Within Scotland, the Scottish National Person (SNP) (Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba inside Scottish Gaelic) is a centre-left political party which campaigns for Scottish independence. It presently regularly polls the 2nd greatest total of votes for a political person inside Scotland.

History

A SNP was formed around 1934 from the merger of the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party. the SNP number 1 won a parliamentary seat around 1945 by-electiin but their candidate refused to attend Parliament on principle & misplaced a seat fallowing troika months. It next won the seat within 1967 when Winnie Ewing was the surprise winner of the by-election in the safe Labour seat of Hamilton. This brought a SNP to national prominence. Their electoral high point was in the 1970s when they polled just about a third of tons votes within Scotland at the October 1974 general election and returned 11 MPs to Westminster, to date a virtually all MPs it will have.

Sustaining a establishment of devolution for Scotland within 1999 a SNP has styled itself as the independent opposition person to the Scottish Executive. For the fuller history understand History of the Scottish National Party.

Party Organisation

A SNP consists of various local branches of person members. People branches so form an association in the constituency it represent (unless there exists exclusively of these branch in the constituency, where instance it forms the constituency branch like than the constituency association). There are besides Viii Regional Associations to which a branches & constituency associations inside both might send delegates.

A SNP's policy structure is developed at its Annual National Conference & its regular National Council meetings. There are too regular meetings of its National Assembly which although it don't formally produce policy leave elaborated discussion of what person policy should become.

A person has an active youth wing as well as a student wing. There exists too the SNP Trade Union Group. There exists as well A every month newspaper produced, The Scots Independent, which is highly supportive of the person.

A SNP's leadership is invested inside its National Executive Committee (NEC) which is manufactured higher of the person's elective professional bearers & Decade elective members (voted for at conference). A SNP Parliamentarians & Council member keep close at h& respresentation on a NEC, when clean the youth wing, student wing and trade union class action.

Policy Platform

A SNP's policy base is, more often than not, in the mainstream European Social Democratic mould. For instance, amongst their policies come the commitment to unilateralist nuclear disarming, progressive private taxatiin to redistribute wealth from either rich to unfortunate, the obliteration of poorness, renationalisation of the railway, a earnings increase for nurses so on. It is too committed to an independent Scotland existence the fully member state of the European Union, when well as supporting Scottish entry to the single European currency, although there are some members world health organization disagree by using this.

Contrary to a expectations of numbers of, the SNP are non an expressly republican party, although they are committed to holding a referendum on the issue as punishment the attainment of independence. Virtually all SNP members come republicans though, & two a person student & youth wings come expressly therefore. A SNP is committed to maintaining an independent Scotland in a Commonwealth of Nations.

the SNP hwhen a clear left-of-centre policy base, although non when left-oriented as it another time was. within a 1997 General Election campaign, a Conservativist accused a SNP of existence a virtually all left-wing political organisation in Europe since the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Still such a see is other hard to sustaaround in a present political climate by owning a SNP moderating numbers of of its views in socio-economic issues, & a fact that it is there are no protracted the virtually all left-wing of the constituted political parties in Scotland by having the emergence of the SSP (Scottish Socialist Party).

Party Ideology

Although these are widely accepted that a SNP is within modern days a moderate left-of-centre political person, this has non universally been the example. From either near a instant a person was born, there own been ideologic tensions present inside a SNP. This was more often than not a product of the way where the person was formed, as an merger of the left-wing National Person of Scotl&, and the right-wing Scottish Person. A tensions were resolved in some manner per person officially ingesting there is no clear stance on the left-correct issue.

But, per 1960s the party was beginning to exist as defined ideologically. It experienced by so constituted their National Assembly which provide discussiin of policy & it wwhen producing papers on the carrier of policy issues that can be described as 'collectivist'. Likewise, the emergence of Billy Wolfe as a leading figure played a brobdingnagian role in the SNP defining itself as a left-of-centre social-democratic party. He recognised a want to launder this to challenge a dominant political position of the Labour Person inside Scotland.

He achieved this witharound a total of ways: establishing a SNP Trade Union Class action; promoting left-of-centre policies; & identifying a SNP by having labour campaigns (like a Upper-Clyde Shipbuilders Operate-in & a attempt of the workers at the Scottish Daily Express to start as a co-operative). It was when you took Wolfe's cycle when SNP leader in a Seventies that the SNP became clearly identified as a social-democratic political person.

A select few attempted to cement this at a 1975 SNP conference where a motion to vary the title of the person to the Scottish National Person (Social Democrats) flow from to become debated. Even so, this motion was withdrawn at a eleventh hour.

There were occasionally ideologic tensions in the Seventies SNP. the person leadership under Wolfe was determined to keep a person clearly on the left, to put the two around a position to challenge Labour. All a same, the person's MPs world health organization in a main represented seats won from either a Conservativist were less lament to stand the SNP deem a left-of-centre option to Labour, for fear of losing their seats back to the Conservativist.

There was farther ideologic strife fallowing 1979 by having a 79 Group attempting to move the SNP farther to the left, out of existence what can be described the 'social-democratic' person, to an expressly 'socialist' person. This brought by owning it the response from either victims opposed to this, world health organization desired the SNP to remain a 'wide church' & apart from either arguments of left vs best, around the shape of the Campaign for Nationalism in Scotland.

