THE VICE-president of the Green group in the European Parliament has backed Scotland remaining a member of the European Union.
German politician Ska Keller, an MEP from Brandenburg, told the Scottish Greens conference that she would work to ensure Scotland, as well as Northern Ireland, England and Wales, could stay in the EU.
She told party members at Perth Concert Hall: “In the European Parliament, we are not going to miss Nigel Farage or his Ukip colleagues who arrogantly plant their flag on their desks. But we will miss you.
“I will support you to stay in Europe and European Greens will always stand by your side.”
The number of Green MSPs trebled from two to six in May's Holyrood election and the party hopes to capitalise on a surge in support to win a record level of representation in the 2017 local elections.
Keller told the conference that Green councillors could make a big difference on global issues such as the Syrian refugee crisis.
“There is a growing perception that there is a crisis in Europe, especially in relation to refugees,” she said.
“It’s at the local level where people are welcoming refugees, helping them to find places to live and schools for the children to learn.
“There are many great examples in Germany where many ‘miracles’ have seen small towns do everything they possibly can to accommodate desperate people, often in the many hundreds.
“This required mayors, council officials and volunteers working together successfully.
“Local issues will always be at the heart of Green politics. Of course, it should be possible for Europe, a continent with more than 500 million people, to be able to do more to help the refugee crisis.
“If Lebanon, a small country with a population less than five million people, can do it, then so can we.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here