THIS week has been a rollercoaster, not just for the SNP but for everyone else too. In a TV interview last Friday, I reminded Sky News that Holyrood’s Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints could not be a political circus if it was going to ensure that women are kept safe when they come forward with complaints about powerful men.

Sadly, the circus came to town and the women who were let down in the centre of all this were often overlooked amid a very personal battle between the First Minister and her predecessor – and a Conservative Party determined to bring Scotland’s democratic processes into disrepute.

The Scottish Greens have always maintained that the committee should be able to do its job properly and hold government to account. On Monday that made us Tory “stooges” because we demanded the Government gave the committee what it needed. By the next day that exact same position made us SNP “lapdogs” because we wouldn’t play the opportunistic Tory game of undermining the First Minister before she had even given evidence.

These labels are lazy. The Scottish Greens have been consistent. We will always defend the integrity of the Scottish Parliament and its ability to hold government to account. It is unacceptable that the Scottish Government delayed publication of the evidence that the committee needed, and that it took the threat of a vote of no confidence to release the necessary documents. That shows there is a clear need to strengthen our democratic processes and the power of Holyrood’s committees before it becomes the parliament of an independent nation.

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However, we will also vigorously defend the Parliament’s integrity against a cynical Conservative Party which sees rising support for independence and seeks to undermine confidence in our democracy, as they take more powers for a Westminster system they do not hold up to the same standards.

We need Holyrood to be better than Westminster. We need it to act as though it leads the early days of a better nation.

I see our parliament as the place where our dreams will be made reality. The place where a Scottish constitution is written, where the will of people in Scotland is 
enacted as we build a new, more equal and greener Scotland. A Scotland that can lead Europe in renewable energy, that can lead nuclear disarmament by removing Trident and acceding to the international treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.

Holyrood is where we will strengthen workers’ rights and protect the rights of marginalised groups, where we will restore the rights of our young people to live and work across Europe.

All of these things terrify the Conservative Party. That’s why they are trying to tarnish our parliament and bypass devolved decisions.

Of course, everyone knows the Tories campaigned against devolution and are terrified of independence. But they don’t just hold the Scottish Parliament in contempt, let’s not forget they tried to illegally prorogue Westminster to force Brexit through.

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Boris Johnson’s Government has been caught handing out billions of pounds of coronavirus contracts to Tory party donors and friends, without any competitive tendering process.

The international Open Government Partnership is so concerned about a lack of transparency in the UK it has placed us on the “under review” list alongside South Africa, Malta and Bulgaria. The UK chair of the body said Britain’s “reputation for openness and accountability is in free fall”.

And at the same time, the UK is apparently embracing its post-Brexit role in a world of tax havens and arms distribution.

Cutting aid to the starving children of Yemen while selling arms to Saudi Arabia, the country that is bombing them, has to be a new low for this corrupt government.

We thought the handing of million-pound contracts to donors and pals, so that they can get filthy rich from a pandemic was bad enough. Forcing through a hard Brexit while 120,000 people in the UK were dying of a pandemic was shocking. And the view that stuffing the unelected House of Lords with more donors and cronies has become old-fashioned.

The Conservatives have taken their 80-seat majority, won with the support of only 40% of the voting public, to be a mandate for the worst kind of behaviour. How much lower can they go? How much international shame and immoral behaviour must we be expected to tolerate?

What is certain is that the Tories have absolutely no moral high ground whatsoever to undermine Scottish democracy.

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It’s no wonder polling in favour of Scottish independence continues to show that the people of Scotland want out of this backwards and corrupt Union.

But clearly the election in just two months is about more than independence. It’s about what kind of Scotland we want to live in as we emerge from this public health crisis.

We are in the early days of a new nation, and we need to start putting the building blocks in place now. Scottish Greens have detailed proposals for a green recovery from the pandemic and for the solutions to the climate crisis, and I’m looking forward to putting them to voters.