IT feels like only yesterday that I was celebrating the election of Robin Harper as the UK’s first Green Parliamentarian to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. It was a wonderful grassroots campaign to be part of and the breakthrough came after two decades in which the Green Party in Scotland had struggled to heave itself on to the main political stage, held back by a dismissive media and unfair voting systems at every level of electoral representation.

When a political movement finally finds its place in elected politics it’s a huge moment, and for the Greens there has been no turning back. Robin’s work rate in that first session was phenomenal; he appeared everywhere in communities up and down the land and brought his unique personable style to politics.

Robin laid the Green platform for the “rainbow parliament” that I was proud to finally join as an MSP in 2003. There was a profusion of new Green ideas and thinking in that session, from Patrick Harvie’s successful bill to outlaw hate crime to my early bill proposal for Scotland to set its own climate change targets. But overall that parliament was stifled by a Labour-LibDem coalition that avoided dialogue with other parties and shunned debate. Inevitably, Scotland demanded more from its parliament.

The shift to the SNP in 2007 as a party of government was a political earthquake and I was one of many MSPs who lost their seat that year.

But in the intervening years Greens have continued to punch above our weight in ideas and action. That first SNP administration in 2007 was short of votes to form a minority government and so, just days after the election, I found myself in St Andrew’s House with party colleagues discussing our progressive demands to put to the new SNP government. One demand which followed through into their first budget was the setting up of a Climate Challenge Fund. The idea was to drive action at a community level to cut climate emissions, but also to create solutions to other problems such as fuel poverty, lack of employability, poor diet and inactive lifestyles at the same time. Ten years, on the fund has been a huge success with more than 1000 projects funded across the whole of Scotland, which makes the cuts to the fund this year so disappointing and something I am lobbying the government to reverse.

We have also grown the Green voice in local government across Scotland. I was delighted to be part of the small wave of Green councillors elected in 2012 into councils for the first time in places from Stirling to Aberdeenshire. Since then we have seen more councils elect Greens while our groups have grown in strength and depth in Edinburgh and Glasgow. With the huge surge of Green councillors elected in England just a few weeks ago, I know we can build further on this, getting a Green in every Scottish council at the next election, possibly with Green groups in a position to take control of administrations for the first time. But we’ve seen what even lone Green councillors can do too, from fighting against cuts to declaring climate emergencies.

Meanwhile the work to lead the change at Holyrood has continued and since 2016 I’ve been delighted to be part of a strong group of Green MSPs. Perhaps our biggest win has been the reform of the tax system to make it fairer and more progressive. For years Holyrood debates on income tax failed to acknowledge that a person’s ability to pay needs to be reflected in the system and that those with the broadest shoulders can and morally must contribute their fair share. The changes we’ve seen are just the start. We can make tax even more progressive and the commitment we delivered to abolish the Council Tax this session will finally enable councils to raise the revenue they need in a fairer way.

The last three Holyrood budget deals we have secured with the SNP government have delivered hundreds of millions of extra pounds for councils. I’ve seen local cuts proposals to close schools and services dropped just days after the budget deals have been announced, but the longer term reforms must now come through if we are to transform our public services.

Now with votes closed in the European elections, there could be another historic breakthrough coming – this time with Maggie Chapman being sent to Brussels as Scotland’s first Green MEP. It could be a wonderful moment on Monday. The next step to stop Brexit dead is a majority of Scottish MEPs fighting for an independent Scotland in a united and welcoming Europe – a strong Green voice to work with Green MEPs from across Europe in delivering a Green New Deal that can tackle the climate emergency while creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Fingers crossed.