SNP

I have been a member of the Scottish National Party since 1992. Since then I have been actively involved in all the local and General Election campaigns, and the Devolution campaign when I took part in a live TV debate on the issue. I am currently Branch and Membership Secretary of the Camelon / Falkirk branch of the party.

I believe that if Scotland is ever to take its place on the world stage then Independence is the only way forward. This is NOT to say that I, or the majority of SNP members and supporters are anti-English, a misconception by some people that continues to annoy me. Being anti-Westminster Government does not make me anti-English. On the contrary - I actually believe that relations between Scotland and England would, if anything, improve if we were an independent country.

Hopefully I will be adding more details and history about the Scottish National Party here soon. Please check back. In the meantime you can check out the party's homepage.

Since the late 1890's there had been calls for a National Party in Scotland. However, it was not until the 1920's that pro independence parties began to emerge as it became obvious that none of the UK parties were going to deliver on home rule.

In 1921 the Scots National League was formed by Ruaraidh Erskine of Marr. This was followed in 1927 by the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association, formed by law student John MacCormick and the Scottish National movement, led by the poet Lewis Spence.

In January 1928 a joint meeting was held between the three groups, and the National Party of Scotland was formed. The aim of this party was stated as :

During the 1930's some Nationalists took part in various forms of peaceful protest. In 1937 the Wallace Sword was removed from the Wallace Monument at Stirling and hidden under Bothwell Bridge, and Union Jack flags were replaced with the Saltire on various buildings. However, electoral success was not achieved, partly due to internal splits within the party. In 1942 John MacCormick, who had been one of the key figures in the creation of the party, left taking many of his supporters with him, to form the Scottish Convention, and although the SNP saw its first electoral success in 1945 with the election of the first SNP Member of Parliament in a by-election in Motherwell, where Dr Robert McIntyre won 51.4% of the vote, this success was to be shortlived, and the seat was lost just a few weeks later in the General Election.

However, the Scottish Convention was to prove more successful. On 29th October 1949 it launched the Scottish Covenant, a petition demanding more self government for Scotland, and by the end of 1950 more than two million Scots had signed. This was seen as a stunning achievement, and kept the issue of Home Rule for Scotland alive.

Although the SNP only gained 7.4% of the vote in the 1950 General Election and the 1950's saw little improvement in electoral success for the Party, there was evidence that the mood of the Scottish people was changing.

In 1953 the Covenant Association raised a legal action challenging the right of the newly crowned Queen to call herself Elizabeth the second as she was the first Elizabeth to be Queen of Scots and of the UK as a whole, and some Nationalists, with the general support of the Scottish people, vandalised and even blew up post boxes carrying the Queen ER 2 insignia.

By the early 1960's support for the SNP had started to grow. This was partly fuelled by the Governments decision to base Polaris nuclear submarines on the Clyde, a decision that angered anti-nuclear campaigners, and which took on a distinctly Scottish dimension as it appeared to many that a remote English Government had decreed that Scotland was expendable and that the country had been sold down the river to keep America happy. Many people that would otherwise have looked to Labour began to turn to the SNP, and throughout the 1960's the party began to pick up votes in by-elections. The Party established constituency and branch organisations and appointed their first full time organiser. Between 1962 and 1968 the party claimed SNP membership had soared from 2000 to 100,000, and in the 1966 General Election the Party fought its largest ever number of seats with 23 contested, and the Party gained 14.3% of the vote.

In the 1970's Scotland's constitutional restlessness came to a head. The home rule 'Scottish Question' dominated political life both north and south of the border as each of the political parties attempted to play the right 'Scottish' card.

There were various reasons for this.

The new conservative administration called for more competition, tax cuts, welfare cuts and the curbing of union power. They believed that people 'should stand on their own to feet' instead of relying on the State, and this policy also extended to business. Government grants were slashed and a radical Industrial Relations Act was passed which curbed trade union rights. This resulted in 1970 becoming the worst year for strikes since the General Strike of 1926, and unemployment in Scotland leapt by a massive 43% in the first year of the administration.

In 1971 the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, faced with receivership, staged a work-in. The UCS work in rapidly became the symbol of Scottish resistance to the changing industrial order and the decline of the country's heavy industry, and seemed to many Scots symbolic of the callous values of a Government for which they had not voted. The UCS campaign started off as a fight for the yards. Then it developed into a fight for the right to work. Then it developed into a fight for the Scottish economy, and the needs of the Scottish people to have some control over their own destiny.

