Scottish National Party

Scottish National Party Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba Scottis Naitional Pairtie Scottish National Party
Party leader	Nicola Sturgeon
Emergence	Merger of the National Party of Scotland with the Scottish Party
founding	April 20, 1934 (merger)
Place of foundation	Edinburgh
Headquarters	Gordon Lamb House 3 Jackson's Entry Edinburgh, EH8 8PJ Scotland
Youth organization	Young Scots for Independence
Alignment	Separatism , Social Democracy , Left Liberalism , Inclusive Nationalism , Pro-Europeanism
Colours)	Yellow black 
British House of Commons	48/650
Scottish Parliament	64/129
Local government in Scotland	418/1227
Number of members	125,000 (as of August 2019)
European party	European Free Alliance (EFA)
Website	www.snp.org

The Scottish National Party ( Scottish Gaelic Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba , Scots Scottis Naitional Pairtie , German  Scottish National Party , abbreviation SNP ) is a secessionist , left-liberal party in Scotland . The SNP is the largest party in Scotland. It had an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament from 2011 to 2016 and has since formed a minority government with the tolerance of the Scottish Green Party .

Until an amendment to the party donation law in the early 2000s, overseas actor Sean Connery was one of the party's biggest financial backers.

History and present

The SNP was created in 1934 from the merger of the “National Party of Scotland” and the “Scottish Party”. The party won the first parliamentary seat in a by-election in 1945, but the candidate refused to accept the mandate on principle; the seat was then lost three months later. The next success was the victory of the SNP candidate Winnie Ewing in the by-election in the Scottish constituency of Hamilton on November 2, 1967. The SNP reached its first peak in the 1970s: Under the slogan It's Scotland's oil , it claimed the newly found North Sea oil for Scotland - According to the SNP, the country could develop from a subsidy-dependent area into one of the richest countries in Europe. The slogan was extremely successful: The SNP's share of the vote multiplied in the following years. In the general election in October 1974, she received more than a third of all Scottish votes with over 800,000 votes and was able to send eleven parliamentarians to London. During these years the ideological standpoint of the SNP was not yet consolidated. The main political and ideological opponent in Scotland, which is still heavily influenced by industrial workers, was the Scottish Labor Party . The 79 Group was formed within the SNP at the end of the 1970s and wanted to position the party further to the left as a socialist party. The representatives of the 79 Group also included Alex Salmond , who later became First Minister and SNP chairman . As an internal countercurrent, the Campaign for Nationalism in Scotland was founded under the leadership of Winnie Ewing , the main goal of which was the independence of Scotland, independent of traditional ideological right / left schemes . After the election of Gordon Wilson as party leader of the SNP in 1982, these internal party factions largely disbanded again under pressure from above.

One of the main demands of the SNP in addition to the independence of Scotland was the reintroduction of the Scottish Parliament . This requirement was met in 1999.

Program

The SNP does not represent an ethnically based nationalism , but a communitarian concept of inclusive nationalism , which relies on identification with Scotland, its culture and democratic values ​​while being open to everyone who wants to live and work in Scotland. In the Scottish parliamentary elections in 2007, for example, Bashir Ahmad was elected to the Scottish Parliament for the first time on the Glasgow SNP list.

The SNP program contains far-reaching ecological requirements, such as the withdrawal from nuclear energy and the consistent entry into renewable energies , namely wind and tidal power plants. The construction of new nuclear power plants, which is being pushed by London, and the current concept of nuclear waste disposal in Scotland are rejected. The party is aiming for an annual CO ₂ reduction of 3 percent, which corresponds to 70 percent by 2050. A corresponding climate protection law was passed by the Scottish Parliament ( Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2008 ).

The SNP bundles its environmental policy goals in a ministry for finance and sustainable growth and has thus subordinated questions of economy, finance and environmental protection to one and the same member of the government. Issues of nature conservation and agriculture are also assigned to a Ministry for Rural Areas and the Environment, which is primarily intended to promote the expansion and maintenance of protected areas and an ecologically oriented agriculture. The SNP wants to strengthen cultivation and trade in organically grown products ( organic sector ).

The SNP was opposed to the war in Iraq, in which Great Britain was also involved, and called for troops to be withdrawn. The SNP government has doubled the development aid budget and advocates a multilateral foreign policy. It demands the end of the stationing of the " Trident nuclear missiles " in Faslane, Scotland .

The SNP also aims to abolish corporate tax for small businesses. She calls for the abolition of the current Council Tax , which she would like to replace with a local income tax . This tax does not apply to saved assets; it is based exclusively on income, which is primarily intended to benefit pensioners.

The SNP has abolished tuition fees at Scottish universities that were previously paid after graduate endowment . She advocates an expansion of the award of scholarships. In the area of ​​health care, the SNP has a policy for more preventive care and has abolished prescription charges . The SNP is against a possible privatization of the state health system ( National Health Service ).

