A primer on the SNP for all the new members and especially those ex-labour members.

The SNP is not a socialist party but it was founded by a socalist and we have many socialist members, you will feel right at home.

The best why to get to grips with the SNP is to review the history of SNP. In 1886 Robert Cunninghame-Graham a socialist stood in the general election as liberal candidate for Lanarkshire advocating:

the abolition of the House of Lords
universal suffrage
the nationalisation of land, mines and other industries
free school meals
disestablishment of the Church of England
Scottish Home Rule
the establishment of an eight-hour-day

Basically this is what the SNP stands for today and can be summed up in this image, except the temperance. But the fear of it is no doubt why Charles Kennedy isn’t a member.

Cunninghame-Graham won the election and became the UK’s first Socialist MP. Two years later he and Keir Hardie founded the Scottish Labour Party. Now this Scottish Labour Party is not the Scottish Labour Party that we know and loathe today, but essentially the Scottish Labour Party that we would love to have, but don’t (at later date British Labour Party stole the name). The central tenants of the original Scottish Labour Party were Socialism and Scottish Home rule.

Sadly Hardie and Cunninghame-Graham went their separate ways due to the main constitutional issue of the day – Home Rule. The issue of Home Rule was not just a Scottish issue but extended across the entire British Empire i.e. should the parts of the empire such as Scotland, England and Canada all be controlled from London by Imperial masters or should each run their own affairs within the Empire. Many countries such Australia gained their independence via home rule within the empire. Essentially just like every MP from today’s Scottish Labour Party, Hardie went to London and became an Imperialist. He became convinced that the working class had to be told what to do, for their own good, from an office in London. Cunninghame-Graham didn’t sell out but continued to advocate home rule.

In 1894 Hardie founded the Independent Labour Party with the help of Cunninghame-Graham and in 1895 the Scottish Labour Party dissolved itself in the Independent Labour Party alongside most of its members. Later, in 1900 Hardie founded the British Labour Party, as an imperial Labour Party for Britain and opposed to Home Rule. The Independent Labour Party continued on for many a year before eventually merging into the British Labour Party. Meanwhile Cunninghame-Graham and a few other Socialist supporters of Home Rule continued on in an unorganised manner.

In 1927 John MacCormick decided that he couldn’t continue in the Glasgow University Labour Club with its affiliation to the Imperial British Labour Party and founded a new student group The Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association. In 1928, he drew together other likeminded left wing supports of Home Rule including Cunninghame-Graham and they formed the National Party of Scotland of which Cunninghame-Graham was the first president. This “Socialist Scotland party” continued until 1934 when it merged with the Scottish Party to form the current Scottish National Party. The merger with the Scottish party is where the SNP stopped being a Socialist party as they agreed to disagree on how to achieve a progressive independent Scotland.

Turning to the Scottish Party. The Scottish party originated in the Scottish Unionist party which was formed alongside the Ulster Unionists in opposing Home Rule for Ireland back in the first great British Constitutional crisis. While opposing Irish home rule they favoured dominion status to Canada etc within the empire. Following Irish independence the leftwing (with its origin in the liberl party) of the Scottish Unionist party left to form the Scottish party. This centre-right party supported devolution to Scotland within the Empire and the formation of a Scottish assembly, i.e. similar to the Scottish LibDems of today. The remainder of the Scottish Unionist party kept on going until 1965 when it merged with the Conservative party to form the modern Conservative and Unionist Party.

Hence the Scottish National Party is a party of Scotland, for Scotland and by Scotland. Its members and policies are mainly centre-left with a smattering of centre-right i.e. basically Scotland in miniature.

Following the merging of the parties to form the SNP the goals of the SNP morphed quite a bit as first of all the pro-assembly group became the leaders which led ultimately to the referendum on an assembly in 1979 which was won but Scotland as usual was cheated out of it, but eventually we got a parliament. Then the dominate force became the home rule or full independence group. The full independence group came to the fore and favour complete independence either via a unilateral declaration of independence or breaking the Union. It was this thread that lead to the #indyref on Scottish independence. The third wing is the home rule gradualists. They favour home rule which is also known as devo-max and for Scotland to have control over everything except foreign affairs and defence. This gradualist approach sits well with independence as no country has gotten home rule from westminster and not went onto acheive full independence due to the nations growing apart. The intervention by Gordon Brown in the #indyref was basically conceding to the gradualist approach. Maybe he thinks that somehow Labour controlled Scotland can buck the trend of drift away and eventually independence, but I don’t.