Between 1972 and 1974 the Government struggled against unparalleled industrial and economic problems. The Industrial Relations act was opposed by the unions, unemployment soared to over one million, inflation leapt to 18% and a state of emergency was declared when the miners striked in November 1973.

The discovery of oil in Scottish waters was of enormous significance and the SNP started to develop its famous 'It's Scotland's Oil' campaign. The discovery of oil removed the doubts of the economic viability of an independent Scotland, and saw a big rise in SNP party membership.

The first sign of this translating into electoral success was the Govan by-election in 1973, when Margo McDonald took the seat, overturning a 60% Labour majority. In a by-election the same year Gordon Wilson also came a very close second to Labour - uping the SNP's percentage of the vote from 8.9% in 1970 to 30.2%.

However, it was the General Election the following year that really saw the SNP translate their support into electoral success when they gained 22% of the vote and took 7 seats. The Labour Party had gone into the 1974 election totally opposed to any form of Home Rule for Scotland, however, largely due to fear of the surge in support for the SNP , within weeks of the election the party issued a statement :

"There is a real need to ensure that decisions affecting Scotland are taken in Scotland whenever possible....we believe this might be done by the setting up of an elected Scottish Assembly"

The SNP had gained support from all areas of the electorate and took 40% of the Liberal vote, 40% of those who had not voted in 1970 and 44% of first time voters.

The minority Labour administration had initially only promised discussions on the possibility of some form of home rule for Scotland, but faced with the SNP's success in the election, and pressure from Winnie Ewing they published a White Paper 'Devolution In The UK - Alternatives for Discussion' , which set out 5 options. However, many in the Labour Party still opposed Devolution and all 5 proposals were rejected by the Scottish Labour Executive. As a result, Labour's National Executive ordered a special conference and used Union block votes to overturn this decision.

In October 1974 the minority administration called an election to try and get a working majority. The Labour Party made Devolution their main election policy in Scotland and held a separate election campaign north of the border in which they called the proposed devolved assembly a "parliament" - complete with taxation powers.

The Election campaign in Scotland was dominated by oil. The SNP demanded that all oil revenue should be spent in Scotland, the Liberals thought Scotland should get 50%, the Conservatives wanted to establish a Scottish Development Fund secured by oil revenues. Significantly it was only the Labour Party that argued that oil reserves were purely a British resource and Scotland should not receive any additional income from them.

The election result saw Labour returned with a marginal improvement and a majority of 3. However, in Scotland the SNP's share of the vote had jumped to over 30% and it had taken 11 seats. Even more significant was the fact that the SNP had also come second in a further 42 seats. This performance showed that the SNP had now become a serious political force in Scotland, and ensured that Home Rule would stay top of the UK Agenda. For the next 4 years, devolution dominated Westminster parliamentary life and became increasingly bound up in the Labour Governments fight for survival.

In November 1975 Labour published 'Our Changing Democracy' which proposed a 142 seat assembly, funded by an annual block grant. It would have control over most Scottish Office functions, but no control over the newly created Scottish Development Agency and in areas of conflict between the Assembly and Westminster the Secretary of State for Scotland would decide the limit of the Assembly's powers.

Some pro-devolution supporters within the Labour Party, angered by the weakness of the proposals, broke away from the Party and, led by Jim Sillars, set up the breakaway Scottish Labour Party in January 1976. They wanted to see a Parliament with real economic powers, and Jim Sillars was later to win an historic by-election for the SNP.

The SLP was not successful and finally disbanded in 1979, although it is felt by those involved that it did exert influence on the Scottish political scene at the time.

In March 1976 Harold Wilson resigned. The new Prime Minister Jim Callaghan appointed Bruce Millan as Secretary of State for Scotland. He in turn delegated much of the detail to a young advocate - JOHN SMITH.

Partly as a result of the the SLP's pressure - the new Labour team introduced a supplementary White Paper to 'Our Changing Democracy' in August 1976. This removed the Secretary of State's right to control areas of dispute, instead referring them to a judicial committee. It was also given control of the SDA, but denied tax raising powers.

