Forbes wins Deputy FM vote despite Green opposition

KATE Forbes was confirmed as Scotland’s new Deputy First Minister after a vote in the Scottish Parliament yesterday, despite the Scottish Greens saying they would oppose her appointment.

A motion proposed by John Swinney was put to MSPs at Holyrood yesterday afternoon, and needed a simple majority to pass.

The Scottish Greens had said they would oppose Forbes’s appointment due to her socially conservative views.

In the 2023 SNP leadership contest, Forbes said she would have voted against gay marriage and suggested it was wrong to have children out of wedlock.

Speaking at Holyrood yesterday, Green MSP Ross Greer said he and his party could not back Forbes for Deputy First Minister.

Greer said: “Faith is not the issue here. The issue is that I’m being asked to vote for someone who thinks there’s something wrong with me, not because of any views I hold, but simply because of who I am.

“I will not do that, and the Scottish Greens will not do that.”

If all MSPs from the four other opposition parties the LibDems, Labour, Tories, and Alba had voted against Forbes, then the motion asking parliament to agree to her appointment as a minister would have fallen.

However, Alba’s Ash Regan backed Forbes, and the LibDems abstained. addressed each of the main opposition parties in turn.

Addressing Greer specifically, Swinney said: “We want to make sure that those values of diversity that have been at the heart of the journey of this parliament over so many years are protected and enhanced as we move forward as a country together.

“When I say to the country, as I did on Tuesday, that I offer myself as the First Minister for everybody in Scotland, I cannot convey adequately or strongly enough that I mean absolutely everybody. I want every single person in our society to feel they are at home and at peace in our society.

“And I come to these conclusions actually from some of the motivations that Mr Greer has talked about as well. I come to them from a very deep Christian faith. I believe that nothing can separate us from the love of God. That is the foundation of who I am. Nothing can separate us from the love of God and we are equal in the eyes of God, every one of us.

“I hope those comments which are more forthright comments about faith than I have ever uttered in my 45 years in politics will perhaps illustrate to parliament the magnitude of the seriousness with which I take the issues that Mr Greer has talked about as well.”

Forbes did the debate. not speak during