Lorna Slater


Lorna Slater is a Canadian-born Scottish politician who is co-leader of the Scottish Greens with Patrick Harvie. She assumed office on 1 August 2019 for a two-year term.

Early Life and engineering career

Slater was born in Canada. After moving to Scotland, she worked as an engineer in the renewables sector, then later as a project manager. In 2018, she was one of three women from Scotland awarded a place on the Homeward Bound international leadership development programme and this included a trip to Antarctica the following year, where she had studied the effects of climate change.

Political career

Slater became politically involved during the run-up to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, where she campaigned in favour of Scottish independence.
Slater has been an election candidate for the Scottish Greens several times. The 2016 Scottish Parliament election, the party named her third on the Lothian list, while in 2017 general election, she was one of only three candidates fielded by the Scottish Greens, standing for Edinburgh North and Leith. In April 2019, in a City of Edinburgh Council by-election, she took a 25.5 per cent share of first preference votes, finishing second. She was co-convener of the Scottish Greens Operations Committee when she as named second on the list of the party's candidates for the 2019 European Parliament election.
She stood in the Scottish Greens first co-leadership election and on 1 August 2019 was announced as having been elected alongside Patrick Harvie for a two-year term.