In November 1976 the Bill was finally presented to the House of Commons. The Bill faced a stormy ride through the Commons, facing opposition from Labour back benchers led by Tam Dalyell - who posed the famous 'West Lothian Question' , and the Conservatives. When Margaret Thatcher had become leader of the Conservatives in 1975 she had pledged that " an Assembly must be a top priority to ensure more decisions are taken in Scotland for Scotsmen". However, the Conservatives now argued that they were in favour of the principle of Devolution but opposed to this particular Bill, thus allowing them to keep both pro- and anti- devolutionists within the Party happy.

In December 1976 the Tories imposed a three line whip against the second reading of the Scotland and Wales Bill. However Alick Buchanan-Smith and Malcolm Rifkind resigned their front bench positions in protest and voted with the Government, Malcolm Rifkind arguing that "Scotland is the only country with a legal system, but without the a legislature to improve, modernise and amend".

In total, as well as the two votes with the Government, a further 40 Conservative MP's abstained and the Scotland and Wales Bill survived, but only after the Government conceded referendums in both countries.

The Prime Minister tried to shorten the progress of the Bill by introducing a guillotine motion on further debate. In February 1977 this was thrown out by 312 votes to 283. At the same time an opinion poll put support for the SNP at 36%.

The Government faced a vote of no confidence. However, in March the Labour Party agreed to do a deal with the Liberals and the Lib-Lab pact was formed. Under the deal the Liberals would be consulted on all legislation and as a result a new Devolution Bill for Scotland was produced. This one was separate from the Wales and was more radical than before.

However, the Bills passage through the Commons was still anything but smooth. On 25th January 1978 - Burn's Night- George Cunningham, a Scot who was the the Labour MP for Islington in London, succeeded in passing an amendment which read " If it appears to the Secretary of State that less than 40% of the persons entitled to vote in the referendum have voted 'yes' ....he shall lay before Parliament the draft of an Order in Council for the repeal of this act". It was to become the most significant backbench intervention in British Politics since the war.

The Scotland Act finally staggered through the Commons in February 1978 by 313 to 287, with 11 Labour MP's voting against it - Tam Dalyell the only Scot. After 23 Bills since 1887, the Commons had passed a Scottish home rule measure.

In Scotland the Labour Party started to spend money in an attempt to stave of the Nationalist threat, and at its annual conference in 1977, Willie Ross made a speech asserting the party had been in favour of home rule since 1945.

Referendum day was set for 1st March 1979. The campaign opened against a decline in support for the SNP. The Government provided no money for information leaflets, no television broadcasts and no support for cross party organisations as it had done for the previous Referendum on the EEC. No spending restrictions also meant that the 'no' campaign had an advantage.

The 'yes' campaign was hopelessly split. The 'Labour Says Yes' campaign refused to talk to the SNP 'yes' campaign, and both sides viewed the two cross party movements - 'Yes For Scotland' and the 'Alliance For An Assembly' with suspicion. The Liberals also had a separate 'yes' campaign, and there was even a tiny Conservative 'yes' campaign based in Glasgow.

At the heart of this split was an ideological one - with Labour and the Liberals arguing that the Scotland Act would satisfy the Scots and stem the independence movement this saving the Union, while the SNP saw it as the first step towards independence.

The 'no' campaign was led by the well funded Conservative Party, and a small but vocal 'Labour Says No' campaign led by Tam Dalyell, Robin Cook and Brian Wilson.

However, the most important factor was the current economic crisis in the country - the 'winter of discontent'. A series of public sector strikes had rocked the country, inflation had rocketed, and at one point even the dead went unburied. The public were angry with the Government and apathetic towards the current debates on Home Rule with such serious economic issues to deal with.

In a final blow to the 'yes' campaign, former Prime Minister Lord Home entered the debate with a late plea to Scots to vote no, promising a better devolution scheme under a future Conservative Government.

However, despite all this, on the 1st March 1979 a total of 62.9% of the electorate turned out to vote. 51.6% voted yes, 48.4% voted no. However, under the 40% rule introduced, all those who did not vote, which included those who had died or moved since the electoral role had been made up, were counted as 'no' votes.

The final result, although in favour, fell short of the 40% required and effectively killed the devolution debate of the 1970's, despite a brief SNP 'Scotland Said Yes' campaign. It would be another 17 years before the people of Scotland would get another chance to vote on home rule.

After the referendum result the SNP tabled a motion of no confidence in the Government. It succeeded by 1 vote. However in the ensuing Election the SNP were reduced from 11 to 2 MP's and Margaret Thatcher was swept into power.