Annual Report 2020

Events over the past year have affected us all in many different and unexpected ways. None of us knew at the last AGM that another general election was imminent when we took up our positions! And, like communities across the world, we’ve been struggling to navigate our way through the health and economic crises caused by COVID-19. The committee has nevertheless worked hard over the past year running campaigns, holding events and training sessions and continuing to work constructively with our councillors, MSPs and the national party. We would like to extend our thanks to everyone who has been involved with the branch over the past year, particularly during such difficult times.

Branch events, meetings and trainings

We’ve run a range of branch events and meetings over the course of the last 14 months. We have sought to improve the accessibility of these events by introducing welcome teams to help people feel comfortable and supported when joining us at events, and by introducing a budget set aside for accessibility. We also increased our fundraising activity at events, introducing raffle collections to fundraise for room hire costs and support the branch. From March - at the outset of the COVID pandemic - we successfully shifted to hosting our events exclusively online. We will continue hosting events this way for the foreseeable future.

Events have included:

• An evening in conversation with Magid Magid (while he was still an MEP!) in February 2020, hosted by the Edinburgh Young Greens. The event was attended by over 100 participants and you can watch the conversation with Magid here.

• Panel discussions with: local youth climate strikers and our co-leaders Patrick and Lorna; Edinburgh Green councillors on the impact of coronavirus on their work; Councillor Gavin Corbett and SGP co-leader Lorna Slater about a Green Recovery for Edinburgh.

• A meet-and-greet ‘green freshers fair’ for new and existing members, where we all got to meet our elected reps and members of various party working groups and committees

• A number of training and strategy days, including: an event to re-energise our local green groups, providing skills to support fundraising and run events; events to encourage under-represented groups to get involved in green politics; and a participatory strategy day to set our main objective for the next three years

• Co-hosting the ‘Green Yes’ kick-off event at the start of 2020 with the national party. Our very own Julia Bandel was a key speaker alongside Ska Keller MEP.

• An online quiz social event MC’d by our lovely MSPs Alison and Andy, including a questionable rendition of The Wombles

Our AGM was postponed from June to September due to COVID.

Elections

Importantly throughout the year there has been focus on the 2021 Scottish Parliament election and 2022 Edinburgh City Council election. Despite this, we have still been kept busy facing a snap Westminster Election and several by-elections too:

Westminster General Election - December 2019

Work on the snap-election began as early as October, selecting candidates to stand in all constituencies covered by the Edinburgh branch. The branch agreed with the proposal to stand in all Edinburgh constituencies and Livingston, in addition to the Falkirk branch leading in the Falkirk East and Linlithgow constituency.

It was recognised that the campaign was not going to elect our first Scottish Green MP, however the main campaign aim was successfully focussed on engaging members across our target wards for future elections whilst fundraising all our election costs (c.£11,000).

We were delighted to return the highest Green vote share in Scotland with Claire Miller in Edinburgh East and to have offered all voters across Edinburgh the opportunity to vote Green. Full results from the election are below:

• Edinburgh South – Kate Nevens, 2.7%

• Edinburgh East – Claire Miller, 4.3%

• Edinburgh North & Leith – Steve Burgess, 3.3%

• Edinburgh South West – Ben Parker, 2.4%

• Edinburgh West – Elaine Gunn, 1.9%

• Livingston – Cameron Glasgow, 2.6%

Thank you to everyone involved in the campaign.

Holyrood Election - May 2021

The planning for the Holyrood campaign started in summer 2019 with a lessons learned meeting looking back at the 2016 election. This was followed by organising a hustings and the selection of Lothian regional list candidates, announced at the October 2019 conference in Inverness. The list is topped by Alison Johnstone, Andy Wightman and Lorna Slater. A full list of our candidates can be found here.

The Lothian Regional Campaign Board has met monthly since January 2020, with discussions covering key topics including finance, fundraising and interface with the national campaign. The campaign launch took place online on 12th September 2020 with input from Alison, Andy and Lorna, as well as other speakers.

Council Election - May 2020

Early planning to recruit council candidates began in November 2019 with a “So you want to be a councillor?” event. The candidate selection process for Edinburgh is ongoing, with the second phase due due to commence imminently. The West Lothian candidate selection for the 2022 election is planned to begin in late Autumn 2020.

