Greens are ‘bullies and intimidatory’
Former MSP claims he quit party over threats
THE Scottish Greens have been condemned as ‘censorious, bullying and intimidatory’ by one of the party’s former MSPs.
The withering attack is at odds with their carefully nurtured image as tolerant and open-minded, and could damage the Greens’ hopes of forming a coalition with the SNP.
In a newly published blog, Andy Wightman said he quit last year because he wanted ‘an environment that is more tolerant, questioning, critical, empathetic and more willing to listen’.
He even claimed Patrick Harvie, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, gave a TV interview ‘denouncing me as a transphobe’, which Mr Wightman managed to stop being broadcast.
The attack is a major blow for Mr Harvie and his Scots Greens colleagues, as they attempt to negotiate a place in government.
According to reports last week, a deal between the SNP and Greens is ‘almost 95 per cent done’.
Mr Wightman, an environmental campaigner and author on issues such as land use, said he agreed that neither he nor the party would speak about his reasons for quitting, last December.
But in a blog yesterday, he claimed he was forced to speak out to counter ‘significant misinformation circulated by members and officials of the party’ which was harming his chances of finding work outside politics.
He claimed ‘false allegations’ spread during the election campaign, in which he stood as an independent, were ‘potentially a criminal offence’.
In 2019, Mr Wightman attended a meeting about ‘women’s sex-based rights’, at Edinburgh University.
He said that afterwards Mr Harvie told him to apologise for attending the meeting, ‘telling me that I needed to eat some humble pie’.
He did apologise, but his relationship with many in the party was badly damaged.
Last year, he was in favour of an amendment by Labour MSP Johann Lamont to allow victims of sex crimes to choose the sex, rather than the gender, of the person who examines them afterwards.
He said he was called to an online meeting of fellow Green MSPs and told ‘in very stark terms that voting yes to the amendment would lead to action against me, up to and including deselection and suspension’. He voted against the motion, but decided to resign from the party that evening.
He wrote: ‘I decided to resign for the reason that I could not work in an environment with such a censorious, bullying and intimidatory culture, and where I was expected to agree that scientific facts, such as sex, are to be sidelined.’
Mr Wightman’s blog will increase concern among some in the SNP that the Government will introduce new laws aimed at making it easier for people to change their gender.
A Scottish Greens spokesman said: ‘The Scottish Green Party is proudly trans positive and we make no apology for that. We do not recognise the account of events in Mr Wightman’s missive.’
‘I could not work in such a censorious culture’