Scottish History - History of the Scottish Nationalist Movement A History of the Scottish Nationalist Movement The Scottish National Party's origins can be traced back to a number of organisations formed in the 1920's, even though political support for Home Rule had existed after a fashion ever since the 1790s. As the 1800s proceeded, the Liberal Party and early Labour pioneers were pledged to Home Rule. Pressure groups grew and withered, but by 1920 there was ample reason to assume that, with the Liberal Party in ruins and Ireland in revolt, Scottish Home Rule was a mere dream. Then... 1921: the Scots National League In 1921 the Scots National League was formed by Ruaraidh Erskine of Marr. Its newspaper, the Scots Independent, was first published in November 1926 by William Giles and his son, Iain, and is now the oldest political journal in Europe.

The following link will take you there : Scots Independent Then in August 1922, there appeared The Scottish Chapbook, in which the young poet Christopher Murray Grieve demanded that Scots writers should begin to 'speak with our own voice for our own times.' They should engage in a serious examination of profound themes seen through Scottish eyes. Thanks to Grieve - or 'Hugh MacDiarmid' as he called himself - and a generation or more of men and women inspired by his example, Scottish writing ceased to be provincial and trivial, as it had become for some fifty preceding years, becoming rather the source of a new national intellectual reawakening, reminiscent of the days of the Enlightenment. What followed might be unfamiliar by English standards, but in Europe and Ireland a cultural revival followed by political action was a familiar experience. 1927: Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association In 1927, John MacCormick, a law student, formed the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association. The final such group was the Scottish National Movement, led by the poet Lewis Spence.

1928: National Party of Scotland In 1928 The Duke of Montrose, Compton Mackenzie, R B Cunninghame Graham, Christopher Murray Grieve, James Valentine and John MacCormick at the first public meeting of the National Party of Scotland, St Andrews Halls, Glasgow, 1928. Several organisations favouring Home Rule functioned in the 1920s. The Home Rule Association had indeed been formed in the 1890s; and it was now joined in its work by the Scots National Movement and the Scots National League. The former was deeply influenced by cultural developments, while the latter was more anxious to get on with the work of building up a force which could challenge the existing political parties at election time. Just as the Labour Party emerged when enough people saw the need for a class to have a party of its own, so now the League based its appeal on the need for a nation to regain the power to devise policies and arrange priorities in the best interests of the people of that nation.

These and other groups combined in 1928 (following upon the rejection of a Home Rule Bill in Parliament in 1927), to form the National Party of Scotland; and later, after another accession of support, the Scottish National Party. These Groups came together in 1928 to form the National Party of Scotland. Leading members of the new party were John MacCormick, John (Manny) MacNicol, Robert Gray, the poet Hugh McDairmid and Lewis Spence. Spence became the first Scottish Nationalist to contest a parliamentary by-election, in 1929, in the North Midlothian Constituency. At the Dumbartonshire by-election in 1930, Robert Gray won a substantial 6,000 votes for the National Party. In 1931, Sir Compton MacKenzie was elected as a Scottish Nationalist Rector of Glasgow University.

1932: Scottish Party The next development was the creation of the pro-Home Rule Scottish Party in 1932, by John Bannerman, Professor Andrew Dewar Gibb, Sir Alexander McEwan (provost of Inverness), Kevin MacDowell and the Duke of Montrose. 1934: the Scottish National Party After another accession of support, from the National Party of Scotland to form the Scottish National Party. The new party, after some initial doubts, followed the strategy line of the Scots National League, and proceeded to challenge the established parties at the polls, with results varying from the ridiculous to the reasonably encouraging. The war was a setback for a party trying to capture public attention. The Scottish Party was a breakaway section of the Cathcart Conservative Association, and was right- of-centre in ideas and policies, unlike the left-of-centre National Party. However at a meeting of both Parties on 14th December 1933, in the Hillhead Burgh Halls in Glasgow, the amalgamation of the two parties was proposed. This duly came about on the 7th of April 1934 and the new party was called the Scottish National Party.

(The abbreviation 'SNP' was not commonly used until the 1960's).The merger of the National Party and the Scottish Party was the work of John MacCormick. His reasons for seeking the merger were the National Party's dire financial position, its need for high status, "respectable" leaders, and also to stop the two nationalist parties from campaigning against one another. The cost of the merger, apart from some defections, was a modification of the Party's aim from, "self government for Scotland with Independent national status within the British group of nations" to the 1934 policy for, "a Parliament which shall be the final authority on all Scottish Affairs". By 1936, most of those who had come to the Scottish National Party via the Scottish Party had left, dismayed by its left-wing tendencies, and the Parties constitutional policy was duly re-amended back to its original form. The headquarters of the Scottish National Party were at West Regent Street in Glasgow. Before the war the Party moved to Elmbank Street, and remained there until 1969. Rooms were also acquired in Edinburgh by the then North Edinburgh Constituency, in North St Andrew Street.

These rooms are still owned by the Party and are now run as an SNP social club. When the Glasgow rooms were vacated in 1969, Party headquarters were centred exclusively in Edinburgh. During the 1930's, the activities of some nationalists included various kinds of peaceful civil disobedience, as well as fighting elections. For example in 1937 the Wallace Sword was removed from the Stirling Monument and hidden under Bothwell Bridge; and there were various episodes where Union flags were taken down from castles and Saltires flown in their place. Prominent in this later activity was Wendy Wood, who left the Party to form the Scottish Patriots.After the outbreak of the Second World War, Arthur Donaldson - SNP Chairman throughout the 1960's - was imprisoned along with several other nationalists for his pacifist stance. However the National Party was unclear in its attitude to the war, as on some other issues, and the Party split at its 1942 Annual National Conference. Scottish Convention MacCormick, around whom the Party had revolved, left the SNP, taking many supporters with him, and set up the Scottish Union, which later became the Scottish Convention and eventually, the Scottish Covenant Association.

