Robin Harper MSP to Stand Down
Mon., September 15, 2008. 18:35.
Robin Harper MSP To Stand Down As Green Co-Convenor
Robin Harper MSP, Britain's first Green parliamentarian, and Scotland's longest-serving political leader, today announced that he would stand down as the Scottish Green Party's Co-Convenor this year. He has been elected to this role since the party introduced it in 2004, and was previously the party's Principal Speaker.
During Robin's time in the Scottish Parliament he has served alongside fifteen other party leaders, outlasting eleven of them. (1)
Robin Harper MSP said:
"I am happy to announce that I will not be putting my name forward for re-election for Co-Convenor of the party for 2008-2009. However, I am not retiring in any sense whatsoever, and will continue to serve the people of the Lothians, who have backed me at all three Scottish Parliament elections. I shall continue to work just as hard inside Parliament and outside, and to promote Green politics in the media and throughout civic Scotland.
"Though I would dearly love to spend more time with my wife, and for that matter with myself, I expect to see few changes to my lifestyle for the moment. Before the last election I made up my mind that I did not wish to stand for a fourth term in the Scottish Parliament, so the earlier we reorganise around a new Co-Convenor team the better.
"This move will also create the space we need to give some attention to possible improvements to our current system of internal political and organisational responsibilities, which can be seen as a little idealistic. It has been convenient on occasion for me to accept the description 'Leader of the Scottish Green Party' over the last ten years, but we effectively have no such role.
"The post I have filled is Co-Convenor, male, alongside Alison Johnstone, the leader of the Green group on Edinburgh Council and my excellent Co-Convenor, female. After much discussion in the background for the last 20 years the English and Welsh Green Party have gone for an official position of leader, and have elected Caroline Lucas MEP to take on this role.
"I feel we should at least have a discussion in the Scottish Green Party about moves in this direction well before the next election, and it will be considerably easier for me to take part in these discussions if I am no longer seen by many as the leader of the party.
"It is a great honour to serve my party, and I intend to continue to do so in a wide variety of ways. The politics and economics of the future must be green if we are to survive and thrive, living imaginatively and productively within our ecological means. I remain an optimist, convinced that Scotland can and will lead the way."
Nominations are currently open for all the party's elected posts, and will close on Sunday 21 September, the second day of the 2008 Scottish Green Party conference. Ballots will then go to the party's membership, and the result will be determined by a one-member, one-vote system. The results will be announced in November, and Robin Harper will remain Co-Convenor until that announcement.
Biography of Robin Harper
Robin was born in 1940 in Thurso, Caithness, and is a graduate of both Edinburgh and Aberdeen Universities. He taught English in Kenya, then modern studies at Boroughmuir before entering Parliament.
He took part in the 1959 Aldermaston March against nuclear weapons, and joined the Ecology Party (as the Green Party was then) in 1985, the same day the French secret service sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour.
He has served as the party's Principal Speaker and then Co-Convenor, and was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, representing the Lothians as the first Green Parliamentarian anywhere in the UK. He was re-elected for the same seat in 2003 and again in 2007.
He supports many of the Parliament's Cross Party Groups, but is particularly active on the CPG Renewables and Energy Efficiency, CPG Architecture, CPG Learning Disability, and the CPG Children and Young People.
Between 2000 and 2003 Robin served as Rector of Edinburgh University, and between 2005 and 2008 as Rector of Aberdeen University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and both President and a Fellow of the Royal Scottish Society for the Arts.
Robin is a patron or a member of the Board of five arts organisations: Communicado; Sounds of the Future; the Savoy Theatre; the Aberdeen University Gilbert and Sullivan Society and the Forth Children's Theatre, and previously served on the boards of WHALE Arts and the Traverse Theatre.
He is a keen musician, playing the guitar and the trumpet, including with the Scottish Parliament's Brass Ensemble. He is a moderate Munro-bagger, and has run five Edinburgh marathons as well as the Glasgow and London marathons.
Note:
1. The other party leaders Robin will have served alongside are as follows.
Labour: Donald Dewar, Henry McLeish, Jack McConnell, Wendy Alexander & her successor.
SNP: Alex Salmond, John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond again.
Conservative: David McLetchie, Annabel Goldie.
Liberal Democrat: Jim Wallace, Nicol Stephen, Tavish Scott.
SSP: Tommy Sheridan (later Solidarity), Colin Fox.
Contact the Scottish Greens' press team on 07909 933 074.