By-elections

Preparations are underway for the Craigentinny & Duddingston council by-election on 12th November 2020, with Ben Parker selected as our candidate following an online hustings. The branch is also looking to support a candidate in the Livingston South by-election scheduled for 5th November 2020.

Membership, local groups and representative groups

Membership

Our membership figures as of September 2020 are: Edinburgh 1,434 and West Lothian 98.

Over the course of the last year we saw an encouraging growth in the branch membership. Between July 2019 and June 2020 it had risen from 1,445 to 1,566 in Edinburgh and 96 to 104 in West Lothian. However, there has been a marked reduction in recent months. This could be explained by ongoing issues relating to the move of the party database from Civi to Forest It is also possible that the pandemic and resultant economic difficulties have led some people to cancel their memberships.

We are aware that many local teams are also struggling to track membership levels and details and we are working with the national party to help put this right. A number of members are also not currently receiving our emails due to the party database inadvertently opting them out from bulk emails. The national party is aware of this problem and currently working on a fix.

The membership working group developed a strategic plan in February 2020 with a number of priorities for facilitating engagement with the branch membership and attracting new members. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced some of these ideas to be delayed, but the working group has made significant progress on drafting welcome letters for new members in consultation with local teams. These are nearly ready to be rolled out, ideally sent at the first instance by local teams in wards where this is possible.

We have not been receiving membership capitations for the past couple of years while the national party sorts out a new workable and sustainable system. The new system should begin and capitations should restart following elections in May 2021.

Local teams and sub-branches

Our local teams and sub-branches are active, hosting regular meetings and events. Most have managed to move activities online following COVID-19.

Late last year, we delivered a “Green Party into action!” training day to support local teams better engage with their membership. As part of the Westminster election campaign, we were pleased to see local teams put this training into action, with activists out in wards right across the city, including in West Lothian too. Though COVID has restricted the ability of our teams to get out door-knocking, we will be able to resume Green News deliveries from October, and local teams have been making plans for this.

We have also worked with local teams to support them to manage their membership. We have produced “Welcome” letters for local teams to share with new members, and supported teams to conduct phone rounds too. Most recently this has been with the Craigentinny and Duddingston local team and West Lothian sub-branch, in advance of their respective by-elections in November.

Representative groups

The national party’s Women’s Network relaunched in late 2019 and a representative from the group has sat on the Edinburgh branch committee since then. We have also worked with other rep groups including Rainbow Greens and Disabled Greens to ensure the committee has a positive dialogue with those groups. We hope to support the party in establishing a Greens of Colour rep group in the coming months.

The committee worked particularly closely with the Women’s Network to support women and non-binary nominees for Holyrood 2021, and with the Rainbow Greens to help ensure our gender balancing mechanisms are inclusive of non-binary candidates.

The city-wide Edinburgh Young Greens group relaunched in February and the group are making plans with the Edinburgh University Young Greens to support the election campaigns in 2021 and 2022. Representatives from the Edinburgh Young Greens have been particularly active in helping organise, run and host a number of branch events over the course of the year.

Other

Cllr Derek Howie has joined the party having resigned from the SNP. He will sit as an independent in the council but work constructively with the Green Cllr group.

Communications

Our communications team have kept up their great work this year. We have established a slick process for producing video content to share online - including recording branch events to share with members who are unable to attend in person.

The branch website is being redeveloped with a fresh look and improved functionality, and is set to be launched in tandem with the Craigentinny-Duddingston by-election.

While we did not print a Spring 2020 issue of Green News because of Coronavirus, Autumn 2020 issues for our ward areas are currently in draft, and will be out to local teams in early October. We have an excellent and comprehensive set of party guidelines on what it means to do leafleting during the pandemic.

The talents of photographers, website designers, editors, graphic and video makers have been much appreciated throughout the year.

Other committee business

We have established new ways of working on the branch committee this year. We expanded and consolidated a working group structure to encourage more people to get involved with the branch. Our working groups are:

• Membership and local teams: looking at ways of engaging our current membership by working with local team leads to inspire members to get active locally/branch-wide

• Communications: helping to organise all aspects of the branch communications; social media, print publications (Green News) and press; developing an online Media Library which has since been adopted nationally

• Events/Fundraising: helping to run events and fundraising activities, both at the local team and branch-wide level

• Accessibility: concentrating on making the branch processes/activities (events, communications) accessible and inclusive for all members

As part of the committee elections this year, we revised the role descriptions and introduced a process for gender balancing the committee. We have also introduced a new AGM website to make the process for electing a new committee and running the AGM easier.