MacCormick's inspired publicity and propaganda skills made an enormous contribution towards swaying public opinion in favour of Scottish self-government. The Scottish Convention's famous Home Rule Covenant gathered over two million signatures between 1949 and 1950, but was ignored by the Labour Secretary of State, Arthur Woodburn and the Labour Prime Minister, Clement Atlee. Clearly, Scotland's case could only be advanced by a nationalist party winning votes at elections. 1945: first SNP Member of Parliament Despite their internal problems, 1945 saw the election of the first SNP Member of Parliament at a by-election in Motherwell, where Dr Robert Macintyre won 51.4 per cent of the vote in a straight fight against the Labour Party. However, Labour regained the seat at the subsequent General Election in a multi-party contest. At the 1945 General Election, The Scottish National Party fielded only eight candidates, receiving just 7.6 per cent of the vote in the seats it contested. At the 1950 General Election the situation worsened, when the SNP fielded only three candidates and received just 7.4 per cent of the vote in the contested seats.

Fielding only two candidates in both the 1951 and 1955 General Elections, the SNP polled 12.2 per cent and 14.4 per cent respectively in contested seats. Generally speaking the 1950's was not a particularly productive period for the National Party. A major reason for this is that Scotland was a much more 'British' Country than it is now, with a relatively low level of teaching and awareness of Scottish culture and history. However things were changing - as the Stone of Destiny incident illustrates. Traditionally, medieval Scottish Kings were crowned at Scone upon the Stone of Destiny, but in 1296, the stone was stolen by the English conqueror, Edward I, and taken to Westminster Abbey. 1950: Stone of Destiny On Christmas Day 1950, four Glasgow University students - led by Ian Hamilton, and associated with the Covenant Association rather than the National Party - "liberated" the stone. The British authorities took the incident very seriously indeed - which simply added to the fun for the Scots!

The Stone was hidden in Scotland for a while, the displayed at Arbroath Abbey and removed from Scotland once again by English authorities in April 1951. However there is evidence that masons made a replica, or replicas, of the Stone, and some people still claim that the Stone currently in Westminster Abbey is not the original Stone of Destiny.A further venture associated with the Covenant Association was the legal action raised in 1953 by John MacCormick and Ian Hamilton against the Lord Advocate, challenging the right of the Queen to call herself Elizabeth the Second, in Scotland, since she was the first Elizabeth to be queen of Scots. 1953: No Unlimited Sovereignty for Westminster in Scotland They lost their case but one an important moral victory with the statement by Lord President Cooper, delivering the Opinion of the First Division of the Court of Session on the 30th of July 1953, that: "The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law." Some Scots vandalised and even blew up post boxes which carried the Queen's ER II insignia and there was broad nationalist agitation against her title, which was generally supported by the Scottish people.

After the post box in Edinburgh was blown up, the Post Office removed all post boxes carrying the insignia and, to this day, all Scottish post boxes bear simply ER, with no numeral. The demise of the Covenant Association by the end of the 1950's left the nationalist field clear to the National Party, and the Party made progress at the 1961 Bridgeton by-election where Ian Macdonald came a close third. The following year, William Wolfe - SNP chairman from 1969 to 1979 - came a good second at the West Lothian by-election. The SNP bandwagon was rolling and membership of the Party rose throughout the 1960's.In 1962 Angus MacGilvarey - who was still employed by the party until 1995 - started the Alba Pools fundraising scheme, which raised 200,000 pounds in five years. The SNP receives no funds from big businesses or trade unions, being largely dependent on its membership base for money. As a result, fundraising is extremely important to the SNP, in terms of enabling the party to increase its campaigning profile.

Radio Free Scotland The 1960's also saw the birth of Radio Free Scotland, which broadcast through television after the 'National' Anthem finished in the evening, and, later on, on 262 meters medium wave on the radio. A leading figure in Radio Free Scotland was Gordon Wilson, who later became and SNP and was Chairman (Convener) of the SNP from 1979 to 1990. 1967: Hamilton By-election In 1966 the SNP fought its largest ever number of seats at a General Election, with 23 seats contested. The party won 14.3 per cent of the vote in these seats. However the biggest triumph for the SNP came on the 2nd of November 1967, when Mrs Winifred Ewing won the Hamilton by-election in a three cornered fight (the Liberals did not contest the by-election) in a seat where Labour had won 71.2 per cent of the vote at the General Election, the previous year. The rise in support for Nationalism in Scotland had been preceded in Wales with a by-election by Plaid Cymru, the National Party of Wales, in 1966.

Winnie Ewing's success transformed Scottish Politics, despite the fact that she lost the seat at the General Election in1970. Winnie Ewing, now Member of the European Parliament for the Highlands and Islands, has been President of the SNP since 1987.The SNP went on to win 30 per cent of the vote in the May 1968 municipal elections. 1970: General Election Victory The 1970 General Election saw the SNP contest 65 seats but only win a modest 11.4 per cent of the vote overall - 12.2 per cent in contested seats. However, by winning the Western Isles, Donald Stewart became the first SNP candidate to be elected at a General Election. He held this seat until his retirement at the 1987 General Election. Donald Stewart was president of the SNP from 1982 to 1987.The 1970's were an exciting period for the Party. The discovery of oil in Scottish Water was of enormous significance, and the SNP ran the very effective "It's Scotland's Oil" campaign, which removed the doubts about the economic viability of an independent Scotland.

