A PROMINENT Nationalist has urged the Scottish Greens not to field candidates at the general election where they might they take votes from the SNP.
Edinburgh East MP Tommy Sheppard said the Greens should be “mindful of not splitting the pro-Yes vote and certainly not splitting the anti-Tory vote".
He specifically suggested the Greens should not stand in Edinburgh South, where he lives, and which is currently held by Labour’s only Scottish MP Ian Murray.
He said it would be a three-way fight between Labour, the SNP and Conservatives in June and "in those circumstances I don't think the Greens should be targeting that sort of seat".
The Scottish LibDems said it showed the Scottish Greens were now a “wholly owned subsidiary” of the SNP, while the Scottish Conservatives said the SNP were “running scared” in seats where the Tories were challenging the.
Scottish Greens co-convener Maggie Chapman recently said she would be happy to support candidates from other parties if it means “getting Tories out of Scotland”.
To the exasperation of some of her Holyrood colleagues, she suggested the Greens were unlikely to stand against Scotland’s sole Tory MP, David Mundell, in the Borders.
Mr Mundell’s majority was 798 in 2015 - less than the 839 polled by the Greens in the seat.
She also said her party might stand aside in a neighbouring Borders seat held by the SNP’s Callum Kerr by 328 votes, which is a top Tory target.
The Greens, who stood in 31 or the 59 Scottish seats in 2015, said their local branches would decide whether to field candidates after the council elections on May 4.
A spokesman said: "In the constituencies we do contest, we will give people the option of voting for a Green MP who will resist the Tories' disastrous plans for a hard Brexit."
Ross Thomson, Tory candidate in Aberdeen South, said: “The Greens have to put up or shut up. They can’t pretend to be a proper party while sitting this election out and begging its voters to back someone else. That’s a shameful approach.
“It’s also very telling that the SNP has taken this step. It shows the party is rattled and running scared, and its MPs right across Scotland are terrified of losing their seats.”
A Scottish LibDem spokesperson said: “It’s now clear that the Scottish Greens are a wholly owned subsidiary of the SNP. You would have thought that a supposedly eco-friendly party would not be so keen to cosy up with a party that is threatening to cut Air Passenger Duty and pump thousands of tons of pollutants into the environment.”
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