We have also done lots of working tidying up the internal filing systems to make sure that no important documents are lost between committees, and introduced new tools and programmes to help record meeting minutes and actions.

Edinburgh Green Councillors Group:Melanie Main, Alex Staniforth, Gavin Corbett, Steve Burgess, Mary Campbell, Susan Rae, Claire Miller, Chas Booth

• The Councillors started the year with changes to portfolios aimed at broadening experience, working on our top priority of Climate Crisis with Edinburgh’s 2030 Zero Carbon target and building momentum for 2022 elections.
  

• September (2019) was especially important for climate protesters at the council. Despite advocacy by Steve Burgess and support on the licensing committee from Susan Rae, the climate protesters were told by SNP councillor Cathy Fullerton that they are explicitly banned from marching down Princes Street. Obviously this is not the support we would expect from a council that has declared a climate emergency, and both Susan and Steve worked hard to reassure young climate strikers (and not so young climate strikers) that they would be safe marching on Friday 20 September.
  

• Claire Miller joined the board of Transport for Edinburgh, which is the board overseeing Lothian Buses, Edinburgh Trams and Edinburgh bike scheme. Claire attended her first board meeting in August and has been to visit the bike scheme and the tram depot to learn more about the businesses.
  

• In her new role in the Equalities brief, Mary Campbell had a motion passed by the Council to mark Celebrate Bisexuality Day, which will have the bisexuality pride flag flying on 23 September this year, and for the years after.
  

• In his role as Co-convenor of the council group Alex Staniforth held the coalition to account over the Lord Provost’s flights to China. Watch Alex on webcast here. Alex ensured that the concerns on sheltered housing residents were heard at GRBV and that issues regarding social isolation would be addressed.
  

• At the special meeting of Policy & Strategy committee on the Climate Emergency, in response to a deputation by Transition Edinburgh, XR Edinburgh and Scottish Youth Climate Strikers, Steve Burgess proposed that the Council receive a report on a Citizens’ Climate Assembly so that residents voices can be heard.
  

• At Housing Committee, Chas Booth secured council support for housing as a human right. In finance committee, Chas Booth pushed for the views of electric vehicle drivers to be taken into account when new vehicle charging infrastructure is rolled out by the council.
  

• Melanie Main gained agreement at full council for the Edinburgh Council to work to secure accreditation for its welfare and advice services under the Scottish National standards as part of her work supporting reform of welfare services across Edinburgh and better access to the £82 million per year unclaimed benefits by Edinburgh residents. Watch the webcast here.
  

• Melanie began work chairing a new committee overseeing performance and delivery of Health and social care services in Edinburgh and won the additional of climate crisis to the long-term strategic planning for its strategic Board the EIJB.
  

• In her role on COSLA Mary Campbell discussed the upcoming Scottish budget with Green MSPs and COSLA officers to make sure all the groups involved are linked well and understand what is happening with the budget negotiations.
  

• Gavin Corbett spent much time leading on the Green Group’s climate emergency budget proposals, as well as developing plans for a community share issue on public building solar panels as part of his role as a board member of Edinburgh Solar Co-op.
  

• Gorgie City Farm went into liquidation. Gavin Corbett was very active in seeking to secure a new future for the farm: taking a proposal to full council which resulted in additional funding in the short term; and working with former staff and community representatives on arrangements to safeguard public fundraising for the farm.
  

• For Susan Rae work was very much dominated by £eithChooses 2020. All applications are in, scrutinised & verified, and voting day Saturday 1 February, Leith Community Centre. Susan supported the Save Leith Walk group. Following the SLW victory in the appeal over proposed demolition of the Leith Walk block of shops, the next step is looking at community buy out for the buildings. SLW is also looking at a proposal in Iona Street.

COVID-19

• March started as a regular month in Council and ended with lockdown. Councillors and staff were working from home by the end of March and this continues, with planning for return of some staff, and trialled reorganisation of working from home and office from mid October. Under emergency powers the CEO held the decision making powers, which were taken on a daily basis in consultation with the Leader and Deputy Leaders of the Council.
  

