Glasgow Greens open to coalition talks after winning 10 council seats

Ten Green councillors were elected last week and co-leader Jon Molyneux said his group are “always up for cooperation”.

He appeared to lean towards working with the SNP, who returned 37 councillors, rather than Labour, who secured 36, as he said: “Whichever party returns the largest number of councillors has the right to form an administration. We’ve always been clear on that.”

Neither Labour or the SNP has enough councillors for a majority, with 43 required on the 85-seat council.

The Greens have helped the minority SNP administration pass its annual budget in recent years, without a coalition in place, and Molyneux said “we will have to wait and see” whether the parties continue to work together informally or a deal is formalised. He added his group is open to discussions.

“We’re all tired, it’s been a long campaign,” he said. “We will recharge our batteries over the weekend. What we’ve said all along is we will work collaboratively and we’re always up for cooperation.”

Molyneux and Martha Wardrop, the two co-leaders of the Glasgow Green group, were both re-elected, representing Pollokshields and Hillhead respectively. Holly Bruce, the candidate in Langside, won more first preference votes than Susan Aitken, the council leader for the past five years. And in Southside Central, Elaine Gallagher became Glasgow’s first transgender councillor.

Speaking after the count, Molynuex said: “We set out with a plan to achieve that level of success. In previous years, quite a few of us got in in third or fourth place so that’s always uncertain. So many of us got in straight away this time and we’ve broken into new parts of the city.

“When areas have a Greens councillor, they notice a difference. We’ve got a lot to do, our manifesto was a real collaborative effort, something I’m immensely proud of.”

Leodhas Massie was elected in Newlands/Auldburn, Dan Hutchison in Govan, Christy Mearns in Anderston/City/Yorkhill, Lana Reid-McConnell in Victoria Park, Anthony Carroll in Dennistoun and Blair Anderson in Partick East/Kelvindale.