The Scottish Greens have made their decision on their new leaders. But they face big challenges on a number of fronts, says Brian Taylor

Key question for the two new co-leaders of the Scottish Greens – to whom, congratulations. Will you reshape your party – or will your party be moulded by Scotland’s political environment?

One can only applaud the determination of the new duo, Gillian Mackay and Ross Greer. Their victory speeches were inevitably replete with platitudes – but modified by frank recognition of the challenges they face.

Indeed, they are both disarmingly self-effacing. Ms Mackay has labelled herself “a wee bam from Grangemouth”. Mr Greer says he first turned to the Greens as “a slightly odd 15-year-old”.

Maybe that’s the right tone for these troubled times.

Ross Greer acknowledged that people are “angry”. He went on to suggest that his party needed to channel that fury into productive reform of a system which he characterised as “rigged in favour of the super-rich”.

Gillian Mackay urged her party to “talk plainly” about harsh lives in Scotland’s industrial towns and cities. Translation: lose the middle-class image and come out fighting.

But how? Change of the magnitude envisaged by Mackay and Greer requires political power. Are they ready to enter government at Holyrood again? Would anybody be prepared to take them on?

To answer these questions, we need to look more closely at this internal electoral contest. Firstly, it could be said that it is the final act in the melodrama that was the Bute House pact between the SNP and the Greens.

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