page_title: History of Scotland
section_title: Politics and devolution
hierarchical_section_title: History of Scotland / Postwar / Politics and devolution
caption_attribution_description: English: Scottish Parliament building, Holyrood
context_page_description: The recorded history of Scotland begins with the arrival of the Roman Empire in the 1st century, when the province of Britannia reached as far north as the Antonine Wall. North of this was Caledonia, inhabited by the Picti, whose uprisings forced Rome's legions back to Hadrian's Wall. As Rome finally withdrew from Britain, Gaelic raiders called the Scoti began colonising Western Scotland and Wales. Prior to Roman times, prehistoric Scotland entered the Neolithic Era about 4000 BC, the Bronze Age about 2000 BC, and the Iron Age around 700 BC.
  The Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata was founded on the west coast of Scotland in the 6th century. In the following century, Irish missionaries introduced the previously pagan Picts to Celtic Christianity. Following England's Gregorian mission, the Pictish king Nechtan chose to abolish most Celtic practices in favour of the Roman rite, restricting Gaelic influence on his kingdom and avoiding war with Anglian Northumbria. Towards the end of the 8th century, the Viking invasions began, forcing the Picts and Gaels to cease their historic hostility to each other and to unite in the 9th century, forming the Kingdom of Scotland.
context_section_description: In the second half of the 20th century the Labour Party usually won most Scottish seats in the Westminster parliament, losing this dominance briefly to the Unionists in the 1950s. Support in Scotland was critical to Labour's overall electoral fortunes as without Scottish MPs it would have gained only two UK electoral victories in the 20th century (1945 and 1966). The number of Scottish seats represented by Unionists (known as Conservatives from 1965 onwards) went into steady decline from 1959 onwards, until it fell to zero in 1997. Politicians with Scottish connections continued to play a prominent part in UK political life, with Prime Ministers including the Conservatives Harold Macmillan (whose father was Scottish) from 1957 to 1963 and Alec Douglas-Home from 1963 to 1964.
  The Scottish National Party gained its first seat at Westminster in 1945 and became a party of national prominence during the 1970s, achieving 11 MPs in 1974. However, a referendum on devolution in 1979 was unsuccessful as it did not achieve the necessary support of 40 per cent of the electorate (despite a small majority of those who voted supporting the proposal) and the SNP went into electoral decline during the 1980s. The introduction in 1989 by the Thatcher-led Conservative government of the Community Charge (widely known as the Poll Tax), one year before the rest of the United Kingdom, contributed to a growing movement for a return to direct Scottish control over domestic affairs. The electoral success of New Labour in 1997 was led by two Prime Ministers with Scottish connections: Tony Blair (who was brought up in Scotland) from 1997 to 2007 and Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010, opened the way for constitutional change. On 11 September 1997, the 700th anniversary of Battle of Stirling Bridge, the Blair led Labour government again held a referendum on the issue of devolution. A positive outcome led to the establishment of a devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999. A coalition government, which would last until 2007, was formed between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with Donald Dewar as First Minister. The new Scottish Parliament Building, adjacent to Holyrood House in Edinburgh, opened in 2004. Although not initially reaching its 1970s peak in Westminster elections, the SNP had more success in the Scottish Parliamentary elections with their system of mixed member proportional representation. It became the official opposition in 1999, a minority government in 2007 and a majority government from 2011. In 2014, the independence referendum saw voters reject independence, choosing instead to remain in the United Kingdom. In the 2015 Westminster election, the SNP won 56 out of 59 Scottish seats, making them the third largest party in Westminster.
caption: Scottish Parliament building, Holyrood, opened in 2004 and intended to evoke the crags of the Scottish landscape and, in places, upturned fishing boats
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FS10", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2011:03:02 12:26:16", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "636", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "11764", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6673", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:03:02 12:26:16", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:03:02 12:26:16", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2560", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1920", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "10398", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "101", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}