It was an historic election for the Edinburgh Greens returning ten elected members to the City Chambers, never before having just as many councillors in Edinburgh.
Now it seems likely that a deal could be struck to put Edinburgh Greens Steve Burgess, Chas Booth, Claire Miller, Susan Rae, Alex Staniforth, along with newly elected councillors Kayleigh O’Neill, Ben Parker, Jule Bandel, Alys Mumford and Dan Heap into at least some of the Convener positions along with SNP councillors in a minority administration of 29.
The two parties have much in common as borne out by their manifestos and by the partnership already struck at Holyrood with two Green MSPs, Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie who both became Ministers.
A formal coalition between Labour and SNP would have put the two biggest groups together in a 32 strong majority, but the Labour group is not permitted to enter formal coalitions after a directive from Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar. But where does that leave the Edinburgh Labour group with their 13 councillors? Will they be even an unofficial part of the administration?
Many of their aims have been proven to mirror those of the SNP group, and a coalition had worked tenably well in the past decade. It appears that the problem is the underfunding of local authorities in general, and Edinburgh in particular, which many in the Labour group say, and have said, is the lowest in the country.
Leader of Edinburgh Labour, Cllr Cammy Day, told The Edinburgh Reporter: “We will be meeting with other group councillors on Wednesday to continue our discussions on how Labour can influence our capital city’s direction. Our city deserves more than to be the lowest funded council in Scotland from the SNP/Green coalition government.
“Edinburgh Labour will stand up for our city, not SNP/Green government cuts to Edinburgh.”
A council meeting is scheduled for Thursday by which time an administration may or may not be formed, but at least a formal photo of the newly elected councillors will be taken at the City Chambers. If it is not possible to appoint a Council Leader and Depute Leader at that meeting then the business will be carried over to an adjournment.
The position of Lord Provost is not yet filled, and councillors have until a month from the election – 5 June – to appoint someone to the civic role.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
