Left to right, Scotland’s new Green group of MSPs: Chapman, Harvie, Mackay, Greer, Slater, Johnstone, Ruskell, Burgess

The Greens have returned a record eight MSPs to the Scottish Parliament, their best ever result, beating the seven elected in 2003. New faces make up half the group and five of the eight MSPs in the group are women, up from just one in the 2016 elections.

Their success will have major political implications for the future of the UK as they and the SNP now have a majority in the Scottish Parliament to pursue moves towards a second referendum on Scottish Independence.

In pursuance of a range of issues on their manifesto the Greens will have considerable scope as, with the SNP falling short of a majority, the Greens retain their place as possible kingmakers. Prior to the election Co-leader Harvie refused to rule out the possibility of the party entering into negotiations about coalition with the SNP.

The regional list results for the Greens were as follows.

  • Highlands & Islands – Ariane Burgess elected in 5th place – 17,729 votes, 7.4%
  • North East – Maggie Chapman elected in 5th place – 22,735 votes, 6.3%
  • Mid & Fife – Mark Ruskell elected in 4th place, 28,654, 8.3%
  • West – Ross Greer elected in 5th place – 26,632 votes, 7%
  • Glasgow – Patrick Harvie elected in 4th place – 36,114, 11.8%
  • Central – Gillian Mackay elected in 7th place – 19,512, 5.9%
  • Lothian – Alison Johnstone (elected in 2nd place) and Lorna Slater (elected in 7th place) – 49,984, 12.7%
  • South – Laura Moodie lead candidate – not elected with 18,964 votes, 5.2%

The party narrowly missed out on nation-wide representation by falling short in South, and there was dissapointment too that they didn’t secure a second MSP in Glasgow, where Cllr Kim Long missed out by just 0.3%, reported the BBC. Nonetheless, the result was solidly in the centre of the range of possible results forecast by our chosen analysts, Ballot Box Scotland, so kudos to them.

The result sees the Greens secure as the forth party of Scottish politics after the Lib Dems dismal result of four MSPs. They’ll also lose various privileges to contribute to committee business, while the Greens will now be able to cover more areas within the Parliament.

For the first time the Scottish Greens will also have both their co-leaders in Parliament. Lorna Slater retained the second Lothian seat for the Greens, taking up a seat formerly held by Andy Wightman. He quit the party in 2020 and had a failed run in the Highlands as an independent.

The current co-leaders will be joined by one former one: Maggie Chapman, former Edinburgh Councillor, who also co-founded Bright Green back in 2010, will represent the North East.

As well as running on the regional lists, some Green party branches also made constituency runs, a relatively novel move for the party with only two seats contested in 2016. Considering this, results were strong. Here are their results reported here in descending order:

  • Patrick Harvie, Glasgow Kelvin – 25.2% up from 24.3% – SNP hold, Greens 2nd
  • Lorna Slater, Edinburgh Northern and Leith – 13% up from zero – SNP hold – SNP hold, Greens 3rd
  • Alison Johnstone, Edinburgh Central – 9.4% down 4.2% – SNP gain from CON, Greens 4th
  • Kim Long, Glasgow Provan – 7.9% up from zero – SNP hold, Greens 4th
  • Guy Ingerson, Aberdeen Central – 6.6% up from zero – SNP Hold, Greens 4th
  • Ariane Burgess, Inverness & Nairn – 5.8% up from zero – SNP Hold, Greens 5th
  • Dominic Ashmole, Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale – 5% up from zero – SNP hold, Greens 5th
  • Nadia Kanyange, Glasgow Pollok – 4.9% up from zero – SNP Hold, Greens 4th
  • Scott Bevan, Paisley (West) – 4.5% up from zero – SNP Hold, Greens 4th
  • Mags Hall, Cowdenbeath – 3.9% up from zero – SNP Hold, Greens 4th
  • Barbra Harvie, Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire – 3% up from zero – Con Hold, Greens 5th
  • Laura Moodie, Galloway and West Dumfries – 2.6% up from zero – Con hold, Greens 4th

A previous version of this article erroneously stated that the regional list result for the Greens was 8%. Text regarding Andy Wightman has also been removed – Editor