Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The party holds 60 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the United Kingdom House of Commons. It is represented by 413 of the 1,226 local councillors across Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom and for Scotland's membership in the European Union, with a platform based on progressive social policies and civic nationalism. Founded in 1934 with the amalgamation of the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party, the party has had continuous parliamentary representation in Westminster since Winnie Ewing won the 1967 Hamilton by-election. In the February 1974 election it scored 22% of the vote and 30% in the October election of the same year, but only notched 7 seats in the former and 11 in the latter of 72 Scottish seats up for election.
With the establishment of the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999, the SNP became the second-largest party, serving two terms as the opposition to a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition. The SNP gained power under Alex Salmond at the 2007 Scottish Parliament election with 45% of the vote, forming a minority government, before going on to win the 2011 Parliament election, after which it formed Holyrood's first majority government. After Scotland voted against independence in the 2014 referendum, Salmond resigned and was succeeded by Nicola Sturgeon. In the run up to the 2015 election, the SNP trebled its membership to 110,000.The SNP achieved a record number of 56 seats in Westminster after the 2015 general election to become the third largest party but in Holyrood it was reduced back to being a minority government at the 2016 election. In the 2021 election, the SNP gained one seat and entered a power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens. In March 2023 Sturgeon resigned and was replaced by Humza Yousaf.
In April 2024, Yousaf collapsed the power-sharing deal with the Greens and resigned the following week due to the resulting fallout of the decision. The incumbent John Swinney was elected leader in May 2024. In the 2024 general election, the SNP lost 38 seats, reducing it to the second-largest party in Scotland and the fourth-largest party in the Westminster Parliament. The party does not have any members of the House of Lords on the principle that it opposes the upper house of Parliament and calls for it to be scrapped. The SNP is a member of the European Free Alliance.
History
Foundation and early breakthroughs (1934–1970)
The SNP was formed in 1934 through the merger of the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party, with the Duke of Montrose and Cunninghame Graham as its first joint presidents. Alexander MacEwen was its first chairman.The party was divided on its approach to the Second World War. Professor Douglas Young, who was SNP leader from 1942 to 1945, campaigned for the Scottish people to refuse conscription and his activities were popularly vilified as undermining the British war effort against the Axis powers. Young was imprisoned for refusing to be conscripted. The party suffered its first split during this period with John MacCormick leaving the party in 1942, owing to his failure to change the party's policy from supporting all-out independence to Home Rule at that year's conference in Glasgow. McCormick went on to form the Scottish Covenant Association, a non-partisan political organisation campaigning for the establishment of a devolved Scottish Assembly.
However, wartime conditions also enabled the SNP's first parliamentary success at the Motherwell by-election in 1945, but Robert McIntyre MP lost the seat at the general election three months later. The 1950s were characterised by similarly low levels of support, and this made it difficult for the party to advance. Indeed, in most general elections they were unable to put up more than a handful of candidates. The 1960s, however, offered more electoral successes, with candidates polling credibly at Glasgow Bridgeton in 1961, West Lothian in 1962 and Glasgow Pollok in 1967. This foreshadowed Winnie Ewing's surprise victory in a by-election at the previously safe Labour seat of Hamilton. This brought the SNP to national prominence, leading to the establishment of the Kilbrandon Commission.
Becoming a notable force (1970s)
Despite this breakthrough, the 1970 general election was to prove a disappointment for the party as, despite an increase in vote share, Ewing failed to retain her seat in Hamilton. The party did receive some consolation with the capture of the Western Isles, making Donald Stewart the party's only MP. This was to be the case until the 1973 by-election at Glasgow Govan where a hitherto safe Labour seat was claimed by Margo MacDonald.1974 was to prove something of an annus mirabilis for the party, as it deployed its highly effective It's Scotland's oil campaign. The SNP gained six seats at the February general election before hitting a high point in the October re-run, polling almost a third of all votes in Scotland and returning 11 MPs to Westminster. Furthermore, during that year's local elections the party claimed overall control of Cumbernauld and Kilsyth.
