IT turns out the SNP and Scottish Greens do believe in unions after all, because last week the two mutually indistinguishable parties officialised their marriage of nationalistic convenience by announcing a power-sharing agreement in plush surroundings of Bute House.

Never one to miss the opportunity to straddle both sides of the fence, the Scottish Greens are reportedly still on course to receive tens of thousands of pounds of public money allocated to help opposition parties hold the Government to account.

Why a party that is set to have ministers in the Government needs money to hold those same ministers to account is a mystery to me.

And what is front and centre of their grubby backroom deal?

Why an independence referendum, of course. Not the country’s economic recovery or providing our schools and hospitals the resources they need to get back on track. No, the priority is forever and always their obsession with ripping Scotland out of the United Kingdom regardless of the devastation that would cause to hard working families across Glasgow and beyond.

This agreement is less a progressive alliance and more of a coalition of chaos – a nationalist covenant by which Nicola Sturgeon hopes to force Scotland into another unwanted and divisive independence referendum. To pull the wool over your eyes and distract you from the economic illiteracy of her plans for secession, she thinks you’re stupid enough to fall for a few rehashed empty promises.

Unfortunately here in Glasgow we are well used to these kinds of shady deals made behind closed doors between the gardening wing of the SNP and their boss – the leader of the Council Susan Aitken. Since 2017 Glasgow’s SNP minority administration has relied almost exclusively on their subordinates on the Green benches to help inflict a series of disastrous policy decisions on the people of Glasgow. Wittingly or not, the Green Party in Glasgow has allowed itself to be exploited by the SNP in an attempt to greenwash their failed cleansing policies – from bin collection cuts to the bulk uplift charge.

While the Greens like to preach about the environment, when push comes to shove their silence has been deafening as they have worked hand in glove with their SNP bosses to exacerbate Glasgow’s cleansing crisis. They must care little about the parks and green spaces that are littered with abandoned fly tipping, or the lived environment of Glasgow residents forced to reside amongst rodent infested overflowing bins, because we haven’t heard a peep from them about the damage that their policies are inflicting on the city.

How disincentivising responsible waste disposal and recycling in favour of illegal dumpings is meant to benefit the environment I don’t know, but this is the kind of twisted logic that a sham green party has to employ when trying to hide its only true priority which is nationalism.

My group has been opposing the SNP-Green double act in Glasgow City Council for over four years and fighting them every step of the way as they betray their promise to put the people of Glasgow first. Now they’ve formalised their partnership at a national level it is more important than ever that voters send them a clear message at the ballot box that their divisive anti-business, anti-growth and anti-jobs agenda is not the priority.