Everything about the Scottish National Party totally explained
The
Scottish National Party (SNP) (is a
centre-left,
Social democratic political party which campaigns for
Scottish independence. In the last few decades, the SNP has normally polled the second highest number of votes for a
political party in
Scotland. As a result of the
2007 elections, it's the largest party in the
Scottish Parliament, 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. They also have 364 of 1223 Councillors in Local Government, helping form 12 out of 32 local administrations.
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. The high point in UK General Elections thus far was when the SNP 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 it has 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's 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 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, at which detailed discussion (but not finalising) of party policy takes place.
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 representation on the NEC, as do the Trade Union Group, the youth wing and the student wing.
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. A high profile and controversial donor to the party is the founder of the
Stagecoach Group,
Brian Souter.
By
March 31,
2008, the party's membership had increased to 14,183. 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.
Policy platform
The SNP's policy base is, by and large, in the mainstream
European
social democratic mould. For example, among its 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 and a pay increase for nurses. It is also committed to an
independent Scotland being a full
member state of the
European Union, to the country joining the
single European currency at the appropriate
exchange rate and is against membership of
NATO.
Contrary to the expectations of many outside the party, the SNP isn't expressly
republican and its general view 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's widely accepted that the SNP is now a moderate left-of-centre political party, this hasn't always been the case. Almost from the party's foundation there have been internal ideological tensions. This was largely a product of the way in which the left-of-centre
National Party of Scotland amalgamated with the right-of-centre
Scottish Party. Nowadays, ideological tensions within the SNP have mostly been resolved.
However, by the 1960s, the party was starting to be defined ideologically. It had by then established a National Assembly which allowed for discussion of policy and 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 stay on the left of the
Scottish political spectrum and be in a position to challenge Labour. However, the party's MPs, mostly representing 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 produced a response in the shape of the
Campaign for Nationalism in Scotland from those who wanted the SNP to remain a 'broad church', apart from arguments of left vs. right.
The 1980s saw the SNP further define itself as a party of the left, for example running campaigns against the
poll tax. It developed this platform to the stage it's 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 become too moderate.
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 shouldn't 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 camp of the former Labour MP
Jim Sillars.
European Free Alliance
The SNP retains close links with
Plaid Cymru and
MPs of both parties co-operate closely with each other. They work as a single group within the
House of Commons, and were involved in joint campaigning during the
2005 General Election campaign. Both are in the
European Free Alliance (EFA), which works with the
European Green Party to form a grouping in the
European Parliament: the
Greens - European Free Alliance. Although there's no coalition in the Scottish Parliament (the SNP having run a minority government since May 2007) the Scottish Greens supported the appointment of the government under an agreement which also specified areas of common policy and gave the Greens input to the budget process and convenorship of the parliamentary committee on climate change.
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". 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".
In
1999, the comedian
Billy Connolly 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". The SNP responded that Scots "are enthusiastic about the parliament and will dismiss his absurd remarks about the SNP for the nonsense they are."
Prominent figures in Scottish politics such as Labour's
George Foulkes, Baron Foulkes of Cumnock and the Liberal Democrats'
Jamie Stone and subsequently
Danny Alexander have publicly apologised for calling the SNP "xenophobic". SNP MSP
Ian McKee has by contrast pointed out his own status in the Scottish Parliament chamber as an Englishman as evidence of there being no such anti-English feeling.
The party has been criticised over a £500,000 donation from the transport businessman
Brian Souter. One month later, in April 2007, the SNP's commitment (made at the party's 2006 conference) to re-regulate the bus network wasn't included in their 2007 manifesto, although the SNP denies any direct link.. Opposition politicians suggested that the donation and policy shift were linked and that it was a case of "cash for policies".
Brian Souter went on to make a further donation of £125,000 to the SNP, making him their single biggest donor . Souter made approaches to the SNP government for a £3 million subsidy for his company,
Stagecoach, to develop a hovercraft service between Kirkcaldy and Portobello in Scotland. The service had already received subsidy from the previous Labour administration for the pilot scheme, but was put on hold pending "clarification" of the public sector's involvement.
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