Patrick Harvie Sunday Politics

The Scottish Greens will fight only three seats in the general election.

And they will not be endorsing any other party in the 56 seats that it

is not contesting and you are pretty much up to speed the Green Party

strategy, which has left them open to claim that they are propping up

the SNP. I am now joined by Patrick Harvie, who laughed when he

suggested he was propping up the SNP. A wry smile, Gordon! You are

very proud of the idea that local parties make the decisions. Did your

local party in every single one of the 56 seats where you are not

standing have a meeting and decide, no, we don't want a candidate in the

general election? All our branches made the decisions in their own way.

Some held meetings and others online. All of the 56 decided not to

stand the candidate? Rather than we don't want to, all of them looked at

the resources they had left after the seven national votes they had

including Holyrood and local elections that we put a huge amount

of resource and energy into, and they recognised this was not

something we were able to do. In 2015 election we stood in about half

the seats in Scotland and I regret, honestly, that we are not in a

position to do that again this time. Even to get close to it. What we

have got to do is focus our resources where it will really make

a difference. It is critical at the particular time we are in at the

moment that Scotland has a green voice at Westminster. We can achieve

that but only if we focus and target. This has nothing to do with

helping other to parties? Our colleagues in the branches will

contemplate as one of the fact of how best to stop the Tories and if

there is a Tory held seat, that is one of the factors that people will

have in mind. Anybody on the progressive side of politics needs

to be trying to prevent the kind of Tory take-over of Westminster that

Theresa May is planning for. This is an entirely opportunistic election

that she didn't need to call and she said she would not call and she is

doing it purely to capitalise on a weak Labour Party. I am confused.