• Political groups were kept informed and able to feed at start though weekly confidential leaders briefings, and formalised into the Leadership Advisory Panel for an extended recess until the end of April. Thereafter from May Council and committees were suspended and Policy and Sustainability Committee was brought back under temporary standing orders, to make all necessary Council decisions and advise other than those made under emergency power. In practice this meant fortnightly meetings lasting between 5 and 9 hours, mainly attended by the Group Co-conveners, with much appreciated support from other councillors.
  

• The Green Group has continued to meet weekly, and much of the time of green councillors has been taken up with scrutinising Covid-19 response and supporting activity in the wards.
  

• In March a lot of councillor time was taken up both by shutting activity down and by dealing with the consequences of this.
  

• April was still a busy time for councillors but, obviously, for very different reasons than the norm. A lot of constituency work was taken up with ensuring people received their small business grants and making sure vulnerable people were looked after.
  

• In May Green councillors published a new report on a Green Recoveryfrom the Coronavirus pandemic, continued to argue for a few specific community centres to open for the sake of food distribution only given the theft of food intended for distribution, and made sure that council policy is that people who are abused should be considered above the abuser when considering housing needs.
  

• In June at the Edinburgh councillor group AGM, Mary Campbell handed over the reins to Claire Miller as the Green representative at COSLA, where the Greens participate in the leaders meetings on issues affecting all local councils across Scotland.
  

• Normally July is the quietest month for the City Council, as most committees take a break and resident casework slows down while people take holidays. Nothing about 2020 is normal, however, and it was as busy as ever as the Council gradually starting to bring back more normal levels of services.
  

• In July Cllr Derek Howie resigned from the SNP and has joined the Scottish Green Party. Derek will remain an independent councillor for the remainder of this term, ending in May 2022, but Green councillor group have been in discussions about shared aims and priorities and how we might work together. In our constructive discussions with Derek we have identified ways in which we can work together, whether at meetings of all councillors or at neighbourhood level. The arrangement will not change the formal Green Group of Councillors as elected in 2017.
  

• The Group held an August EGM and agreed that Melanie Main and Alex Staniforth would continue as co-conveners until May 2021.
  

• Full Council met for the first time on-line on 30th June, and from 1^st September all other Committees are meeting. All meetings continue to be on-line.

Over the year Councilllors have deal with literally thousands of requests for help from residents and supported and initiated numerous local projects. You can read our full monthly reports which give highlights/examples.

Alison Johnstone

It’s fair to say that the past year has been a challenging one. In the midst of the climate emergency and the mass extinction of species, we find ourselves tackling the impact of a global pandemic that has exposed entrenched inequality and the failure of an economic model that assumes an endless supply of planetary resources. The pandemic has devastated the lives and livelihoods of many of our constituents in Lothian and beyond and there has been a marked increase in correspondence from people seeking advice and support on a wide range of pressing issues.

As Co-Leader of the Parliamentary Group I have scrutinised the Government’s response to Covid-19, working with colleagues, clinicians and public health experts to ensure public health measures are appropriate and timely. I sought to amend the Coronavirus legislation to improve support for carers, reaching agreement with the Government, and was defeated in my efforts to make the birth control pill available, free of charge. at pharmacies during the pandemic. I have used my opportunity at First Minister’s Questions to raise a wide range of issues including the pandemic, the treatment of asylum seekers, wildlife persecution, transport, austerity and more.

My work in Lothian has involved meeting and supporting various local groups, organisations and individuals including Gorgie Farm who fought against closure with a well-supported local campaign involving Green Councillors and MSPs. I met with local residents in Liberton concerned at the gradual erosion of local open space to development pressures, accompanied by our local branch representative, visiting sites enjoyed by many. I met young apprentices in Edinburgh’s nurseries, visited the Cyrenians Fare Share project and helped local volunteers clean our city’s beaches.

I have spoken at several Youth Climate Strikes, represented the Party at conferences including the Poverty Alliance Conference, the Nourish Scotland Conference, Scottish Women Stand and the inaugural Revive Conference. I took forward my Members Bill proposal to properly ban fox hunting in Scotland and make the mountain hare a protected species. I took advantage of the legislative opportunity afforded by the Government’s Animals and Wildlife Bill and achieved the latter with overwhelming public support. As part of our budget negotiations this year, the Green MSP group achieved free bus travel for Under 19s. While the pandemic has impacted this delivery, this marks another concrete result due to our pragmatic engagement with the Scottish budget process.