Party membership shot up during the decade, and the SNP saw its greatest electoral successes at Parliamentary level. 1973: Govan By-election The starting point of the SNP electoral success was the Govan by-election in November 1973, when Margo MacDonald won the seat with 41.0 per cent of the vote against Labour's 38.2 per cent, in a seat which Labour had held at the 1970 General Election with 60.0 per cent of the vote to the SNP's 10.3 per cent. A by-election was also held in Dundee East in 1973, where Gordon Wilson came a very close second to Labour, with the SNP support in the constituency rising from 8.9 per cent at the 1970 general election to 30.2 per cent. 1974: Seven SNP MP's The February 1974 General Election saw the election of seven SNP MP's. Including Gordon Wilson in Dundee East, Donald Stewart in the Western Isles and Winnie Ewing in Moray and Nairn.

The four new MP's were Iain MacCormick in Argyll and Bute, Douglas Henderson in East Aberdeenshire, George Reid in Clackmanan and Hamish Watt in Banff. unfortunately Margo MacDonald lost her seat.Due to its weak parliamentary position, the Labour Government was obliged to hold another General Election in October 1974. 1974: Eleven SNP MP's This is where the SNP attained its highest ever percentage of the vote in a Parliamentary election, and another four MP's were elected - Margaret Bain in Dumbartonshire East, Douglas Crawford in Perth and East Perthshire, George Thomson in Galloway, and Andrew Welsh in Angus South. The SNP were euphoric and the Labour Government was forced to legislate for Scottish devolution. 1978: Enter Siol nan Gaidheal The first manifestation of Siol nan Gaidheal was born as an ultra-nationalist reaction to the frustrations of the great devolution debate. The founder of this Siol nan Gaidheal, Tom Moore, wanted an organisation whose aim was to inspire nationalism without inhibition or restraint. Scots should be conscious, proud and unashamed of their own identity.

The old S.N.G. challenged the moribund devolutionist leadership of the SNP and built up the morale of rank and file Nationalists shattered after the defeats of 1979. 1979: Referendum on the Scotland Act After a false legislative start to process culminated in the 1979 referendum on the Scotland Act. The Government had inserted the notorious forty per cent rule, whereby forty per cent of the total electorate had to vote "Yes" before the promised Scottish Assembly would be set up. Thus people who did not or could not vote - including those who had died between the compilation of the electoral register and the date of the election - were counted as "No" voters. In the event, the "Yes" vote won a majority of 77,435 - despite a well financed "No" campaign and serious doubts about the effectiveness of the Assembly - but this was not enough to clear the 40 per cent hurdle, and the new Tory Government repealed the Act in May 1979.The 1979 General Election was a set-back for the SNP, largely explained by a combination of disappointment and apathy on the constitutional question after the referendum.

Only two SNP MP's were re-elected - Donald Stewart and Gordon Wilson. However a consolation was the election of Winnie Ewing as the Member of the European Parliament for the Highlands and Islands in June 1979. The Party was gripped by internal debate for a period in the early 1980's culminating in 1982 with the expulsion of leading members of the socialist "79 Group", and the proscription of Siol nan Gaidheal. These first divisions were quickly mended, and some of the expelled members were re-admitted and selected as candidates for the 1983 General Election. The proscription on SnG remained in force. The 1983 General Election was not a success for the SNP. The Party's share of the vote fell to 11.7 per cent and no new seats were gained although both Donald Stewart and Gordon Wilson held on to their seats. In 1984 Winnie Ewing was re-elected to the European Parliament with a 16,000 majority.

There was some comfort in the results of the 1987 General Election, although the loss of Gordon Wilson's seat in Dundee East and of the Western Isles (Donald Stewart had announced his retirement and did not contest the seat) were major blows. However, the party gained seats for the first time since 1974. Alex Salmond became the MP for Banff and Buchan, and Andrew Welsh became an MP for the second time, representing Angus East. Margaret Bain had married Winnie Ewing's son, an, as Margaret Ewing she was re-elected to Parliament, this time for the Moray constituency.The SNP had fought every seat since October 1974, but agreed an electoral pact with the Orkney and Shetland Movements in 1987, and did not contest the Orkney and Shetland seat. In Parliament the SNP forged an alliance with Plaid Cymru, which also had three MP's after 1987.

1988: Siol nan Gaidheal Mark II In 1988, anticipating the upsurge of Scottish Nationalism which led to Jim Sillars victory for the Scottish National Party in Glasgows Govan, Jackie Stokes founded a completely new Nationalist organisation, and took the name Siol nan Gaidheal. This particular manifestation of Siol nan Gaidheal had been launched after several years were spent studying the actions, mistakes, results and deaths of all previous Ultra Nationalist organisations. Lessons had been learned, and safeguards installed. From the beginning, there was a complete determination that this S.N.G. would prosper despite interference from the forces of the British state. There were branches set up all over Scotland, and others established in England and the rest of Europe. SnG established a SnG Colour Party, this to impress and aid recruitment, anyone seeing the drum beating, black banner waving , Colour Party in their Black Shirts and kilts couldnt fail to be impressed and old and young alike flocked to join the ever-swelling ranks of Siol nan Gaidheal.

However, only the very able and bright were promoted into the various smaller committees that were set up to cover Scottish Culture, Education, Security, Research, History, Politics etc. There was also a strong SnG Womens Movement in progress. SnG also set up a group of articulate individuals with long-term knowledge of the Scottish scene, these were employed as a mobile force to tour schools, colleges and universities giving lectures on SnG policy and world view. Their task was primarily and candidly to recruit the best individuals these establishments had to offer. Their secondary purpose was to investigate the percentage of English students attending each of these establishments in order to add to the research being carried out by others on the proof or otherwise of what was known as "The Englishing of Scotland" Siol nan Gaidheal carried out many campaigns successfully, they worked unceasingly to promote the Gaelic language and to that end, sent questionnaires to practically every school in Scotland asking teachers and headmasters to support the teaching of Gaelic. They also supported the use of Scots or Lallans as a language that historically has its own value in Scotland.