A 1980s saw a SNP more define itself as a person of the left, by using campaigns against the poll tax and so on. It stand developed this platform to the stage it is at nowadays: the clear, moderate, centre-left political person. This has itself non never agawithin forswearing internal criticism from either a left of a person world health organization guess that in modern years the person has moderated itself bay.

A ideologic tensions within a SNP come farther complicated per arguments between gradualists & fundamentalists. These arguments as well last back to a super foundation of a person, sustaining a merger between the pro-independence National Person of Scotl& and the pro-devolution Scottish Person.

Witharound essence, gradualists search to advance Scotland to independence across devolution in the 'step by step' strategy. It tend to exist as inside the moderate left grouping, although lot of the 79 Class action was gradualist in approach. Still, this 79 Class action gradualism was as much a reaction against a fundamentalists of the day, numbers of of whom believed the SNP should non take a clear left or even correct position.

A position of fundamentalists in a SNP is farther complicated per fact that modern fundamentalists come unlike a old-style. It tend to exist as on a left of the person, critical of two the gradualist approach to independence & what it perceive as a moderation of the person's socio-economic policy portfolio.

This grouping of neo-fundamentalists keep around their roots within a Jim Sillars camp inside a SNP.

National Executive & Front Bench

Person Leader & Westminster Group Leader: Alex Salmond MP Depute Leader & Scottish Parliament Group Leader: Nicola Sturgeon MSP Person Business Convener: Bruce Crawford MSP Scottish Parliament Business Manager & Chief Whip: Alasdair Morgan MSP Health & Community Care: Shona Robison MSP Finance & Pubic Services: John Swinney MSP Justice: Kenny MacAskill MSP Enterprise: Jim Mather MSP Economy: Stewart Hosie MP Education & Lifelong Learning: Fiona Hyslop MSP Environment, Rural Affairs, Energy & Fisheries: Richard Lochhead MSP Touristry, Conveyance & Telecoms: Fergus Ewing MSP Social Justice: Christine Grahame MSP Housing: Tricia Marwick MSP Culture & Sport: Michael Matheson MSP Defence & International Relations: Angus Robertson MP Act & Pensions: Michael Weir MP Europe: Ian Hudghton MEP Local Government: Cllr David Alexander

Party Leaders
Alexander MacEwan (1934-1936) Andrew Dewar Gibb (1936-1940) William Power (1940-1942) Douglas Young (1942-1945) Bruce Watson (1945-1947) Robert McIntyre (1947-1956) James Halliday (1956-1960) Arthur Donaldson (1960-1969) William Wolfe (1969-1979) Gordon Wilson (1979-1990) Alex Salmond (1990-2000) John Swinney (2000-2004) Alex Salmond (2004 - )

Electoral Performance

1935 General Election - 1.1% of Scottish vote - 0 seats
1945 General Election - 1.2% - 0 seats
1950 General Election - 0.4% - 0 seats
1951 General Election - 0.3% - 0 seats
1955 General Election - 0.5% - 0 seats
1959 General Election - 0.5% - 0 seats
1964 General Election - 2.4% - 0 seats
1966 General Election - 5.0% - 0 seats
1970 General Election - 11.4% - 1 seat
1974 General Election (Feb) - 21.9% - 7 seats
1974 General Election (Oct) - 30.4% - 11 seats
1974 Regional Council Election - 12.6% - 18 seats
1974 Zone Council Election - 12.4% - 62 seats
1977 Zone Council Election - 2 dozen.2% - 170 seats
1978 Regional Council Election - 20.9% - 18 seats
1979 General Election - 17.3% - 2 seats
1979 European Parliament Election - 19.4% - 1 seat
1980 Zone Council Election - 15.5% - 54 seats
1982 Regional Council Election - 13.4% - 23 seats
1983 General Election - 11.7% - 2 seats
1984 Zone Council Election - 11.7% - 59 seats
1984 European Parliament Election - 17.8% - 1 seat
1986 Regional Council Election - 18.Two % - 36 seats
1987 General Election - 14.0% - 3 seats
1988 Zone Council Election - 21.3% - 113 seats
1989 European Parliament Election - 25.6% - 1 seat
1990 Regional Council Election - 21.8% - 42 seats
1992 General Election - 21.5% - 3 seats
1992 Zone Council Election - Two dozen.3% - 150 seats
1994 European Parliament Election - 32.6% - 2 seats
1994 Regional Council Election - 26.8% - 73 seats
1995 Unitary Authorities Election - 26.1% - 181 seats
1997 General Election - 22.1% - 6 seats
1999 Scottish Parliament Election - 28.7% - 35 seats (7 for First Past the Post seats)
1999 One Authorities Election - 28.9% - 201 seats
1999 European Parliament Election - 27.2% - 2 seats
2001 General Election - 20.1% - 5 seats
2003 Scottish Parliament Election* - 23.8% - 27 seats (Nine for 1st Past a Post seats)
2004 European Parliament Election - 19.7% - 2 seats
2005 General Election - 17.7% - 6 seats

Further Reading

SNP:The History of the Scottish National Person, by Peter Lynch, 2002
A Flag in the Wind, by John MacCormick, 1955
Scotland Inhabits: a Pursue Independence, by Billy Wolfe, 1973
Scotland: a Out break for Optimism, by Jim Sillars, 1985