Election / Green candidate vows to take on super-rich and corporation control
“I’M ALEX and I’m the candidate for the Greens,” Alex Armitage says. “Maybe this is the last time I’m going to be the candidate, because maybe next time one of you will stand.”
Alex is not introducing himself to floating voters, but to the Greens own volunteers when Shetland News joins him on his campaign quest.
His comments about not standing again seem prescient now – they came just two days before a rugby player shouted Nazi slurs at him in public – causing the team’s captain to apologise – and a week before he and Green volunteer Zara Pennington would suffer sustained online attacks after posting a photo together.
And that’s not before you consider that many of the signs being hand painted on this same night – some by children as young as age 12 – were weeks later stolen and defiled in Lerwick.
If this was to be Alex’s last hurrah as a candidate, who could blame him?
When Shetland News joins the Greens for a night of sign-painting and snacks there is no signs of the tumult to come.
A number of new, youthful volunteers have joined the ranks – hence the need for introductions – with three being persuaded by Alex’s pitch at an Anderson High School hustings just a day earlier.
They have signed up because of an affinity with the party’s policies, which centre on taking power back from big corporations, moving away from major oil and gas projects and making climate conscious decisions.
So why are the Greens so divisive? Why does Shetland News have to routinely delete, moderate and turn off offensive comments towards Alex under its articles? And what do local voters actually think of the man behind the headlines?
Shetland News headed out with Alex onto the doorsteps of Lerwick’s Leog and Twageos areas to try and find out.
A fire storm is raging online against the Greens after its protests against Nigel Farage just days earlier, which provides an interesting backdrop for our walkabout with Alex early on a Saturday morning.
Alex arrives looking somewhat browbeaten, but soon perks up after a coffee and leads me to the first door.
We initially make slow progress, finding people either not in or living in AirBNBs and unable to vote. Our first actual conversation sees the homeowner tell us in no uncertain terms – but not impolitely – that they have already voted postally for the SNP.
Alex has, on several occasions, repeated that he believes the Greens could beat an SNP party seeking to win Shetland for the first time into second place – a bold claim.
He’s more than used to the election process, currently sitting as councillor for Shetland’s South Mainland and having finished third in the Orkney and Shetland seat at the UK elections less than two years ago.
I ask Alex how he finds campaigning out on the doorsteps, particularly in light of the harsh criticism he and his party are facing on the internet.
“This is the best part,” he tells me.
“You learn so much from actually getting out and engaging with people. Sometimes it can be really rewarding, but it can also sometimes be really humiliating.
“Sometimes people’s instincts are to shut the door if they disagree with you, but I always try and say, ‘can you tell me why you disagree with me?’
“You can have a nice conversation if you go to a door and you meet a Green voter, but the best conversation is with folk who disagree with you.”
Alex says he is “well aware that some of my views are controversial” but adds: “My ideals are my ideals – I want to be able to speak to people about them.”
One Green policy which appears to cause controversy online is their views on legalising drugs.
The party advocates for the end of criminalising those in possession of drugs, a policy authored by Alex himself.
He calls it the one policy he feels “most passionate about”, and the NHS paediatrician said that he often brings it up with people on the doors.
“Someone can open their door and I can smell the cannabis sometimes,” Alex said.
“These are people that aren’t causing anyone any harm, but are being criminalised because of it.”
Drug related harm is “one of the biggest issues in Shetland”, Alex believes.
“It’s an issue which comes with stigma, that’s why nobody talks about it. But you often find if you bring up the issue of drugs, that people want to have a massive conversation about it.”
What about another controversial Green policy, their support of Scottish independence?
At the next door we find out what one homeowner thinks of it. She immediately tells Alex she is not interested and will not be voting for him, but he coaxes her into a discussion before she can shut the door.
Independence is the reason, she explains, and though they disagree there is a feeling that the mood has been sufficiently softened by the time we leave.
Is independence something he hears often puts people off the Greens?
“Hardly ever,” he says. Just like the other candidates Shetland News have spoken to so far, cost of living, energy prices and specific issues like childcare that are being raised instead, Alex says.
At another door, we run through just about every topic available with one voter – from Israel and Iran to fishing, Reform, the SNP and eventually wind turbines.
The man challenges Alex by saying the Greens want more wind turbines in Shetland, to which he counters by saying he would support more turbines – if they were community owned, not owned by companies like SSE.
One theme that keeps coming up on every doorstep is Alex’s core tenet of the campaign, that the Green party wants to challenge and take power back from the richest in society.
“The super-rich are getting richer, and we want to balance things in ordinary people’s favour,” he tells me.
“I just think people should decide how society is run, decisions shouldn’t be made by billionaires.”
At each door he illustrates his 20-second pitch, which always starts with the call to arms that power sits with the richest and biggest corporations in society – and more of it should be passed down to those at the lowest rungs.
Apart from the likes of Elon Musk, few could argue with the sentiment. So why still does their anti-establishment message rile so many people up?
“Maybe people think we’re a bit vulgar, or a bit of embarrassment,” Alex says.
But he also firmly believes that away from the flaming embers of the internet – fuelled he says by social media algorithms designed to profit from hate – people are gravitating towards the Greens and their policies.
“I think people can see that the Greens are not just briefcase politicians,” he says.
“The Scalloway Pool campaign, standing up against Nigel Farage when the far right is on your streets… I think people want to see things like that more and more.
“They want to see someone that has their corner. People are starting to wake up and see that the cost of living isn’t a phase, the rise of the far right isn’t a phase.
“They want someone who can stand up to billionaires and can rebalance the system.”
Our last door before we pack up for the day proves to be the most illuminating, and rewarding for Alex.
The woman at the door initially says she is thinking to vote SNP, but over the course of a 10 minute conversation about climate change, the USA and Reform, she increasingly warms to the idea of voting for the Greens.
By the time we leave, she has asked for Alex’s election manifesto to be delivered through her door.
It’s a nice way to round off the morning, and proof that – away from the social media backwater – Alex can be a persuasive and positive politician.
Whether it is enough to convince voters to back him on 7 May will remain to be seen. But this campaign will surely have been enough to convince him to step back from the political soapbox.
There are seven more candidates contesting the Shetland seat. They are in alphabetical order: Douglas Barnett (Conservatives), Vic Currie (Reform UK), John Erskine (Labour), Hannah Mary Goodlad (SNP), Emma Macdonald (Liberal Democrats), Brian Nugent (Alliance to Liberate Scotland) and Peter Tait (independent).
Shetland News intends to run features on each candidate in the run up to the vote on 7 May. You can read these at the links below:
- Vic Currie (Reform)
- John Erskine (Labour)
- Hannah Mary Goodlad (SNP)
- Brian Nugent (Alliance to Liberate Scotland)
- Peter Tait (independent)
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