This manifestation eventually fizzled out, despite the protests of many members, following the National Organiser's ill health - 4 heart attacks brought on by the strain of running this massive organisation. 1988: The Poll Tax 1988 saw the tide turn once again for the SNP. In May the SNP polled over 20 per cent in the District Council elections. At its Annual National Conference the SNP made several important strategic decisions. The Conference formally approved the policy of working for Independence within the European Community (now the European Union), despite some vociferous opposition from the right wing of the party, and also adopted two campaigns of civil disobedience - a poll tax campaign, and a commitment to use civil disobedience against any attempt to dump nuclear waste in Scotland.When the Government announced MP Bruce Millan's appointment as a European Commissioner, the SNP geared itself up to fight another Govan by-election. The candidate chosen was Jim Sillars, a former Labour MP, now married to Margo Macdonald. The seat was one of Labour's safest, but the SNP overturned a Labour Majority of 19,000 to send a fourth SNP MP to Westminster.

The effect of this victory was electric, and was instrumental in generating a period of sustained debate on Scotland's constitutional future.The SNP faced two electoral contests in 1989, both held on the same day - the European Elections and a by- election in Glasgow Central caused by the death of the sitting Labour MP. At the European Elections the SNP won over 25 per cent of the vote - the Party's third best share of the vote in a UK wide election. Winnie Ewing trebled her majority in the Highlands and Islands to 45,000 and the party came within 2,613 votes of winning North East Scotland. In Glasgow Central the SNP trebled its vote, coming from fourth to second place with a swing from Labour of over 15 per cent. While there was some disappointment with these results in terms of the party not winning more seats, they represented significant progress for the SNP. The 1980 Regional Council elections were fought mainly on the issue of the Poll Tax. The SNP had been leading a "Can Pay, Won't Pay!" campaign against this unfair tax since it had come into operation in April 1989.

The SNP originally called for 100,000 Scots not to pay their Poll Tax in order to make the system unworkable, but it soon became clear that over one million Scots were refusing payment - most because they could not afford to pay. In the Regional Elections, the Party won 21.8 per cent of the vote - the Party's highest ever share of the vote at this tier of Government. Non-payment destroyed the Poll Tax and was instrumental in bringing about the political demise of its chief advocate - Mrs (now Baroness) Thatcher. With the Government's abandonment of the Poll Tax, under a new Prime Minister, the SNP called off the "Can Pay, Won't Pay!" campaign at a Special National Conference in Govan Town Hall (originally convened to decide European Policy) in March 1991. November 1990 witnessed two more parliamentary by-elections, both caused by the deaths of the sitting Labour MP's. Both by-elections were in Paisley and were overshadowed by the Conservative Party's leadership contest.

In the event the party won nearly 30 per cent in Paisley North and 27.5 per cent in Paisley South, with a combined swing from Labour of nearly 13 per cent. Clearly the SNP had chalked up another Glasgow Central type result, rather than another Glasgow Govan - a very creditable performance given the focus of attention South of the Border. 1990: Alex Salmond In Alex Salmond, the SNP had a new Convener (Leader) by the time of the Paisley by-elections. Alex Salmond - previously Deputy Leader - was elected as Leader at the SNP's Annual National Conference in September 1990, following Gordon Wilson's decision to stand down after 11 years in the job. A former professional economist, Alex Salmond is a first class advocate of the Party's policies and arguments concerning the economic benefits of Independence.Also at this time Dick Douglas MP (Dunfermline West) - a former member of the Labour Party - joined the SNP to boost the SNP's parliamentary representation to five. Like many others in Scotland, Dick Douglas could not continue supporting a Labour Party which refused to fight the Poll Tax and supported dumping Trident nuclear weapons in Scotland.

November 1991 saw yet another parliamentary by-election - this time in Tory held Kincardine and Deeside - caused by the death of the much-admired Alick Buchanan-Smith. While the SNP had no prospect of winning this seat - A Tory/Democrat marginal - the priority was to increase the share of the vote and beat Labour. Both objectives were successfully achieved. The Democrats won the seat, which meant the Tories had only nine seats in Scotland out of 72. This immediately led to debate on Scotland's constitutional position, which had the effect of raising the profile of the "Scottish Question" once again. Intense debate on Scotland's future continued right up to the General Election itself, with a steady increase in the SNP's opinion poll position. Other highlights of the pre-election period included the debate between the four Scottish party leaders held in Edinburgh's Usher Hall in January 1992 and organised by The Scotsman newspaper. The conversion of The Sun to the cause of Independence, and the ICM opinion poll showing a record 50 support for full Independence.

At the General Election in April the SNP increased its share of the vote by 50 per cent, to 21.5 per cent - the best performance since 1974. However, this was not matched in terms of seats won. While the SNP held on to Banff and Buchan, Moray, and Angus East, Govan was lost to Labour, and - as was to be expected - Dunfermline West also returned to Labour (Dick Douglas having contested Glasgow Garscadden in the election, the seat of the late Donald Dewar, the Shadow Scottish Secretary). Unfortunately, many Scots believed the opinion polls which suggested a Labour victory and voted Labour in the expectation that a devolved Parliament was imminent.

It is also worth reflecting on the fact that, on average, it took 23,324 votes to elect a Labour MP in Scotland at the General Election, 42,651 votes to elect a Democrat MP, 68,359 votes to elect a Tory MP, but 209,851 votes to elect an SNP MP!The Scottish People went to the polls again in May 1992, in the District Council elections, with the SNP running a larger number of candidates than any other party. The party polled 24.3 per cent and made inroads into the Labour vote throughout the Central Belt. In addition to regaining control of Angus District, the SNP won power in West Lothian district (with the assistance of an independent) and gained the Provostships in Edinburgh, Falkirk and Kilmarnock-and-Loudoun. The SNP fought the District campaign on both local issues and the constitutional question. Specifically, the Party sought support for holding a multi-option referendum on Scotland's constitutional future - between Independence in Europe, devolution and the status quo.

