Elaine Morrison: a renewable energy

Elaine Morrison, the Scottish Green Party candidate for Argyll and Bute, came late to this campaign – declaring her candidacy only on 20th February. She is, however, no novice in the elections game.

She stood as the Scottish Green Party candidate in the 2009 elections to the European Parliament, came within 2% of Labour in Argyll and Bute and within 4% overall of taking a seat..

While the constituency in that election – Scotland – is a large, dispersed territory with remote mainland areas and islands all to be travelled, she should feel remarkably at home running a campaign in the very similar Argyll.

She is, of course, at home in Argyll anyway. A Scot with experience of living both in the industrial central belt and the rural Easter Ross, she has married since the Euro elections and she and her husband have moved to live in Argyll, on Lochfyneside. She moved from the Scottish east coast and he moved north from the south of England.

A geographer by training, her professional work and her political energy are centred on assisting communities in initiatives involving ownership of local renewable energy generation schemes. She sees the social as much as the economic benefit of such projects as contributing powerfully to community cohesion  as well as to confidence and self-determination.

The obvious question here is what politicised her? And why did she go green? The green leaning came from insights into issues like global warming, encountered during her degree course. Then she says she found a natural home in the Scottish Green Party after becoming disillusioned with another party she does not identify. However, this does not remain a mystery for long.

In thinking about what politicised her, she comes to finger an occasion when, at the age of 14, her Mother took her to hear Tony Benn – and that her later experience as a youth worker in Aberdeen awoke her to the harsh injustices faced by young people from poor backgrounds.

She says: ‘Providing energy advice to people in fuel poverty and seeing the abysmal conditions that they lived in – cold, damp homes, kids with bronchial conditions, woke me up good and proper about the role of politics in influencing all of these things’.

Once she had got her breath back after the Euro elections, she decided to run in Argyll for the Green Party. She sees in this constituency both the environmental concerns and the resources – in biodiversity and in potential sources of renewable energy – which have an affinity with green politics. And she identifies with the energies which are leading several Argyll communities to commit themselves to ambitious community buy-out projects, many with environmental concerns sitting alongside a drive to ensure their sustainability.

Asked what she sees as the three main changes that would be most developmental for Argyll – and given rein to consider devolved as well as the reserved matters that would be her focus at Westminster, she goes for:

• devolving  more decision-taking power to communities;
• empowering people ‘to act upon the opportunity for economic, social and environmental prosperity by using Argyll’s vast natural resources wisely’;
• ‘addressing the housing issue to keep people here in Argyll and to allow young people to return home to raise their families, work and ensure the long term viability of our communities’.

Asked then to focus on the three issues that, if addressed, would make the most positive difference to Scotland, she takes an individual line on her response by saying: ‘We are facing three crises as a nation – the economy, climate change and rising inequality.  By making a clear link between these issues we can make transformative changes to give everyone the opportunity for a better life.

‘For example – investment in the green infrastructure of the future creates jobs and tackles climate change; improving our housing stock cuts fuel poverty and improves health and local economies; reforming our tax and benefits system and properly valuing our workers, reduces inequality, changes peoples lives and ends the poverty trap’.

Her political role models are those who stand up for their communities: ‘Those who doggedly fight to have injustices recognised, those who are determined to give their communities a voice and those who dedicate their lives to transforming their communities for the benefit of all.  I have worked with many people of that calibre over the past 15 years and their dedication both humbles and pushes me on to do that bit more’.

Her political bete noir is career politicians – who would argue with that? Argyll is fortunately distant from this breed of ambitious young wheelers and dealers who have never had a life outside the political hothouse. They become interns (gofers) at Westminster, sliding maybe into a role in a political party and then to being an ‘adviser’ to a Minister before being shoehorned into a safe seat in a part of the country they know nothing about.

From this sort of oxygen-thin environment, they have no experience of the lives the policies they cook up will affect and, in Elaine Morrison’s words: ‘they never stick their head above the parapet for fear of damaging their slippery climb up the political ladder. The damage they do to the public’s faith in our political democracy is unforgivable and tarnishes those of all parties who enter politics to genuinely represent their constituents and stand up for their principles’.

In terms of calling the election, like most people she thinks it’s anybody’s guess – but makes the point that the result matters far less to Argyll than does the election of a strong representative who will make this area’s voice heard and who will fight to protect its interests.

For Elaine, the campaign is an expensive and often a lonely business. The Scottish Green’s have no money so she is funding her campaign herself as her donation to her party. Given the cost of travel in a place like Argyll where covering the territory involves significant mileage and ferry trips, she is unlikely to make the degree of physical appearances the candidates with party budgets can afford.

Then, while there is a strong environmental lobby in Argyll, Argyllachs are not great joiners of political parties, so the Scottish Greens have a slim portfolio of members to work with Elaine on her campaign.

This means that she must often set out on campaign visits on her own – with no one to introduce her or to leaflet one side of a street while she does another. Imagine the psychological strength it must take to pitch up on your own, somewhere like, say, Campbeltown, or Bowmore or Helensburgh and pitch in to canvassing for yourself?

A young woman – in a field of male candidates – who can take this in her stride is not a candidate whose chances can be discounted and there is no doubt that green politics chime with Argyll.

The only thing that still seems to us not to fit the rest of her political agenda is – why Westminster?

Profiles of other candidates published to date:

• Mike Mackenzie: a complex Nationalist
• Gary Mulvaney: no standard Tory

Profiles of Alan Reid and David Graham are in train and will be published shortly.

The photographs of Elaine Morrison accompanying this article are copyrighted to For Argyll.