Scottish National Party

Freeeeeeeddddddooooooooommmmmmmmmmmm! (Also, a cross between the Saltire and the thistle flower)

FREEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!~ A typical SNP supporter

Not to be confused with single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), the Scottish National Party (SNP) is a secessionist party that wants Scotland to leave the United Kingdom and go it alone. Although they used to bill themselves as "Neither Left nor Right but Scottish," their centrism suffered a terminal decline during the 2000s and finally kicked the bucket during the Indyref campaign when they realized they could peel off a large chunk of Scotland's Labour voters by promising them a socialist utopia. Now firmly seated on the left, the SNP devote themselves to running Scotland and trolling Westminster, a hobby their landslide victory in the 2015 election guaranteed they could pursue on a truly epic scale.

An unwritten clause of their party constitution requires that all their leaders be named after fish.

History

Early History

The party was formed in 1934. The early years of the party saw many splits, backstabbing and general unpleasantness (just like most baby parties) and it wasn't until the 1970s that they really began to grown in importance.

1979

In 1979 the Labour government under James Callaghan faced a vote of no confidence. The SNP voted the government down and this led to a general election. The election was won by the Conservatives and British politics was never the same again. After the 1979 general election the SNP had only 2 MPs. The poor showing of the SNP in the election and the decision to vote down the government caused a lot of internal strife and the party split again.

1980s and 1990s

In 1982 the SNP banned all internal factions. This worked out really well for them. By 1997 they had 6 MPs.

SNP and the Scottish Parliament

Tony Blair came to power in 1997 and instigated a referendum on devolution, the result of which was setting up the Scottish Parliament. In the first set of elections to the Scottish Parliament, the SNP won 35 MSPs. This decreased somewhat in the 2003 elections and has fluctuated ever since.

Into the New Millennium

Despite banning factions within the party, the party still managed to split and have a broad groups of people with different ideas.

The gradually increased their seats and votes in general elections, elections to the Scottish Parliament and EU Parliament elections.

The first time the SNP got to govern the Scottish Parliament as a majority party was in 2011.

Since then, and the renewed focus on Scotland in electoral campaigns, the SNP have grown even further in strength and the popular consciousness.

2015 Election

The 2015 general election saw the SNP wipe out basically everyone. Of the 59 seats in Scotland at the election, the SNP took 56 with swings from Labour of 30% to 39% common. Douglas Alexander lost his seat to a 20 year old uni student, the youngest MP since 1667. By the end of the election there was 1 Labour MP, 1 Tory MP and 1 Lib Dem. The SNP took the rest.

Parliamentary Antics

How the SNP respond to anything that isn't about how great they/Scotland are

Facing a Conservative majority government, the SNP realised they couldn't do anything constructive so they might as well just make themselves as annoying as possible to everyone else in Parliament (and indeed the nation) and give the cybernats something to tweet about. Here is a list of their ~edgy~ parliamentary stunts.

Freedom Alley

When the SNP replaced the Lib Dems as the third largest party, they inherited all their prime parliamentary real estate, such as their whips' office, their leaders' office and their main corridor. This was their absolute right. Good sense might however have discouraged them from dubbing the corridor "Freedom Alley".

The War for Skinner's Seat

I am here every day, and they are determined to try and get me out. It tells you a lot about them - the idea that you're going to throw out an 83-year-old after 45 years.~ Dennis Skinner

The SNP got off to an embarrassing start when they tried to steal Dennis Skinner's seat. In opposition Dennis had for the past 45 years occupied the place on the Awkward Squad Bench nearest to the Speaker, a prime heckling location which allowed him to perch on the edge of the bench and glare at Tory ministers as if he were planning to launch himself at their throats. The SNP decided that they absolutely could not manage to oppose the Government unless their leader could sit in this exact spot. After Dennis fought off an attempt by David Owen to grab his seat in the early 80s the Lib Dems had managed just fine without it for decades, but apparently asking incisive questions from a row back was too challenging for SNP leader Angus Robertson.

To grab the seat on the first day of the new Parliament, SNP whip Pete Wishart came up with a cunning plan. He sent a few of the new SNP MPs into the Chamber four hours before the sitting and set up rotating shifts so they could have someone occupying the seat at all times, ready to give it up to Angus when he finally appeared. Unfortunately for the SNP, Labour's Awkward Squad were a bit more cunning and far more experienced. Kevan Jones nipped in while the Chamber was evacuated for the daily police sniffer-dog search and grabbed the spot, giving it up to Dennis when MPs filed back in. Wishart was livid.

On subsequent days seats could be reserved by showing up early for Prayers in the morning, turning the contest into a war of attrition that could only have one winner. "The dream may never die", but the SNP dilettantes were no match for the old ex-miner. During the first week of the new Parliament Dennis came in at 8:00 AM every day and made sure he was first in line, and by the end of it the SNP had tacitly conceded defeat.

To try to force an 83-year-old out of his favourite seat and make him climb stairs is embarrassing enough. To fail at it is pathetic. This exchange wasn't too fabulous either:

Dennis Skinner: I've been here 45 years, mate.

SNP N00b: 44 too long.

Eventually, they gave up trying to steal Skinner's seat but not on causing seating problems in the Commons entirely.