The two answers you have given seem to flatly contradict each other. One

minute you say it is entirely about resources and branches deciding not

to stand, and now you don't stand because you want to help beat the

Tories. It is overwhelmingly about resources. One of the factors that

are bright which is covering a Tory held or Tory marginal seat, one of

the factors they will consider is how best to prevent that damaging

outcome of a bigger Tory majority at Westminster. The reality is that

there will be hugely important social and environmental powers

moved from Europe to Westminster in the next session of Parliament,

where many Tories want a bonfire of the regulations. That will literally

put people's lives on the line and a Green voice at Westminster is an

urgent priority for us. Maggie Chapman said a few weeks ago that

you would consider, as you have suggested, a strategy of trying to

keep the Tories out and not standing in areas where you thought that

would help people fighting the Tories. She said an approach would

be made to the Scottish National Party about a progressive alliance

in what she said was the next couple of days and that was an April the

18th. One such an approach ever made? No. Why not? It wasn't a

discussion that took place and it was not something the party had

decided to do. Maggie was expressing a personal view in an off-the-cuff

interview. Reality is that the party makes decisions, not me and not

Maggie, the party, at every level, as locally as possible. That is the

way we have always worked as a party. Maggie Chapman said there

would be an approach in the next couple of days and there wasn't. Why

not? She said she was expressing a personal view. And why wasn't there

an approach? The party had decided to do that. The national council

never considered the option of doing that. Look, after the 2014 election

and in the run-up to 2015, the party's national council agreed

there should be some level of discussion with the SNP about

whether there should be a different approach to the 2015 election. They

were not interested and frankly I didn't think they would be. They

clearly had the resources to fight every seat and why would they change

that strategy? I didn't expect anything different this time and I

am not sure why we are exploring that. People who would like to vote

Green in the 56 seats where you are not standing, who should they vote

for? They should ask all the candidates the issues most important

to them. If a voter feels that renewing Trident is the most

important issue to them, they may find a great many SNP candidates who

agree with them, but they might find Labour candidates who agree with

them. If the most important issue to them is ending the subsidies of

fossil fuels, they are likely to find many SNP candidates aborting

them because they call for deeper subsidies for fossil fuels. --

supporting them. If the most important thing is a sustainable

transport system, why would we send Scottish MPs to argue for a nature

runway at Heathrow when public transport is underfunded and

unreliable and overpriced here. What if they decide the Tories have got

the best offer? If people want an ever meaner, harsher social security

system that forces ever more people into poverty, then they really need

to check their values. Yes, but there must be many people whose

priority is the environment, who for example feel very passionately that

they don't want an independent Scotland, which the Tories are

sticking up for. The Tory party would give the go ahead to fracking,

subsidising nuclear power while removing the support from the

renewable energy industry. Anybody who support the positive,

sustainable vision for Scotland's future or the UK's future if they

are committed to staying in the UK, they will look at the Tories and

think they are not where it is at. Will you produce a manifesto given

you are only standing in Parisians? The green thing would be not to give

in the paper you would be saving. -- you are only standing in three

seats. We want to focus our resources on getting a Green MP in

Westminster. We are not knocking on the doors of millionaires and

billionaires to fund the campaign and we are knocking on the doors in

constituencies that we are contesting and we are talking to

people in an investment in a sustainable future, not a fossil

fuel addicted economy that will never last in the long term but one

that will create jobs and serve as for the future. The social security

system worthy of the name based on a universal basic income which means

everybody's needs and allows them to choose the balance in their own life

between working and caring and all the other things that matter in

life. But you are pan UK movement unlike the SNP. A global movement.

And you say on your website that you want to make an impact by joining

forces with Caroline Lucas here has been doing the work of 100

politicians, the first Green MP. But you want to split up the UK so you

can't even be in the same Parliament as Caroline Lucas. If Scotland, as I

believe it should, has the opportunity to ask yourself the

question again about independence, and resolve this conflict between

55% no vote and 62% remain vote in 2016, if the people of Scotland are

going to make that choice, I will stand with those who see a positive,

constructive relationship between... It is not obvious what the

connection is. I am sure many people in Scotland care deeply about

environmental issues but are deeply opposed to independence for Scotland

or see it as a secondary issue. Why have you got such a bee in your

bonnet about it? I know there are such people and

there are such people in the Scottish Green Party, we have people

clearly uncomfortably saying, a clear majority of our members

campaign for a yes vote but we have no problem they did that in a spirit

of friendly disagreement but those embers of the party who... If your

main issue you is you don't want a second independence referendum but

you were otherwise totally paid in caring for the environment, you

shouldn't vote for the Green Party, should you? The question of whether

Scotland is calling for a referendum has already been voted on in the

Scottish parliament, I've no doubt if the SNP take the majority of

seats as they look likely to in Scotland, the Tories have a majority

at Westminster, there will be a toss all about who has the bigger mandate

but look, the critical issues at the next UK Parliament will determine or

what to do with those hugely important social and environmental

protection is hard won over many years in the European Union. Do we

want to hand those over to a bunch of Tories at Westminster? I think a

green voice of the spinster for Scotland is more important than

ever. We can do that if we focus our resources. The biggest fall in

carbon emissions last year anywhere in the world was in the United

States, carbon emission levels are back to where they were in the early

1990s. This is almost entirely because of fracking and fractured

gas replacing coal power stations. Yet you are adamantly opposed to

fracking on the grounds that it's bad for carbon emissions, it clearly

isn't, it's the main factor that is helping reduce carbon emissions, not

just in the United States but in countries like China. If we want to

reduce carbon emissions and have... You're not nine the fact? If we want

to reduce carbon emissions and have a decent chance we need to look at

the global picture not just the picture in one individual country.

I'm talking about the biggest economy in the world. And one of the

most polluting. The US shifting to fracture as and consuming less more

polluting doesn't mean those more polluting fuels are not being used,

are simply shifting elsewhere in the global economy. Fracking is opening

up a new scene of fossil fuels, a new role of the dice. It's much less

in terms of carbon emissions from... That's why carbon emissions are

falling. The other part is nuclear... If coal is being used

elsewhere... You are against nuclear as well which is the other form of

clean his power. Scotland is well able to achieve a sustainable energy

system without new nuclear. The two main things that can reduce carbon

emission and you are against both of them. Look at what the UK is doing

and you say it can be done quickly, I don't think so, it can't be done

quickly and cheaply and there are hugely worrying questions about

whether it can be done safely. But the allegation against you would be

you are better at being Scottish Nationalists than being a green.

I've heard that and other very silly allegations from the Conservative

Party in recent weeks. They keep coming up with ever more creative

and not very well done means online. Maybe with an element of truth? The

argument from us coming from no one else in the political landscape

about the transition away from fossil fuels and the investment in

sustainable future that we need. We keep making that case. Harvie, thank

you for joining us. -- Patrick Harvie.