Edinburgh’s Green councillors’ true colours are exposed – Steve Cardownie

The Green group on Edinburgh council voted to deny the new Epic group of councillors seats on committees despite previous talk about democracy, writes Steve Cardownie.

The Epic group were denied representation on council committees. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

AS I predicted in my column last week, the Green group on Edinburgh City Council voted as one to deny councillors from the newly formed Epic group positions on council committees, thereby prohibiting them from carrying out their full range of duties.

Despite constantly telling anyone within earshot that they do not impose discipline on their members, who are free to vote how they want on any subject, it is nothing short of remarkable that they all voted the same way – again.

Given that they were set to lose some seats on committees if Epic was afforded rep-resentation, in true democratic fashion (not) they decided to vote against the proposal.

As a former councillor, I lost count of the number of times the Green group would lecture the rest of us on how they did not operate like other parties, that they were more democratic (even their group leaders held their position on a rotational basis), and how they wanted to see fair consultation and representation for communities throughout the city.

Who are they trying to kid? When it was in their interests, any vestiges of democratic principles were jettisoned out of the window.

When push came to shove, the Green group’s carefully crafted false image was exposed as they adequately demonstrated that they could play dirty by denying a group of councillors the same democratic consideration that they supposedly support for others.