The SNP approved this strategy at a meeting of the National Council in June 1992.The constitutional question was re-invigorated in December 1992 by the holding of the European Community Summit in Edinburgh. While other small European nations were involved in crucial EC negotiations, the host nation of Scotland had no voice. On the second day of the summit, 12th December, 25,000 people demonstrated in Edinburgh to demand "the recall of our own Parliament as a modern and democratic body empowering all our citizens.".The SNP has maintained this momentum through the European elections in June 1994, and two by-elections - one of which in May 1995 has resulted in a new MP, Roseanna Cunningham in Perth and Kinross - and two rounds of local government election. The most recent, in April 1995 has seen SNP Councils win overall control of three Unitary Authorities - Perth and Kinross, Angus, and Moray - and form the official opposition in several others including East Ayrshire and Renfrewshire.During this period, the Tories under John Major became increasingly weak in Scotland, perhaps culminating with the appointment of Michael Forsyth as Secretary of State for Scotland.

During the 1980s and 1990s the rising levels of support for independence put the constitutional issue at the top of the Scottish political Agenda and forced the Labour Party to address the Scottish question by offering a referendum for a devolved Scottish parliament. John Smith, then leader of the Labour Party, clearly stated that a General Election victory would mark the 'settled will of the Scottish people' for devolution but this commitment was put in doubt by his death and the succession of Tony Blair. Forsyth's opposition to devolution hit it's mark resulting in Blair declaring, to the outrage of the Constitutional Convention, that election victory was not enough but that a referendum on devolution would also be required. 1997 : Siol nan Gaidheal Mark III Responding to the challenge of new times and the demands of its former members, Jackie Stokes re-established the third manifestation of Siol nan Gaidheal in the New Year of 1997. The National Organiser of S.N.G.

has stated that if Labour adhered to its pre-election promises to the Scottish people, then "Siol" must be organised to meet the challenge of having our own Parliament and to accept this as the first step to complete Independence. However, knowing Labour's history of betrayal of the Scottish peoples trust, we must also stand ready to deal with this also. Despite the considerable promises made prior to the General Election, Labour thought they would desperately need the votes of the Scottish electorate, they now have such a majority they can afford to either water down their earlier proposals, or find a way to sink the very idea of a Scottish Parliament. The official S.N.G. view is that Labour will betray us again, they were, are and always will be a Unionist Party who will do all in their power to deprive the Scottish people of their independence and sovereignty. Siol nan Gaidheal will be paying very close attention to their actions in the future and will take up the challenge when it comes. 1999 : Scotland's Parliament Returns The referendum was held on 11 September 1997.

Although remaining firmly committed to Independence, under Alex Salmond's leadership the SNP campaigned vigorously with Labour and the Liberal Democrats to achieve a spectacular success of 74.3% in favour of a Scots Parliament and 63.5% in favour of it having tax raising powers.At the first Scottish Parliamentary Elections, held on 6 May 1999, the SNP returned a total number of 35 MSPs. In the first "Constituency" Ballot (using the first past the post system) the SNP polled 28.7%, returning 7 MSPs. In the second "Regional" ballot (using a proportional representation system) the SNP secured 27.3 % of the vote and returned 28 MSPs, giving a total number of 35 SNP Members of the Scottish Parliament. The SNP was now the Official Opposition in the Scottish Parliament. All the SNP sitting Westminster MPs chose to stand for election to the Scottish Parliament and all were elected.In 2000, Alex Salmond, whilst riding on the crest of his popularity, surprised many by declaring his resignation as leader after 10 years of mounting internal strife.

After a vigorous leadership campaign demonstrating the difference between the 'Fundamentalist' and 'Gradualist' wings of the SNP, John Swinney was elected the new leader of the SNP in September 2000. beating his nearest rival Alex Neil. Under John Swinney's ineffectual leadership, the SNP does not pose any serious challenge to the Unionist parties. The General Election 2001. On Thursday 7th June 2001 the SNP performed poorly losing one of its seats in Galloway and narrowly holding on to another with a greatly reduced majority. It seems likely that the Party will go into meltdown and a new SNP dedicated to the Fundamentals of Independence will arise from the ashes. The death of Jackie Stokes. On 24th July 2001 the nationalist community mourned the death of Jackie Stokes, twice National Organiser of Siol nan Gaidheal, and a committed patriot and nationalist. Scotland Moves Left | Jacobin Subscribe Scotland Moves Left The Scottish National Party has been running to Labour’s left ahead of the May 7 elections. How should we relate to it? by Neil Davidson The Scottish National Party's Nicola Sturgeon on the campaign trail.

Scottish Political Archive / Flickr On May 7, the United Kingdom will pick its new prime minister. The preference for many? A resounding “none of the above.” Neither Labour nor the ruling Conservative Party is anticipated to win an outright majority. Combined, a hotchpotch of minor parties will capture around a third of the vote. Some bright spots are to be expected, like an improved showing from the Green Party, but far too many of those votes are going in the direction of the far-right UK Independence Party (UKIP). In Scotland, however, the Scottish National Party (SNP) may win a majority, occupying the social-democratic political space abandoned for decades by a rightward moving Labour Party. Last year’s independence referendum spearheaded by the SNP saw working-class districts and former Labour strongholds among the most energized by the party’s program. With just a week to go before the elections, Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara sat down with academic and activist Neil Davidson to discuss the situation in Scotland and elsewhere in Britain. Last year, you joined many on the Left in Scotland and beyond in supporting a “yes” vote in the Scottish Referendum. What did you see in the movement that made it worthy of support?

