Should the SNP and Greens be in coalition in a future Scottish Government? This is usually a question posed by SNP supporters, but sometimes also those from other Scottish parties. To answer this question you need to put aside your feelings about the Scottish Greens and first consider how Scotland’s Parliament works.

Should Democracy be Inclusive?

“Democractic Inclusion” concerns itself with the extent to which we can participate in the decision-making of our own state or nation. Everyone in the UK is used to Westminster democracy. A Westminster Government is one of the least inclusive of any democracy in the World. Consider how many voters have had their preferences represented in Government there:

Only under very exceptional circumstances has Westminster been forced into Governments that have represented even a majority of voters. In fact the current Labour Westminster Government represents one of the smallest proportion of voters for more than a hundred years.

Shouldn’t being able to participate in the decision-making of your state be a human right – a right that we strive to maximise? That’s certainly what the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance argues, and it makes lots of sense. At its most basic, democracy is about representing the will of the people. If most of their votes aren’t even represented in Government how can this be called democracy?

How do you create an Inclusive Democracy?

Most democracies spotted the inclusion issue a long time ago. They adopted approaches to try and address it. Universally these are based on Proportional Representation (PR). PR seeks to represent as many voters as possible in Government – by this measure the Danish system is considered amongst the most inclusive using the Gallagher index, developed for this sort of comparison.

Scotland uses elements of both the Westminster and PR systems in its Parliamentary elections. Because it includes PR it has a Gallagher index of 7.03 – considerably better than Westminster’s 23.64. When Scotland regains independence the Westminster portion will almost certainly be removed, further improving its voter inclusion.

Scotland’s Governments are much more inclusive than Westminster: a higher proportion of voters are represented as a result of the use of PR for the “Regional” 2nd vote.

How are Scottish Governments more inclusive?

The effect of PR is to make it much more likely that multiple parties will be needed to gain sufficient vote share to form a Government, each representing their own pary’s priorities on the political spectrum. By combining their different perspectives in one Government, more voters are represented. This is what makes PR more democractic.

Of course this requires substantial negotiation between parties. This can be time consuming and at times get quite emotional. Some party aims will need to be put aside, and others that are potentially distastfull to their supporters must be accepted. But successful negotiation is about everyone winning to some extent: all parties in the coalition that comes together get some of their priorities adopted. No one gets all of them. Compromise is natural. This is the sort of progressive politics that just never happens at Westminster.

Consider the last Danish general election:

Some 16 parties won seats in the Danish Parliament (12 from Denmark and 2 each from the Faroe Islands and Greenland). Traditionally these parties align with a Red or Blue bloc led by the Social Democrats and Venstre respectively. After much negotiation the final coalition that formed a Government consisted of the leading parties from the Red and Blue blocs, plus the Moderates (a centre party not aligned to any bloc). Collectively they represent over half of votes cast – and most of the political spectrum.

In current Scottish terms this would be like the SNP, the Scottish Greens and the Tories forming a coalition. Whilst hard to imagine, consider how inclusive this would be of public opinion.

So what about the Scottish Greens?

You can model potential outcomes for the next Scottish Parliament election based on your own predicted vote shares, or those of recent polls. At a best current guess they look like this:

If 1st vote (constituency) goes to the SNP and 2nd vote (region) also goes to the SNP, it is realistically possible that the SNP will be able to form government – and this will almost certainly need the Scottish Greens in coalition. However with SNP 1 and a Scottish party 2 (most probably the Scottish Greens), then the same coalition could include Alba and dominate the Parliament, leaving a much shrunken Unionist bloc. Conversley its highly unlikely that the SNP could form government with anyone other than the Scottish Greens.

So, whatever your views of each party, the most logical option is to vote SNP 1 + Scottish Greens 2. This combination currently looks most likley to ensure:

• A dominant pro-Indy coalition of Scottish parties that brings the best possibility of also including Alba; and
• The most inclusive option – ensuring that the biggest possible block of voters and opinions is represented in Government.

---