History of The Scottish National Party - The Modern SNP

The Modern SNP

The 1997 General Election saw the SNP double their number of MPs from three to six and, with the return of the Labour Party to power at that General Election, saw the establishment of a devolved Scottish Parliament. This allowed for the SNP to firmly establish itself as a political force in Scotland with the returning of 35 MSPs in the first Scottish Parliament Election. Later that year the party returned two members of the European Parliament, narrowly missing out on sending a third.

The first term of the Scottish Parliament did not offer the SNP much comfort. Two MSPs quit the party, the Margo MacDonald and Dorothy-Grace Elder, citing the actions of some of their colleagues as reasons for their resignations. The SNP also performed poorly at the 2001 General Election, with a reduced share of the vote from 1997, and one less MP.

Despite optimism that the party would at least retain the same number of MSPs they gained in 1999, a downturn in electoral fortune at the 2003 Scottish Parliament Elections has weakened them somewhat. They returned 27 elected members in the Scottish Parliament, making them the second largest party in Holyrood.

The results of the election seem to indicate that the emergence of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and Scottish Green Party (both of whom also support independence) has undermined their vote slightly. It remains to be seen how the SNP will deal with the fact that they are no longer exclusively the party of Scottish independence.

Recent debate within the SNP has been marked by disagreements between the gradualist wing of the party, which believes in taking powers back bit by bit from the UK Parliament and returning them to the Scottish Parliament, as opposed to the viewpoint of the fundamentalist wing. The fundamentalists argue that a greater emphasis should be placed on the party's support for independence to enthuse their activists, as well as their core support. Former leader, Gordon Wilson has publicly stated that he believes it may be that these two wings find their views so irreconcilable that the party may split as a result.

Other political figures often characterise the SNP as trying to be all things to all people. They charge the SNP with trying to appear solidly left-wing in urban Central Scotland where they are trying to unseat the Labour Party, and with appearing more moderate in rural Scotland where their electoral challenge is more often than not against the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats.

In 2000 John Swinney MSP was elected leader, defeating Alex Neil MSP by 547 votes to 268 in a hotly contested leadership election to replace Alex Salmond as National Convenor.

Swinney's leadership came under challenge, with much press speculation surrounding the future leadership of the SNP by Swinney, with many contrasting his more subdued style of debating technique with that of his charismatic predecessor, Alex Salmond.

This speculation culminated in the challenge for the leadership of the SNP by grassroots activist, Dr. Bill Wilson in the summer of 2003. Wilson was broadly critical of what he argued were the centralising tendencies of the Swinney leadership, as well as a drift to the centre ground of politics away from the SNP's traditional position on the left of Scottish politics. At the party conference of that year the election took place with Swinney receiving 577 of the delegates votes that were cast and Wilson taking 111.

2004 did not get off to a good start for Swinney's leadership. On January 1 a former parliamentary candidate and a party activist in the Shetland Islands Brian Nugent announced that he was forming his own pro-independence party, the "Scottish Party" (which eventually relaunched itself as the Free Scotland Party) in response to what he perceived to be an overly pro-European Union stance by the SNP.

Not long after the party's National Executive Committee decided to firstly suspend, and then expel Campbell Martin, an SNP MSP. Martin had backed Bill Wilson's leadership challenge, and had continued to be overtly critical of Swinney's leadership, resulting in the NEC taking this disciplinary action against him.

Despite a slump in the vote and a decrease in the number of available seats from 7 to 6, the SNP was able to retain its two Members of the European Parliament at the 2004 European elections.

Nonetheless, John Swinney announced his resignation on June 22, 2004. He said that he would remain as caretaker leader until a successor was elected.