One answer would be that you only need to look at the forces of world reaction lined up against Scottish independence — all of whom have a perfectly good understanding of their class interests — to understand why socialists should support it! But the reasons are more complex than this, so perhaps I should maybe begin by explaining my views before the referendum campaign began. Prior to 2011 my position was that, if there ever was a referendum then I would vote “yes,” largely on the grounds that it would be impossible for socialists to vote for the continued existence of the British imperialist state and — in effect — to endorse British nationalism. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the prospect though, for two reasons. One was that there appeared to be very little possibility of a referendum actually being held. It would only happen if the Scottish National Party, for whom a referendum was a programmatic demand, became a majority government in the Scottish Parliament. There was, however, little prospect of that since the system of proportional representation adopted by the parliament was specifically designed to prevent any party from achieving a majority — in effect it was designed to produce permanent coalitions between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats.

So, to fixate on the question of independence — as many on the Left, particularly in the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), started to do from the late 1990s — seemed to me to be a mistake, particularly when there were infinitely more pressing issues requiring our involvement, such as the alter-globalization movement (from 1999) and the anti-war movements (from 2001–2). I was a member of the Socialist Workers Party at this point, and the party — rightly, in my view — regarded these as priorities. The other was that some of the arguments used by sections of the Left to support independence effectively involved a capitulation to left nationalism. Many of these were based on what I regarded as extremely dubious historical claims: that the Scottish nation had existed since the time of William Wallace in the late thirteenth century; that Scotland had been and still was oppressed within the UK in the technical Marxist sense; that Scots had been and still were more radical, democratic, or socialist than the English.

This led to attempts to minimize Scottish participation in the British Empire and to transform every historical political struggle, from the Jacobite attempts at absolutist restoration in the eighteenth century to the anti–Poll Tax campaign in the 1980s as “national” in character, regardless of their class basis. I rejected all this as a historian, but was also concerned that it involved a level of fantasy about Scottish radicalism that had anti-English implications — that English workers had supposedly accepted Thatcherism while we hadn’t — and so on. However, the SNP gained a majority at Holyrood in the Scottish elections of 2011 — itself reflecting a major shift in Scottish politics given the institutional obstacles in the way of this happening. This meant that “the actuality of the referendum” could not be long delayed. Independence was therefore no longer simply an abstract possibility, and three things happened that made me realize that a “yes” vote had to be should be actively supported by the revolutionary left rather than passively (and grudgingly) endorsed.

The first was the way in which, over the decade, British politics became dominated by the imperialist wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, together with the attendant Islamophobia and increasingly right-wing conceptions of Britishness. (On reflection, I think I was too slow in working through what the practical implications of removing nuclear weapons from Scotland would mean — not just in the damage to NATO’s geopolitical strategy, but in the removal of the rest of the UK from the UN security council, etc.) And to cap it all, of course, the referendum was to take place in the centenary year of the outbreak of World War I, when the level of official imperial nostalgia — not least in Scotland — was reaching fever pitch. The second derived from my work on neoliberalism, particularly in the 2010 book I coedited, Neoliberal Scotland . We were, and remain, faced with the choice between some form of greater devolution and independence: no one seriously regards the status quo as an option. But devolution is now a neoliberal strategy of delegation “of the axe,” and therefore independence at least offers the possibility of greater control over the state against austerity, without any illusions in the ability of small states to break free from the global capitalist system.

However, the third and most important change was simply the nature of the campaign itself, at any rate in the last six months or so. By that point it had gone from being a ballot on a constitutional issue to a social movement comparable to the movement of the squares in Spain and Greece. Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of working-class people were drawn into political life in a way that they rarely had the opportunity to before. Even fairly dyed-in-the-wool bourgeois commentators noticed the changed character of the Yes campaign. And this was clearly a movement of the Left, not one based on ethnic hostility or anything like that. Indeed, for many people it wasn’t about nationalism of any sort, but about how to realize various social goals: an end to austerity, the removal of nuclear weapons, defense of the National Health Service, and so on. The ruling class was of course perfectly aware of this — hence their hysteria in the closing weeks of the campaign. In these circumstances, for the Left to have stood to one side claiming neutrality, or worse, supporting the Union, would have been a complete dereliction of duty, substituting a ridiculous formalism (“the unity of the British working class”) for the concrete analysis of a concrete situation.

Fortunately, most of the radical left rose to the challenge, although there were some in the Labour Party and the fragments of the Communist Party who behave as if we were still 1973. What role did socialists have in the independence campaign? The decisive organization here was the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC), which — quite against historical experience — managed to unite most of the radical left in Scotland, and in doing so dramatically changed the entire dynamic of the campaign. RIC drove the entire discussion of independence to the left. We went to working-class communities, particularly the poorest housing schemes — what you call “projects” in the States — and spoke about politics to people who are normally ignored by the mainstream parties. What drove the struggle for independence was actually opposition to neoliberalism, even though people didn’t necessarily use those terms. If we had talked about the Scottish nation I don’t think people would have been interested. RIC’s efforts and those of many others mobilized an incredible number of people who took ownership over the struggle: people made their own posters and leaflets and participated in politics in ways they haven’t since the antiwar movement ten years ago, but to a far greater extent.

