The Scottish Party was formed in 1930 by a group of members of the Unionist Party who favoured the establishment of a Dominion Scottish Parliament within the British Empire and Commonwealth. They differed with the existing National Party of Scotland (NPS) on the grounds that their Scottish independence was ambiguous about the Empire, and also disagreed with the left-of-centre platform of the NPS.
The Scottish Party initially acted more as a think-tank than an active political party, but received overtures from the founder of the NPS, John MacCormick, to merge with the NPS to unify the elements of the Scottish independence movement. The party's candidate for the November 1933 by-election in Kilmarnock received NPS backing, and this co-operation concluded with the merger of the two parties in 1934 to become the Scottish National Party.
A minor, though unrelated, political party of the same name was founded in 2004 by a former member of the Scottish National Party, and changed its name to the Free Scotland Party shortly thereafter.
Famous quotes containing the words scottish and/or party:
“I have hardly begun to live on Staten Island yet; but, like the man who, when forbidden to tread on English ground, carried Scottish ground in his boots, I carry Concord ground in my boots and in my hat,—and am I not made of Concord dust? I cannot realize that it is the roar of the sea I hear now, and not the wind in Walden woods. I find more of Concord, after all, in the prospect of the sea, beyond Sandy Hook, than in the fields and woods.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is well-known what a middleman is: he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)