This success was to continue for much of the decade, and at the 1977 district elections the SNP saw victories at councils including East Kilbride and Falkirk and held the balance of power in Glasgow. However, this level of support was not to last and by 1978 Labour revival was evident at three by-elections as well as the regional elections.
In 1976, James Callaghan's minority government made an agreement with the SNP and Plaid Cymru. In return for their support in the Commons, the government would respond to the Kilbrandon commission and legislate to devolve powers from Westminster to Scotland and Wales. The resulting Scotland Act 1978 would create a Scottish assembly, subject to a referendum. Labour, the Liberals and the SNP campaigned for a "yes" vote in the referendum on the Scotland Act and "yes" won a majority, but a threshold imposed by anti-devolution Labour MP George Cunningham requiring 40% of the electorate to be in favour was not reached due to low turnout. When the government decided not to implement the Act, the SNP's MPs withdrew their support and voted to support Margaret Thatcher's motion of no confidence in Callaghan's government. In the ensuing general election, the party experienced a large drop in its support. Reduced to just 2 MPs, the successes of October 1974 were not to be surpassed until the 2015 general election.
Factional divisions and infighting (1980s)
Following this defeat, a period of internal strife occurred within the party, culminating with the formation of the left-wing 79 Group. Traditionalists within the party, centred around Winnie Ewing, by this time an MEP, responded by establishing the Campaign for Nationalism in Scotland which sought to ensure that the primary objective of the SNP was campaigning for independence without a traditional left-right orientation, even though this would have undone the work of figures such as William Wolfe, who developed a clearly social democratic policy platform throughout the 1970s.These events ensured the success of a leadership motion at the party's annual conference of 1982, in Ayr, despite the 79 Group being bolstered by the merger of Jim Sillars' Scottish Labour Party although this influx of ex-SLP members further shifted the characteristics of the party leftwards. Despite this, traditionalist figure Gordon Wilson remained party leader through the electoral disappointments of 1983 and 1987, where he lost his own Dundee East seat won 13 years prior.
Through this period, Sillars' influence in the party grew, developing a clear socio-economic platform including Independence in Europe, reversing the SNP's previous opposition to membership of the then-EEC which had been unsuccessful in a 1975 referendum. This position was enhanced further by Sillars reclaiming Glasgow Govan in a by-election in 1988.
Despite this moderation, the party did not join Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens as well as civil society in the Scottish Constitutional Convention which developed a blueprint for a devolved Scottish Parliament due to the unwillingness of the convention to discuss independence as a constitutional option.
First Salmond era (1990s)
had been elected MP for Banff and Buchan in 1987, after the re-admittance of 79 Group members, and was able to seize the party leadership after Wilson's resignation in 1990 after a contest with Margaret Ewing. This was a surprise victory as Ewing had the backing of much of the party establishment, including Sillars and then-Party Secretary John Swinney. The defection of Labour MP Dick Douglas further evidenced the party's clear left-wing positioning, particularly regarding opposition to the poll tax. Despite this, Salmond's leadership was unable to avert a fourth successive general election disappointment in 1992 with the party reduced back from 5 to 3 MPs.The mid-90s offered some successes for the party, with North East Scotland being gained at the 1994 European elections and the party securing a by-election at Perth and Kinross in 1995 after a near-miss at Monklands East the previous year. 1997 offered the party's most successful general election for 23 years, although in the face of the Labour landslide the party was unable to match either of the two 1974 elections. That September, the party joined with the members of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the successful Yes-Yes campaign in the devolution referendum which lead to the establishment of a Scottish Parliament with tax-varying powers.
By 1999, the first elections to the parliament were being held, although the party suffered a disappointing result, gaining just 35 MSPs in the face of Salmond's unpopular 'Kosovo Broadcast' which opposed NATO intervention in the country.