Perhaps the most important thing RIC did — even more than the rallies, the mass canvassing, and the innovative use of social media — was voter registration drives, a tactic borrowed from the quite different circumstances of the black civil rights struggle in the US South. This was one reason why, by the end, 97 percent of potential voters had registered to vote, and nearly 85 percent actually voted. I don’t want to suggest that RIC was solely responsible for these mobilizations — given its relatively limited size compared to the overall numbers involved as a whole that would have been impossible — but it did galvanize the campaign and give it a left dynamic which would have otherwise have been much weaker. Of course, no initiative is ever perfect, and I think one issue is that we need to think seriously about how we engage with working-class people at work. We were very successful in talking with workers in their communities; less so in their workplaces. We should have reached out in particular to workplaces — particularly in finance, defense, and the universities, where people were told by both their bosses and, unfortunately, some of their unions that their jobs would go if Scotland became independent. That’s a lesson for next time.

What is the class composition and political orientation of the Scottish National Party, broadly speaking? The SNP is a bourgeois nationalist party and, like all nationalist parties, it is a cross-class alliance with the goal of establishing a new capitalist state. It is not, in other words, a classic social-democratic party like the Labour Party, the French Socialist party, or Pasok in Greece, with formal links to the trade union bureaucracy and so on. That’s the bad news. However, it has certainly moved considerably to the left since it was founded in the 1930s (one of the constituent parts was a split from the Scottish Unionist — i.e. Conservative Party), when it was essentially a petty bourgeois formation. One of the difficulties it has always faced is that the Scottish capitalist class — to the extent that distinct entity of that name can be said to have survived World War II — has had and continues to have very little interest in Scottish independence: with a handful of exceptions like Brian Souter of Stagecoach, it is Unionist to the core.

If you look at the composition of the Yes-supporting Business for Scotland group during the referendum, for example, it largely consisted of people on the border line between the petty bourgeoisie proper and very small capitalists. As a result, until the aftermath of the referendum, the SNP tended to be based in what is usually called the New Middle Class, specifically the public sector and cultural wings, which tend to be “left” on social issues. I would say that the SNP was on the extreme left of what I call “social neoliberalism” — the dominant strain since around the early 1990s — which broadly accepts the neoliberal economic settlement, but not the racist, sexist, homophobic tendencies characteristic of Thatcher-Reagan vanguards. In order to win over voters, however, it had positioned itself to occupy the political ground of social democracy (and both former leader Alex Salmond and current leader Nicola Sturgeon describe SNP politics in these terms), which has been vacated by the Labour Party. It would have been difficult to compete with New Labour from the right, after all. Austerity and the referendum changed matters again. What about the post-referendum developments in the Scottish National Party? Is Sturgeon to the left of Alex Salmond?

She is, but that’s not the most significant development. Over 75,000 people have joined the SNP since after the referendum eight months ago. It now has a membership of around 103,000 people, making it the third biggest party in the whole of Britain and, in relation to population, one of the biggest in the world: one in fifty Scots is a member. This is probably unprecedented in postwar European history. No party can experience that level growth and not be transformed in several respects — especially since most of these new members are both working class and on the Left. It will probably take until the next SNP annual conference to see what effect this has had in terms of policy, but it has consolidated their shift to the left, and in economic terms, not just over social issues, above all in the rejection of austerity. We need to be clear, though: the SNP as the government of an independent Scotland would be under exactly the same pressures to which every previous reformist government has been exposed. But the point is that it is being joined and supported because it is offering reforms, and this tells us something about the unreality of supposed “anti-politics” or public apathy.

Sturgeon has been central to the leftward shift. Like Salmond, she is an extremely able and tactically astute politician. She made a tremendously positive impression on English viewers of the televised leader’s debates, with people asking whether they could vote for the SNP and many comments about what a pity it was that Sturgeon wasn’t the leader of the Labour Party. Amongst other things the SNP simply “does” politics in a way that the other mainstream parties have long since ceased to: its leading figures make clear statements of belief; they form open alliances with other parties (Plaid Cymru and the Greens); they’ve made it clear they’ll never support the Tories; and they’ve called for an anti-Tory bloc with Labour, which the latter party of course rejected. What are people expecting to happen in the May 7 elections? Will the SNP sweep Scotland? Labour leader Ed Miliband says there will be no SNP ministers in his government, but what kind of concessions can they wring out of Labour if their support is needed to form a government? There are 650 seats at Westminster, of which 59 are Scottish.

Of these, Labour currently has 41, the Liberal Democrats 11, the SNP 6, and the Conservatives 1. Polls vary, but the smallest number of seats the SNP are expected to take is 42, and the largest is 54 — I think it will be closer to the latter, but we’ll know soon enough. However, even if it’s nearer the lower figure the outcome will be unprecedented: the highest number of seats that the SNP have previously taken at Westminster was 11, back in October 1974. To me this suggests a real shift in Scottish politics. Since 2007, when the first SNP government in Scotland was formed on a minority basis, an increasing number of Scots have been prepared to vote for the party, regardless of their attitude towards independence, because it has defended aspects of the welfare state that are under much more serious threat in England and Wales (the NHS, for example) and has proved perfectly competent at governing in the devolved parliament. It was this that allowed the SNP to become the majority party in 2011.

But to repeat this at Westminster is a historic achievement as great as when Labour finally replaced the Tories as the dominant party in Scotland between the late 1950s and early 1980s. I very much doubt that Miliband will willingly make any concessions to the SNP at all. My sense is that he would much prefer to do a deal with the Liberal Democrats, although this may not be possible as they are likely to be as badly depleted in England as Labour is in Scotland. On the basis that only the Tories or Labour can actually lead a government — that much of their propaganda is true — I think the Left should be prepared to demand, through demonstrations, petitions, etc., that Labour takes office in coalition with the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and the Greens on a program that involves the removal of Trident and the abandonment of austerity. From afar and, especially given his political background and policies, many in the United States associate Ed Miliband with New Labour. But his stance on the NHS and other issues has placed him at odds with some Blairites. How would you politically situate Miliband within the party?

