Scottish Greens promise free bus travel for all

The Scottish Greens have pledged to replace council tax and make bus travel free for everyone in Scotland.

At their Autumn conference in Edinburgh, the party's new co-leaders Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay promised to "bring hope back to this country's politics".

Mackay, who is MSP for Central Scotland, spoke about her experience growing up in Grangemouth and said it was "let down by politicians" when the refinery closed.

Meanwhile, West Scotland MSP Greer urged Scottish businesses to formally cut ties with Israel and called for British people who served in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) during the recent conflict in Gaza to be prosecuted.

The speeches were their first as co-leaders of the party after they were elected in August.

Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay were elected as co-leaders of the Scottish Greens in August

Addressing the conference, Greer promised to "scrap and replace" council tax and "make the wealthiest people in the biggest properties start paying their fair share".

"Council tax is so unfair, so outdated and so broken," he said. "It punishes the poorest people, while allowing the richest to get off with an absolute steal."

The co-leader also pledged to bring buses back into public ownership and make bus travel free for everyone living in Scotland, after the Scottish Greens introduced free bus travel for under-22s in 2022.

"The price of a bus fare is going up, the services aren't getting any better, but the millionaires who own our privatised bus network are cashing in," he said.

Meanwhile Mackay criticised the handling of the Grangemouth oil refinery closure by Petroineos.

Scotland's only oil refinery stopped processing crude oil in April after a century of operations, with the loss of more than 400 jobs.

Workers protested against the Grangemouth refinery closure

Mackay told the conference of her meetings with struggling shop owners who feared closure and parents scraping by after being made redundant.

"You can't rip a site like that out of a town like mine without it setting off ripples that impact each and every person in it," she said.

She said the site could have been nationalised to prevent the job losses.

The Greens co-leader added: "There are communities all over Scotland who bear those scars and I'm sick of governments and corporations using terms like 'just transition' as a cheap slogan."

Mackay also took aim at US Vice-President JD Vance for "lying" when he criticised her abortion buffer zones bill.

The Safe Access Zones Act came into force in September 2024 and prevents protestors from gathering within 200m (656ft) of clinics that perform abortions.

But in his speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, Vance incorrectly claimed people who live within safe access zones had been sent letters by the Scottish government warning them about praying within their homes.

The Scottish government said no such letters had been sent out.

Mackay said: "I may just be some wee bam from Grangemouth, but I'm not going to be pushed around or lied about by someone like you.

"You are the vice president of a bigoted, misogynistic, racist and fascist White House. You represent everything that we stand against."

'War criminals'

SNP members recently backed First Minister John Swinney's plan to declare a mandate for a second independence referendum if his party wins a majority of seats in next year's Holyrood election.

But in his speech, Greer called for the Scottish independence movement to stop "obsessing" on the process of securing a referendum, and instead focus on building public support.

He said this could be achieved by "making maximum use" of the powers devolved to Scotland and "get into the grey areas", which occasionally might mean "daring the UK government to step in".

The co-leader also called on every Scottish business to stop all trade and cut links with Israel until "the occupation is ended, until every Palestinian can live in peace, freedom and dignity".

He added: "Over the coming weeks and months we will face the reality of people who went from the UK to serve in Israel's occupation forces, who have spent the last two years inflicting that genocide on the people of Palestine, returning here."

Greer urged the government and Lord Advocate to "make sure that every single one of these war criminals is arrested and prosecuted because a war crime anywhere in the world, is a war crime under Scots law."