Andy Wightman

The 14 months since the 2019 AGM have continued to be dominated by external events including a General Election, the ongoing Brexit debacle and, latterly the global coronavirus pandemic. Our work in Parliament has been disrupted in recent months by the pandemic but it has been a busy year, nevertheless.

As MSPs, we try to get out and about as much as possible and highlights of the past year have included a visit to the South of Scotland Golden Eagle project (as Scottish Parliament’s `golden Eagle species champion), a visit with Ross Greer MSP to the HarburnHead Wind Farm in West Lothian with representatives of the Lothian Pension Fund, and filming for a BBC travelogue with Frankie Boyle to discuss how Scotland’s land is owned.

Constituency work has been wide and varied including the usual health, housing and social security issues as well as casework that has led to wider campaigns such as my representing constituent Colin Brown in the Housing Tribunal and working on a human rights challenge to private renting law.

I have been involved in a wide range of legislation in Parliament including the Period Products Bill, Heat Networks Bill, Scottish National Investment Bank bill and Non-Domestic Rates Bill. In the latter, we made a determined (buy unsuccessful) effort to repatriate non-domestic rates to local authorities. More recently, I have been campaigning strenuously for more protection for private renters through the two emergency Coronavirus Bills.

Wider work has included working with residents and professionals to resolve issues related to suspect cladding on residential buildings, ongoing work on the Homes First campaign along with Edinburgh Councillors and continuing efforts to eradicate wildlife crime and ban driven grouse shooting. On 5 May 2020, I introduced my Members Bill (European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill) to Parliament and Stage One scrutiny is underway.

Leith and Leith Walk Greens

Report to Edinburgh Branch September 2020 AGM

By Fraser May and Jenny Smith (outgoing co-convenors)

Meetings

The Leith and Leith Walk sub-branch have continued to meet monthly, initially at the Kirkgate before moving online from April 2020.

The 2020 sub-branch AGM was held online on 13/08/2020, attended by eleven members. At the AGM it was confirmed that Kate Joester and Mariusz Cebulski would share the role of convenors, with Mariusz acting as membership secretary. It was agreed that Maggie Holland would act as the liaison to the Edinburgh branch.

Finances and Membership

Finance

The sub-branch main expenditure has been room hire at the Kirkgate for meetings, over this year this has been paid directly by the branch. The only other expenditure this year has been the hire of a stall at the Eco Fair (£30) which was covered by donations on the day.

Membership Update

July 2019 – 303

April to May 2020 – between 295 and 305

August 2020 – 278

Elections

General Election

Members from across the sub-branch supported the December 2019 Westminster General election campaign, with activity primarily focussed on the neighbouring Target to Win wards of Forth and Inverleith. The campaign activity included material delivery but was largely targeted on canvassing.

Within the wards the sub-branch also coordinated A-Boards and had members being visible outside polling day.

Other activities

• Leith Gala Day Until the cancellation due to Covid, the sub-branch had planned to host a stall at the 2020 Leith Gala day.

• Leith Chooses A number of sub-branch members volunteered at the February 2020 edition of Leith Chooses, with 950 attendees from across the community attending on the day.

• Eco Fair In November 2019 the sub-branch hosted a stall at the eco fair at Out of the Blue. The general feedback from the public was extremely positive with good support from Pete at the national office in provision of materials for the stall.

Councillor Update

As the second part of the year was dominated by the Covid lockdown, it meant that the council stopped working normally, with things like advice surgeries and meetings cancelled. The planning committee restarted a couple of months into the lockdown and two full council meetings have now been held online.

The planning committee have been working on the city development plan, looking at making the city more for people rather than for cars.

As Edinburgh is twinned with Krakow in Poland the council is working with allies there to show support for the LGBT community there to demonstrate that LGBT-free zones are unacceptable.

Leith chooses has continued to meet and are looking at an alternative methodology for not being able to have a big event in 2021.

Since the 2019 sub-branch AGM the Save Leith Walk campaign successfully achieved their main aim, with the developer resubmitting plans including space for housing and social enterprises rather than the student flats. The campaign had hoped to achieve a community buy-out, however was told that there was a lack of funding available.

