The Scottish National Party (SNP) (Scottish Gaelic: Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba) is a centre-left political party which campaigns for Scottish
independence.[1] In the last few decades, the SNP
has normally polled the second highest number of votes for a political
party in Scotland, and as a result of the 2007 elections, it is the largest party in the Scottish Parliament,[2] and is
currently running a minority administration in the Scottish Government.
The SNP holds 47 of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, 2 of 7 Scottish seats
in the European Parliament, and 6 of 59 Scottish seats in the UK Parliament.
History
-
The SNP was formed in 1934 from the merger of the National Party of
Scotland and the Scottish Party. The SNP first won a parliamentary seat at the Motherwell by-election in 1945, but Dr Robert
McIntyre MP lost the seat at the general election three
months later. They next won a seat in 1967, when Winnie Ewing was the surprise winner of a
by-election in the previously safe Labour seat of Hamilton. This brought
the SNP to national prominence, leading to the establishment of the Kilbrandon Commission. Their high point in UK General Elections
thus far was when they polled almost a third of all votes in Scotland at the October 1974 general election and returned 11 MPs to Westminster, to date the most MPs they have had.
Party organisation
The SNP consists of local branches of party members. Those branches then form an association in the constituency they
represent (unless there is only one branch in the constituency, in which case it forms a Constituency Branch rather than a
Constituency Association). There are also eight Regional Associations to which the branches and constituency associations in each
can send delegates.
The SNP's policy structure is developed at its Annual National Conference and its regular National Council meetings. There are
also regular meetings of its National Assembly which although they do not formally make policy allow for detailed discussion of
what party policy should be.
The party has an active youth wing as well as a student wing. There is also an SNP Trade
Union Group. There is an independently-owned monthly newspaper, The Scots
Independent, which is highly supportive of the party.
The SNP's leadership is invested in its National Executive Committee (NEC) which is made up of the party's elected office
bearers and 10 elected members (voted for at conference). The SNP parliamentarians (Scottish, Westminster and European) and
councillors have respresentation on the NEC, as do the Trade Union Group and the youth wing/student wing jointly.
According to accounts filed with the Electoral Commission for
the year ending 2004, the party had a membership of 10,854 in 2004, up from 9,450 from 2003. It had income of about £1,300,000
(including bequests of just under £300,000) and expenditure of about £1,000,000. [3] A high profile and controversial donor to the party is the
founder of Stagecoach Group Brian Souter.[4]
By January 1, 2007, the party's membership had increased to
12,571[5], representing a 16% year on year rise since Alex
Salmond was elected leader for the second time. This boost in popularity has also been strengthened by a number of recent opinion
polls that show support for independence is now on the increase and occasionally outstrips support for the union.[6][7]
Policy platform
The SNP's policy base is, by and large, in the mainstream European social democratic mould. For example, amongst their policies are a commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament, progressive personal
taxation to redistribute wealth from rich to poor, the eradication of
poverty, free state education including support
grants for higher education students, a pay increase for nurses and so on. They are
also committed to an independent Scotland being a full member state of the European Union, as well as
supporting Scottish entry to the single European currency at the appropriate exchange rate. They also stated their opposition to NATO.
Contrary to the expectations of many, the SNP are not an expressly republican party and
the general view within the party is that this is an issue secondary to that of Scottish independence. Many SNP members are
republicans though, and both the party student and youth wings are expressly so.
The SNP is committed to maintaining an independent Scotland within the Commonwealth
of Nations.
Party ideology
Although it is widely accepted that the SNP is in modern times a moderate left-of-centre political party, this has not always
been the case. From almost the instant the party was born, there have been ideological tensions present within the SNP. This was
by and large a product of the way in which the party was formed, as an amalgamation of the left-of-centre National Party of Scotland, and the right-of-centre Scottish
Party. Ideological tensions have largely been resolved over the lifetime of the party.
However, by the 1960s, the party was beginning to be defined ideologically. They had by then established their National
Assembly which allowed for discussion of policy and it was producing papers on a host of policy issues that could be described as
social democratic. Also, the emergence of William
Wolfe (universally known as Billy) as a leading figure played a huge role in the SNP defining itself as a left-of-centre
social-democratic party. He recognised the need to do this to challenge the dominant
political position of the Scottish Labour Party.
He achieved this in a number of ways: establishing the SNP Trade Union Group; promoting left-of-centre policies; and
identifying the SNP with labour campaigns (such as the Upper-Clyde Shipbuilders
Work-in and the attempt of the workers at the Scottish Daily Express to run
as a cooperative). It was during Wolfe's period as SNP leader in the 1970s that the SNP
became clearly identified as a social-democratic political party.
There were some ideological tensions in the 1970s SNP. The party leadership under Wolfe was determined to keep the party
clearly on the left of the Scottish political spectrum, to put them in a position
to challenge Labour. However, the party's MPs who in the main represented seats won from the Conservatives were less keen to have the SNP viewed as a left-of-centre alternative to
Labour, for fear of losing their seats back to the Conservatives.
There was further ideological strife after 1979 with the 79 Group attempting to move the SNP
further to the left, away from being what could be described a 'social-democratic' party, to an expressly 'socialist' party. This
brought with it a response from those opposed to this, who desired the SNP to remain a 'broad church' and apart from arguments of
left vs. right, in the shape of the Campaign for Nationalism in
Scotland.