Europe

The SNP is a member of the European Free Alliance and the European Parliament , she was up to the withdrawal from the EU of the United Kingdom represented by three deputies of the Greens / European Free Alliance - Group belonged (G / EFA). The SNP sees itself as pro-European and, in the event of Scottish independence, would prefer to keep the British pound as a common currency with England, but does not categorically reject a possible later introduction of the euro .

Scottish Government

The Scottish SNP Cabinet in May 2011

On May 16, 2007, Alex Salmond was elected Prime Minister of Scotland (" First Minister "). He took over from Jack McConnell , who is a member of the Labor Party . Salmond led a minority government after the Liberals failed to form a coalition with the SNP. Together with the 2 seats of the Scottish Green Party , the SNP was able to rely on 49 out of 129 votes.

In the Scottish parliamentary elections in 2011 , the SNP achieved an absolute majority in parliament with 69 out of 129 seats. The referendum on the independence of Scotland , announced during the election campaign, took place on September 18, 2014, in which the Scots spoke out against secession from the United Kingdom. As a result, Alex Salmond announced his retirement as First Minister of Scotland and party leader of the SNP for November 2014. His successor was the previous deputy Nicola Sturgeon.

Despite the loss of the absolute majority in the parliamentary elections in Scotland in 2016 , in which they won 62 out of 128 seats, the SNP was able to form a minority government with the Sturgeon II cabinet, tolerated by the Greens.

Chairperson

• 1934–1936 Alexander MacEwan
• 1936-1940 Andrew Dewar Gibb
• 1940-1942 William Power
• 1942-1945 Douglas Young
• 1945–1947 Bruce Watson
• 1947-1956 Robert McIntyre
• 1956-1960 James Halliday
• 1960–1969 Arthur Donaldson
• 1969–1979 William Wolfe
• 1979–1990 Gordon Wilson
• 1990-2000 Alex Salmond
• 2000-2004 John Swinney
• 2004–2014 Alex Salmond
• 2014 – today Nicola Sturgeon

Election results

Percentage results and total seats refer to Scotland. General elections were carried out consistently according to majority voting , elections to the Scottish Parliament and, from 1999, also elections to the European Parliament according to proportional representation .

year	choice	Share of votes	Seats
1935	General election 1935	01.1%	0/72
1945	General election 1945	01.2%	0/72
1950	General election 1950	00.4%	0/72
1951	General election 1951	00.3%	0/72
1955	General election 1955	00.5%	0/72
1959	General election 1959	00.5%	0/72
1964	General election 1964	02.4%	0/72
1966	General election 1966	05.0%	0/72
1970	General election 1970	11.4%	1/72
1974	General election Feb. 1974	21.9%	7/72
1974	General election Oct. 1974	30.4%	11/72
1979	General election 1979	17.3%	2/72
1979	European elections 1979	19.4%	1/8
1983	General election 1983	11.7%	2/72
1984	European elections in 1984	17.9%	1/8
1987	General election 1987	14.0%	3/72
1989	European elections 1989	25.6%	1/8
1992	General election 1992	21.5%	3/72
1994	European elections 1994	32.6%	2/8
1997	General election 1997	22.1%	6/72
1999	General election in Scotland 1999	28.7%	35/129
1999	European elections 1999	27.2%	2/8
2001	General election 2001	20.1%	5/72
2003	General election in Scotland 2003	23.8%	27/129
2004	2004 European elections	19.7%	2/7
2005	General election 2005	17.7%	6/59
2007	General election in Scotland 2007	31.0%	47/129
2009	European elections 2009	29.1%	2/6
2010	General election 2010	19.9%	6/59
2011	General election in Scotland 2011	45.4%	69/129
2014	European elections 2014	29.6%	2/6
2015	General election 2015	50.0%	56/59
2016	General election in Scotland 2016	41.7%	63/129
2017	General election 2017	36.9%	35/59
2019	European elections 2019	37.8%	3/6
2019	General election 2019	45.0%	48/59
2021	General election in Scotland 2021	40.3%	64/129

literature

• Claire Sutherland: Neo-nationalist ideology: a discourse theoretical approach to the SNP and the CSU . PhD thesis . University of Edinburgh, 2002

Web links

• official homepage
• European Free Alliance
• The Greens / European Free Alliance (Group in the European Parliament)
• Electoral program of the SNP 2016, long version, PDF

Individual evidence

1. ^ Membership of UK political parties , House of Commons Library, August 9, 2019
2. ^ Hassan, Gerry (2009), The Modern SNP: From Protest to Power, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 4–5
3. ↑ Peter Stäuber: Links, national and charismatic. In: woz.ch. March 23, 2017. Retrieved September 4, 2019 . 
4. ↑ https://www.snp.org/policies/pb-what-is-the-snp-s-position-on-rejoining-the-eu/
5. ^ State of the parties. Accessed December 17, 2019 . 
6. ^ Current State of the Parties. Accessed December 17, 2019 . 
7. ↑ see also election program, p. 18 ff., See archived copy ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Scottish referendum: Salmond to quit after Scots vote No. BBC News, September 19, 2014, accessed September 19, 2014 .