Patrick Harvie
If the SNP’s Growth Commission was supposed to do anything, it was to provoke debate.
Debate is certainly needed about a new vision for independence.
The one thing every 2014 Yes voter can agree on is that what we don’t need is a re-run of an argument that failed to win a majority then, in circumstances which have already changed dramatically.
That would be a recipe for a second and perhaps even final defeat.
So I welcome the publication of the Commission’s report as an invitation to contest the ideas it contains. I am convinced that a lively and constructive debate of this kind is capable of attracting more people than it alienates.
Of course the first idea the report contains, and which as a Green I have an absolute duty to contest, is the idea that economic growth is the only measure of success when even many economists recognise to be unhelpful, unhealthy and ultimately destructive.
Sure, you can put the word “sustainable” in front of the word “growth”, but the resulting jargon has never been defined, and leaves the attention still fixated on GDP growth.
Greens have persistently criticised its failure to capture the impact of the economy on our health, our happiness, how well we share our wealth or how unfairly we impose the environmental consequences of its generation.
I won’t pretend that the Greens have all the answers here; nobody does. But we have tried to ask the right questions.
Our work on the transition away from Scotland’s reliance on fossil fuels showed the huge opportunities for investment in new industries which can generate jobs for the future.
The ideas underpinning Green policies like a shorter working week and a universal basic income offer a healthy economy that can allow everyone to prosper in human terms instead of benefitting a small minority.
This urgent transformation requires both power and political will – neither on its own is enough.
The Growth Commission’s currency proposals would be grossly insufficient, and would risk actually binding us to the deck of a sinking ship, the HMS Brexit Britain, instead of freeing us to chart our own course.
But the powers of full independence without the political will to transform ourselves and our economy would feel like a journey to nowhere.
We can and must do better than that if we’re to inspire people to believe that they are capable of something extraordinary.
I won’t pretend Greens have all the right answers. . But we have asked the right questions