The 1980s saw the SNP further define itself as a party of the left, with campaigns against the poll tax and so on. They have developed this platform to the stage they are at now: a clear, moderate,
centre-left political party. This has itself not gone without internal criticism from the left of the party who believe that in
modern years the party has moderated itself too much.
The ideological tensions inside the SNP are further complicated by the arguments between gradualists and fundamentalists. In essence, gradualists seek
to advance Scotland to independence through further devolution, in a 'step by step' strategy. They tend to be in the moderate
left grouping, although much of the 79 Group was gradualist in approach. However, this 79 Group
gradualism was as much a reaction against the fundamentalists of the day, many of whom believed the SNP should not take a clear
left or right position.
The position of fundamentalists within the SNP is further complicated by the fact that modern fundamentalists are unlike the
old-style. They tend to be on the left of the party, critical of both the gradualist approach to independence and what they
perceive as a moderation of the party's socio-economic policy portfolio.
This grouping of "neo-fundamentalists" have their roots within the Jim Sillars, a former
Labour MP, camp inside the SNP.
European Free Alliance
The SNP retains close links with Plaid Cymru, with both parties' MPs co-operating closely with one another. They work as a single group within the
House of Commons, and were involved in joint campaigning during the
2005 General Election campaign. Both parties are part of the
European Free Alliance (EFA). The EFA works with the European Green Party in order to form a grouping in the European Parliament: the Greens - European
Free Alliance.
National Executive Committee
- President - Ian Hudghton MEP
- Business Convenor - Angus Robertson MP
- Leader - Alex Salmond MP/MSP
- Deputy Leader - Nicola Sturgeon MSP
- National Secretary - Dr Duncan Ross
- National Treasurer - Cllr Colin Beattie
- Organisation Convener - Cllr Willie Sawers
- Ordinary Members of NEC Parliamentarians (2 elected)
- Angus Robertson MP
- Richard Lochhead MSP
- Ordinary Members of NEC Non-Parliamentarians (6 elected)
- Bashir Ahmad MSP
- Cllr David Berry
- Gareth Finn
- Cllr Allison Hunter
- Cllr Kevin Stewart
- Cllr Grant Thoms
Ministers and spokespersons
Party leaders
Electoral performance
Criticism
The SNP have been charged with being "Anglophobic". In 2000, the Labour party said that two SNP members of the Scottish Parliament were anti-English after they
"registered their support for Germany's (2006 Football World Cup) bid on its official website".[8] The SNP responded that they, "... have no position on where the World Cup is
held" and that it was "... silly to describe the website entry as anti-English".[9]
The comedian Billy Connolly, in 1999 was quoted as
saying, "the Scottish Parliament is a joke", and of the SNP, "It's entirely their fault, this new racism in Scotland, this
anti-Englishness".[10] The SNP responded that, the Scots
"... who are enthusiastic about the parliament and will dismiss his absurd remarks about the SNP for the nonsense they
are."[11]
Prominent figures in Scottish politics such as Labour's George
Foulkes, Baron Foulkes of Cumnock and the Liberal Democrat's Jamie Stone and
subsequently Danny Alexander have publically apologised for calling the SNP
"xenophobic".[12]
References
Further reading
- SNP:The History of the Scottish National Party, by Peter Lynch, 2002
- The Flag in the Wind, by John MacCormick, 1955
- Scotland Lives: the Quest for Independence, by Billy Wolfe, 1973
- Scotland: the Case for Optimism, by Jim Sillars, 1985
- Stop the World; The Autobiography of Winnie Ewing, 2004
See also
External links
Political parties in the United
Kingdom  |
| House of Commons (646): |
Labour (355) • Conservatives (197) • Liberal
Democrats (63) • DUP (9) • SNP (6) • Sinn Féin (5)# •
Plaid Cymru (3) • SDLP (3) • Ind KHHC (1) • Independent (1) • Independent
Labour (1) • Respect (1) • UUP (1) |
| House of
Lords (738): |
Labour (211) • Crossbencher (207) •
Conservatives (205) • Liberal
Democrats (77) • UKIP (2) •
Greens (E&W) (1) • Bishops (26) • non-affiliated (12) •
Conservative Independent (1) • Independent Labour (1) • Independent (1) |
| Scottish Parliament (129): |
SNP (47) •
Labour (46) • Conservatives (17) • Liberal
Democrats (16) • Scottish Greens (2) • Independent (1) |
| National Assembly for Wales (60): |
Labour (26) • Plaid Cymru (15) •
Conservatives (12) • Liberal
Democrats (6) • Independent (1) |
| Northern Ireland Assembly (108): |
DUP (36) • Sinn Féin (28) •
UUP (18) • SDLP (16) • Alliance (7) • Greens
(NI) (1) • PUP (1) • Independent (1) |
| London
Assembly (25): |
Conservatives (9) • Labour (7) •
Liberal Democrats (5) • Greens (E&W) (2) • One
London (2) |
European Parliament
(78 of 732): |
Conservatives (ED, 27) • Labour (PES, 19) • Liberal Democrats (ELDR,
12) • UKIP (ID, 10) • Greens
(E&W) (EGP, 2) • SNP (EFA,
2) • Plaid Cymru (EFA,
1) • Sinn Féin (EUL,
1) • UUP (ED, 1) •
Independent (ADIE, 1) • Independent (ITS, 1) • Independent (NA, 1) |
Notes:
#Although Sinn Féin have five elected members and have offices at Westminster, they are abstentionist and therefore do not take their seats |
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Scottish National Party MSPs |
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Scottish National Party MPs |
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