will be demoralised to the point that the project is stalled. If the deal puts pressure on the SNP to shift leftwards again, it gets my support. But I fear the arrangement is designed by the FM to cover the SNP’s other deal – that with the Benny Higgins and Nick Macphersons of this world.

Take rent controls. The SNP-Green agreement promises rent controls will be legislated for by the end of 2025. This is perhaps the most radical proposal in the entire deal because the SNP leadership has long resisted rent controls, least it antagonise the property-owning classes, banks and construction industry.

AT next year’s council elections, SNP and Greens candidates will doubtless trumpet the prospective arrival of these rent controls. The circa one million renting households in Scotland will rightly cheer and vote accordingly. But they will only be cheering a promise. For we have no idea yet who will set rent levels or by what rules. Or what grounds there will be for landlords to object.

And what if the SNP and Greens can’t agree on the small print? In fact, that end of 2025 implementation date looks mighty suspicious.

Which raises an obvious question: why not legislate draft rent controls before next May’s local elections? It is a tight timetable but not beyond the whit of politicians who have managed a global pandemic. Could it be the SNP leadership is happy to sign a vague deal on rent controls but wants to keep the substance at bay? Folk in the SNP will accuse me of cynicism. But the party’s leadership has form.

At the 2016 Holyrood election (while I was an SNP MP) I know that support for rent controls was written into the party’s draft manifesto. It was still in the draft only days before the manifesto was published. But to the surprise of those involved in writing the 2016 SNP manifesto, the commitment to rent controls had mysteriously disappeared from the document on its publication.

Overall, the SNP-Green pact is long on promises but short on deliverables. I’d love to be proved wrong. Yet the SNP-Green arrangement deliberately avoids the central question of deprioritising GDP growth as the Scottish Government’s preferred economic target. As a result, the capitalist growth machine remains intact. And if that is so, it is difficult to see how Scotland can decarbonise on schedule.

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Nor is local government finance tackled – except platonically (a Citizens’ Assembly). Yet another five years could see local government in Scotland reduced to social pauperism. The SNP’s greatest failure over the past 18 years in office has been in local government, with both Glasgow and Edinburgh essentially handed over to property speculators, foreign investors and Airbnb.

Real, practical steps towards alleviating poverty are also missing from the agreement. Thus, the rollout of the full £20 Scottish Child Payment (SCP) remains “within the lifetime of the Parliament” – by which is meant near to the next election. But if the Westminster Government scraps the £20 top-up to Universal Credit, that SCP will be the only thing standing between starvation or visiting a food bank, for many families. The Greens should have insisted on the immediate implementation of the SCP, as part of the agreement.

And what of independence? The agreement provides the votes for another referendum but hardly an unequivocal call to arms. All we are promised is that the parties will work to “secure a referendum on Scottish independence”. But how? Do we wait on approval from Boris? If so, we could wait forever.

Building a united front of Yes parties to promote climate and social justice, and to win national self-determination, is a perfectly laudable – indeed necessary – project. But such a united front has to be based on practical outcomes, not platitudes. As such, the SNP-Green pact remains to be judged by history.