List of political parties in Scotland

This article lists political parties in Scotland.

Major parties

Parties represented in the Scottish Parliament, British Parliament or European Parliament (ordered by number of representatives):

Minor parties

Other parties that contested the 2010 general election (by vote share):

Political parties

The Scottish National Party (SNP) is the main political party in Scotland which supports Scotland becoming an independent nation. They are overall centre-left, advocating social democracy, nuclear disarmament and closer ties to the European Union. They were founded in 1934 and formed a permanent grouping in House of Commons in 1967. Their best election result in the 20th century was at the general election of October 1974 in which they won 11 of Scotland's 72 Westminster seats as well as around 30% of the popular vote, however they lost all but two of these seats in 1979. Support for the party was bolstered under the leadership of Alex Salmond, who in 2011 led the SNP to their best electoral performance to date, in which they became the first party in the devolved Scottish Parliament to win a majority of seats. They form the Scottish government, and are now led by Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon. They have 64 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), 55 Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (MPs) and 2 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

Scottish Party

The Scottish (Self-Government) Party was a Scottish nationalist political party formed in 1932 by a group of members of the Unionist Party who favoured the establishment of a Dominion Scottish Parliament within the British Empire. The Scottish Party differed from the existing National Party of Scotland (NPS) on the grounds that the NPS and the form of Scottish independence it advocated was ambiguous about the Empire, and they also disagreed with the left-of-centre platform of the NPS.

Origins

The Scottish Party emerged in November 1932 as a breakaway from the Cathcart Unionist Association in Glasgow. In June of that year, members of the Association had set up an 'Imperial Committee', which was a pro-Scottish Home Rule front. The committee arranged meetings, made statements in support of Home Rule, and produced a manifesto which proposed replacing the Westminster Parliament with an Imperial Parliament, containing representatives from the British Empire, and establishing dominion Parliaments for Scotland, England, and Wales. This provoked outrage amongst the leadership of the Unionist Party, who were opposed to the establishment of a Scottish Parliament.

Scottish

Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:

See also

Scottish people

The Scottish people (Scots: Scots Fowk, Scottish Gaelic: Albannaich), or Scots, are a nation and socially defined ethnic group resident in Scotland. Historically, they emerged from an amalgamation of two groups—the Picts and Gaels—who founded the Kingdom of Scotland (or Alba) in the 9th century, and thought to have been ethnolinguistically Celts. Later, the neighbouring Cumbrian Britons, who also spoke a Celtic language, as well as Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxons and Norse, were incorporated into the Scottish nation.

In modern use, "Scottish people" or "Scots" is used to refer to anyone whose linguistic, cultural, family ancestral or genetic origins are from within Scotland. The Latin word Scotti originally referred to the Gaels but came to describe all inhabitants of Scotland. Though sometimes considered archaic or pejorative, the term Scotch has also been used for the Scottish people, though this usage is current primarily outside Scotland.

There are people of Scottish descent in many countries other than Scotland. Emigration, influenced by factors such as the Highland and Lowland Clearances, Scottish participation in the British Empire, and latterly industrial decline and unemployment, resulted in Scottish people being found throughout the world. Large populations of Scottish people settled the new-world lands of North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. There is a Scottish presence at a particularly high level in Canada, which has the highest level per-capita of Scots descendants in the world and second largest population of descended Scots ancestry after the United States. They took with them their Scottish languages and culture.

Scottish language

Scottish language may refer to:

See also