I think that people — and not just in the US — exaggerate the extent to which the problem has been or continues to be New Labour. The real problem is the way in which Labour has been moving to the right since the mid-1970s in response to the rise of neoliberalism. It is important not to romanticize Old Labour. There is a big tendency on some sections of the Left — particularly in England — to argue that we need to get back to the Golden Age of the post-1945 Labour governments. Although understandable, this is a mistake: the conditions which allowed the creation and extension of the welfare state after 1945 were quite exceptional and will not return. On the other hand, the 1945–1951 Labour Government was also responsible for the partition of India, establishing the British nuclear program, sending troops into suppress strikes, a ferocious campaign against gays, and so on. In most respects it was deeply conservative government. Blair and his New Labour cohort seized their opportunity in the early 1990s by presenting a strategy for electoral victory which involved winning over the middle classes disaffected with the Tories.

But this masked the fact that Labour was moving rightwards anyway — just not at the speed and intensity with which New Labour did. The Blairites are now in a small minority, and the specific features of New Labour — such as Blair’s willingness to engage in foreign wars at the behest of the US — have gone, but this doesn’t mean that Labour is any less the prisoner of capital. Whatever his personal views, Miliband is trapped by a logic which accepts that there is no alternative to neoliberalism, except at the margins. Labour’s rhetoric has moved left in the latter stages of the current election campaign, but this is almost entirely because of pressure from the SNP. There’s been a bit of talk in some quarters about a “grand coalition” between Labour and the Conservatives to keep the SNP out. Is this at all possible? I think this is highly unlikely, not because Labour and the Tories don’t share many of the same policies — they do, although they can’t admit it — but because it would irrevocably damage Labour in the eyes of its English and Welsh supporters, in the same way that its alliance with the Tories over the referendum did in the eyes of its Scottish supporters.

You can’t denounce the Tories for threatening to return us to the 1930s and then enter a coalition with them: even the most docile Labour supporter would find that impossible to take. One effect of neoliberalism is that, as all the major parties have come to accept essentially the same economic program, their mock battles increase in intensity, almost in direct proportion to how similar they actually are. There are differences in terms of social policy of course, although even this is reducing, with the Tories now supporting gay marriage, for instance. What should the Left in Scotland do now, given the hegemonic position of the SNP? The most important thing is, it has to stay organizationally and politically distinct from the SNP. Disillusionment with the SNP is bound to follow at some point, when the realities of trying to introduce reforms in the face of capitalist intransigence begins to become apparent. We need a new socialist formation — by which I don’t mean yet another rejigging of the existing groups — to ensure that the SNP faces opposition from the Left, rather than the Right. The activist base of RIC and the Yes campaign more generally will be key to this. The RIC conference last November drew 3,500 people.

That’s a phenomenal number of people to a conference organized by the radical left in Scotland. If you got those numbers in London, you’d consider that a successful conference. But Scotland is a much smaller country with a population of a little over 5 million people. The equivalent size conference in London would have been something like 35,000 people. That opens the possibility of establishing a new political formation, which can both stand in the forthcoming Scottish election of May 2016 and mobilize on the streets, communities, and in workplaces. Comrades in RIC have initiated the Scottish Left Project ( SLP ) to bring this about. We don’t want to set it up in advance and hand people a program and a structure from on high. Instead we are organizing local meetings throughout the country to find out what people want, what we can agree on, and what the principles at the center of the SLP should be. If we are able to establish something, then there’s the possibility of alliances with the Greens. We’ll also have to enter into some complex arguments with those in the Scottish Socialist Party.

But I think there is a lot of goodwill amongst all the Left that collaborated in RIC, so we have to seize this opportunity and get these local meetings off the ground. An important task is to win over people in Scotland who voted “no,” many of whom now feel that they were fooled or bullied into doing so. We have to find ways to win these people over to independence. We must not give up the question of independence. Unless a revolutionary situation emerges in England — which would obviously change the entire situation — I think that the demand for Scottish independence has to be consistently maintained from now on in the platform of the Scottish radical left. So we must persuade the “no” voters that their social interests and political goals would be achieved by supporting a political party that is actually committed to an independent Scotland. We have to show that independence will improve their situation immediately and protect existing social benefits. We need definite plans to pay for and expand the welfare state. We have to say that we’ll nationalize the oil industry to get the money to reverse the neoliberal attacks we’ve suffered over the last forty years. We also have to be able to say that independence is not anti-English. It is not about breaking with trade unions or other forms of solidarity with people in England.

For example, if there was an attempt to take the Trident missiles from Scotland and put them somewhere in England, we should obviously be in solidarity with people in England so they can reject them as well. The Scottish Left Project does not have a Scottish nationalist agenda. We don’t blame English workers for what the British government and British ruling class, which includes Scottish capitalists, are doing. We want to build solidarity with English workers against the British state. The main argument will be about whether the SLP becomes an actual party or remains a looser coalition. In my view we need a broad left party with a revolutionary current within it. We are not in a position in Scotland to immediately set up a revolutionary party, which at the moment would only involve a couple hundred people, and it would be ridiculous to set up yet another group claiming to be “the” party. We have to move beyond that model and try to build a broad party as the left alternative to the SNP. However, I think there are all sorts of historical lessons from broad parties like Italy’s Rifondazione, France’s NPA (New Anticapitalist Party), and, above all, Syriza. These experiences show the challenges and pitfalls as well as the opportunities.

But I can’t see any other way of getting people together except through a broader party. In reality, most of the historic distinction between reformists, centrists, and revolutionaries are now understood only among Trotskyists and other revolutionaries. So when people come to the movement, they do not know what these distinctions mean. We have to find a way to be in a common party with them and go through experiences and arguments to win them over to a revolutionary viewpoint. If you like this article, please subscribe or donate . 4.30.15

Question: In what decade was the Scottish National party founded ?
Answer: 1930's