The SNP challenge is spearheaded by our Shadow Cabinet Team in the Scottish Parliament

WHAT SAY DOES THE ORDINARY MEMBER HAVE IN THE SNP?

SCOTTlSH NATIONAL PARTY STRUCTURE

AFFILIATED ORGANISATIONS AND SPECIAL GROUPS

The recognised affiliated organisations within the SNP are:

• Young Scots for Independence (YSI), the official youth wing of the Scottish National Party. The YSI has representation on all major party bodies which enables it to play a constructive role in the formulation of SNP policy. Youth members have a tradition of strong campaigning on issues such as poverty and national youth issues and play an important rule in winning young voters for the SNP.

• Federation of Student Nationalists - SNP Students, the student wing of the SNP, which is active in most colleges and universities throughout Scotland. The FSN has become a major political force in Scotland’s further and higher education institutions, at the forefront of resistance to attacks on Scottish education from successive British governments.

• Association of Nationalist Councillors (ANC) is a national body comprising all SNP councillors which acts as a forum for SNP councillors to share ideas and strategies and co-ordinate the work of SNP councillors at national level.

• SNP Trade Union Group has a dual role - to promote the role of trade unions within the SN? and to promote the aims and objectives of the SNP within the wider trade union movement.

Other groups include:

• Asian Scots for Independence, promoting independence and reinforcing the strong links between the SNP and the Scottish Asian community.

• New Scots for Independence, for SNP members and supporters born furth of Scotland playing their part in building Scotland’s independent future.

• SNP Women’s Forum, promoting the active participation of women at all levels of the party.

SNP HEADQUARTERS

SNP HQ offers services to the Party and members of the public. The work of the Party is co-ordinated by Headquarters, which provides support and information for the Party at local level. Within Headquarters there are various departments - Organisation, Administration, Fundraising and Enquiries.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY

The Scottish National Party has been at the forefront of the campaign for Scottish self-determination for almost seventy years. The evolution of the SNP has been paralleled by the political evolution of Scotland herself from an almost totally unionist country to a nation on the brink of independence.

ORIGINS

The SNP’s origins can be traced back to several organisations advocating Home Rule in the 1920s and 30s. In 1928 the Scots National League and the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association both combined with the poet Lewis Spence’s Scottish National Movement to form the National Party of Scotland. Lewis Spence was the first nationalist to stand for election in 1929. He contested Midlothian and Peebleshire Northern and came fourth, with 4.5% of the vote. The NPS can be seen as the most direct forerunner of the modem SNP as it shared the same left of centre outlook and the same commitment to independence. By 1934 the National Party had amalgamated with the smaller Scottish Party to form the Scottish National Party (the name was not commonly abbreviated to the SNP until the 1960s).

EARLY DAYS

In 1945 the party scored its first electoral triumph when Dr Robert McIntyre was elected with 51.4% of the vote in a straight fight against the Labour Party at a by-election in Motherwell. Labour regained the seat shortly afterwards at the General Election: it was to be twenty-one years before the next SNP MP was elected.

Nevertheless, nationalist sentiment throughout Scotland was growing, fostered by activities such as the unauthorised return of the Stone of Destiny, which was brought back to Scotland by four Glasgow University students on Christmas Day 1950.

BREAKTHROUGH

As membership rose through the 1960s, the party extended its base of support. The first real electoral breakthrough for the SNP came in 1967 when Winnie Ewing won a famous victory at the Hamilton by-election. The seat was lost again at the General Election of 1970 but, during her three years at Westminster, Winnie had an electrifying effect on Scottish politics.

In 1968 the SNP won 30% of the vote at the municipal elections and in the 1970 General Election fielded a record 65 candidates, polling 11.4% of the overall votes. Although the SNP lost Hamilton, Donald Stewart took the Western Isles (becoming the first SNP candidate to win a seat at a General Election) and in 1973 the SNP scored another sensational by-election victory when Margo MacDonald took Glasgow Govan, with a huge swing from Labour.