Plans for the upcoming year

• Continue to meet monthly (either online, in person or a hybrid)

• Support the 2021 Holyrood campaign and build capacity for electing Green councillors in both wards in 2022

• Host a stall at Leith Gala Day in 2021

For any further details please contact leith.leithwalk@scottishgreens.org.uk

Insert into EGP Constitution, Section 4:

In order to ensure the ongoing financial sustainability of the Edinburgh branch, reserves should be retained in the branch bank account for the equivalent of one (minimum) to two (desirable) years' branch running costs. Costs may include, but not be limited to, monthly branch and committee venue hire, Edinburgh Greens website hosting and domain charges, and an accessibility bursary fund. As at 2020, the reserves would be set at £3000 for one year's running costs or £6000 for two years'.

AGM Report for South East Edinburgh Greens sub-branch

Sub-branch activities

Newsletters

• We produced two editions of newsletters for Southside Newington and Liberton/Gilmerton wards, writing all the copy, sourcing photos, laying out etc. Some main stories were taken up by other local teams. Print runs were 13,000 (all households) and 6,000 (just under half all households) respectively.

• Unfortunately we were only able to distribute one edition of the newsletters. The Spring edition was just about to go to print when #lockdown happened and we had to follow guidance to stay at home.

Stalls etc

• A highlight was the stall we held In July, under our gazebo, at the Meadows Climate Festival, where the focus was on plastics. Ross Greer MSP had attended and there had been an excellent workshop.

• In September we set up a table on Nicholson Street with the aim of encouraging adults to support the school children’s climate strike that month.

• In July and August members took part in nationally organised issue surveying in The Inch, to gather information ahead of the next Holyrood election campaign. This has begun to raise our profile in the area and particularly when we were able to follow up issues raised.

• In July we organised a successful training seminar on ‘Re-framing the Narrative’ around the Independence debate. This was well attended both by SEEG members and the wider Yes movement and many had come away with new ideas and skills, particularly for canvassing.

• We had tried to organise Social Evenings for members. The first had gone OK, but the second had not been attended.

Fundraising

• We raised over £200 for SGP from the sale of craft goods produced by our members.

Elections

• In November and December many members, recent and long-standing, played a full part in the General Election campaign in support of our SGP candidate, Kate Nevens. Despite the result we all agreed this had been an excellent experience, with Kate bringing a fresh approach to our campaigning and canvassing, the benefit of working with Morningside team, and the numbers of old and new members we managed to involve in the campaign.

Finance report

Income and expenditure for the 2019/2020 financial year were as follows:

Opening balance £380.44

Expenditure included room hire, online conferencing and a gazebo.

Closing balance tbc

We noted the national party is short of funds and neither Edinburgh nor Glasgow branch has been paid their capitation, and the possible knock-on effects on the sub-branch.

Election of office holders

The following positions were elected at the SEEG AGM:

• Co-convenors: Alison Neathey and Guy Johnson

• Membership & Finance Secretary: Steve West

• Minutes Secretary: John Palmer

• Representative to Edinburgh Branch Committee: John Nichol

In Standing Orders section 5.3.6, remove “may dismiss that member from his/her Branch post” and replace with “may dismiss that member from their Branch post”.

In the standing orders,

2.4.1, insert ‘in normal circumstances’ after ‘shall hold office’, so that the sentence reads: “The Branch Committee shall be elected at the AGM and shall hold office in normal circumstances for one year”.

In the Constitution,

Add section 2.3.1: In extraordinary circumstances, it may not be possible to hold an AGM within 14 months. The branch committee may therefore be permitted to postpone the AGM until circumstances have changed, following a majority vote of the branch committee. The branch committee must inform the members of the branch of this decision. The terms of office of the branch committee will be extended until the AGM can take place.

Add section 2.3.2: If 5% of the membership of the Branch object to the postponement of the AGM, then the branch committee must ensure that the AGM takes place.

Amend 11.2 to read: “By the Branch not having called an AGM within 14 months of the previous such meeting, unless there are extraordinary circumstances which have been communicated to the members.”

Edinburgh branch supports the recommendation of the Lothian 2021 campaign board to stand in two constituencies within our region and that:

• Those 2 constituencies should be the 2 in which Green vote share is highest – namely Edinburgh Central and Edinburgh Northern and Leith.

• The 2 candidates for those constituencies should be the 2 top-ranked candidates on the Lothian list and our two sitting MSPs: Alison Johnstone and Andy Wightman.