IT’S SCOTLAND’S OIL

During the 1970s the SNP launched one of its most influential campaigns - It’s Scotland’s Oil. The realisation that the Scottish people were being excluded from the economic benefits generated by the discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea transformed Scottish politics and gave the SNP a major boost in both membership and votes. The campaign strengthened the economic arguments in favour of independence and underscored the need for Scotland to control her own resources.

The 1974 General Elections proved a breakthrough for the SNP with 7 MPs elected in February and 11 in October. This was a massive leap forward which forced the pace of the political debate and the Labour government was compelled by public opinion to legislate for Scottish devolution.

1979 AND THE AFTERMATH

In March 1979 a referendum took place on a devolved Assembly for Scotland. It was carried out under the burden of the notorious 40% rule which meant that the devolution proposals could not be passed by a simple majority but required the support of 40% of the electorate. This resulted in a situation where people who either couldn’t or wouldn’t vote (including the dead) were effectively counted as No voters. The Yes campaign won a majority of the votes but failed to garner 40% so devolution fell. When the Conservatives won the ensuing General Election most political commentators believed that the issue of Home Rule for Scotland was dead.

The 1979 Election was a setback for the SNP and the 1983 Election wasn’t much better. At the 1987 General Election the SNP leader Gordon Wilson lost his seat, as did Donald Stewart in the Western Isles. These losses were offset, however, by victories elsewhere as Alex Salmond won in Banff & Buchan, Margaret Ewing took Moray and Andrew Welsh took Angus. Nevertheless the 1980s were a difficult period for the SNP and for Scotland in general and the imposition of Tory policies by a government which had not been elected by the Scottish people came to be seen as constituting a democratic deficit which had to be addressed.

REVIVAL

In 1988 the SNP won another sensational by-election at Glasgow Govan, when Jim Sillars overturned a Labour majority of 19,000 and re-ignited the Scottish constitutional debate. In 1990 Gordon Wilson decided to stand down as leader and the party elected as his successor Alex Salmond. In 1992 the SNP increased its share of the vote to 21.5% (though thanks to Westminster’s first-past-the-post system this was not translated into an increased number of seats.) In 1994 the SNP continued to increase its share of the vote - to 26% in the Regional elections and 32.6% in the elections to the European Parliament. In 1995 Roseanna Cunningham won the Perth by-election with 40.4% of the vote - and this time the SNP held the seat at the ensuing General Election.

YES! YES!

The 1997 General Election saw the end of Tory dominance at Westminster and the first Labour government since the 1970s. However, Labour’s Scottish victory was far from overwhelming as the SNP increased its share of the vote and gained two new seats, keeping up the pressure on Labour to deliver on their promise to legislate for devolution. In September 1997 a referendum was held on whether there should be a devolved Scottish Parliament and whether that Scottish Parliament should have tax-varying powers. The SNP campaigned hard for a Yes vote and the result was an overwhelming endorsement of the Yes Yes campaign.

THE SETTLED WILL OF THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE

The first elections to the Scottish Parliament were held in May 1999 and, since the electoral system used involved an element of proportionality, for the first time the SNp saw their increased share of the vote translated into actual seats and returned 35 MSPs. When the Scottish Parliament met for the first time on 12th May 1999 it was given to Winnie Ewing, as the oldest member present, to open the proceedings. She did so with the words "The Scottish Parliament, adjourned on the 25th March 1707, is hereby re-convened."

Recent opinion polls have consistently shown that, far from regarding the Scottish Parliament as representing the settled will of the Scottish people, the majority of Scots want the Parliament to have more powers. It is the role of the SNP to complete the Parliament’s powers and deliver a clear route to independence. In July 2000 Alex Salmond announced that he was standing down as National Convener of the SNP. The party elected John Swinney, MP & MSP for North Tayside, to succeed him. In the ten years of Alex Salmond’s leadership the SNP has moved from the fringes of Scottish politics to centre stage and is now in its strongest ever position to move Scotland forward to independence.