When acting leader of the Labour Party Harriet Harman decided that Labour should abstain on George Osborne's first all-Conservative Budget, she was thoroughly criticised. 48 Labour MPs rebelled and voted against the Budget and all the of SNP voted against it too. That meant that more SNP MPs voted against the Budget than Labour MPs, causing the SNP to claim that they were the "real" opposition, not Labour (the Offical Opposition). In what is swiftly becoming time honoured SNP tradition, some new Scottish MPs invaded the opposition front benches as a show of defiance/misunderstanding of parliamentary procedure and tradition.

Roses

They had all the appearance of a wedding party, so I hope that divorce is now out of the question.~ Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen

The SNP decided that all their male MPs should wear the white rose of Scotland in their buttonholes during the 2015 Queen's Speech. This was in tribute to a poem called "The Little White Rose" written by one of the founders of the SNP, Hugh MacDiarmid:

The rose of all the world is not for me
I want for my part
Only the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sharp and sweet — and breaks the heart.

However, the stunt was not understood by anyone and lost whatever meaning it was meant to have. Tory MPs thought they looked like a wedding party. The contrast with the red roses on the lapels of some of the Labour MPs called to mind the War of the Roses.

Further investigation brought further indignity, as it actually turned out the roses they wore were not in fact the "little white rose of Scotland" but a brand from South Africa. Furthermore, the press went and dug up some letters discovered in 2010 written by Hugh MacDiarmid in which he states that he believes the best thing for Scotland during the Second World War would be for the Nazis to invade the UK:

On balance I regard the Axis powers, tho’ more violently evil for the time being, less dangerous than our own government in the long run and indistinguishable in purpose.

~ Hugh MacDiarmid, April 1941

Oops...

Clapping

Mr Speaker: Order. May I say at the start of the Parliament that the convention that we do not clap in this Chamber is very, very long established and widely respected, and it would be appreciated if Members showed some respect for that convention? They will get their speaking rights from this Chair—of that they can be assured. They will be respected, but I would invite them to show some respect for the traditions of this Chamber of the House of Commons.

There is a long-standing convention in the House of Commons that MPs do not routinely applaud members' speeches, because otherwise there is a severe risk that the Government and Opposition will get into a moronic Stalinesque clap-off after every comment from their respective leaders which would contribute nothing to the debate and waste a lot of time. Saying "Hear, hear," may sound archaic, but it only takes a few seconds.

In addition to saving time, this custom has the added bonus of elevating applause above the daily partisan scrum and preserving it as a way to celebrate truly remarkable speeches, such as Robin Cook's resignation speech over the Iraq War or Charles Walker's Bercow Coup speech.

The SNP were well aware of this convention, as several of them had been MPs for years and all of the new intake were given an introductory lecture on parliamentary protocol. (In a sign of the ~edginess~ to come, the SNP responded to this intro lecture by applauding.) But the SNP had come to shake up Westminster, and they were going to do it by clapping every time one of their MPs was called to speak or finished a sentence.

Bercow had no intention of putting up with this crap and shot them down in flames a few minutes into Angus Robertson's first speech. The SNP had to settle for second prize, an opportunity to whine on Twitter about how archaic Westminster was and how the Speaker was so mean to them. Not to be thwarted in their display of cult-like solidarity, they began saying "Hear, hear" en masse any time one of their number was called or finished a sentence that mentioned the word "Scotland", in much the same tone as those little three-eyed aliens from Toy Story say "The Claw!"

"Hear, hear!"

Two weeks into the Parliament this tendency seems to be subsiding somewhat, giving us hope that they may eventually be able to reconcile themselves to parliamentary norms.

Adjournment Debates

The SNP's next wheeze was to pack legislatively irrelevant adjournment debates on favourite issues, tweet pictures of the almost-empty Chamber, and pretend it meant that no one else cared about the topic of the debate.

Time will tell whether the SNP have the resolve to continue giving up their evenings for the cause of retweets as the Parliament wears on, but since it affords Alex Salmond an opportunity to hear himself talk we can assume he at least will persist.

Trespass

Allegedly, the new SNP MPs like to take a shortcut through the Chancellor's office to get around Parliament because they have given up on using corridors like everyone else.

Reading a newspaper in the Commons chamber

For God only knows what reason, one of the new SNP MPs thought it would be a great idea to take a newspaper into the Commons during a debate and sit there reading it instead of paying attention to what everyone was saying. King Troll then later used the newspaper as a prop during one of his interventions in the reading of the Scotland Bill which again is not really done. But hey, what do the SNP care?

The 56 Become the 55

The 56 became the 55 on 29 September 2015 when Michelle Thomson withdrew from the party whip. She did so because her solicitor, Mr Hale, had been struck off and a police investigation into a number of property deals that the solicitor had conducted. In June 2010, Michelle Thomson bought a house for £245,000, before it was sold just hours later for £315,000. The Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal found Mr Hales had failed to inform lenders that Michelle had owned the property for less than six months, as regulations required him to. All the deals that Mr Hales is being placed under investigation for in some way involve Michelle who until her resignation of the whip was the SNP's spokeswoman for business, innovation and skills, or her company M&F Property Solutions. However, Michelle will not face investigation from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards into her potential misconduct, as the allegedly dodgy deals were undertaken before she became an MP, meaning the Commissioner does not have the necessary authority. Michelle had been referred to the Commissioner by no less than 1/8th of the total number of Liberal Democrat MPs.

This was not the first time Michelle was caught up in a scandal - just the previous month, Michelle's personal email address was found on the list of leaked Ashley Madison accounts, although further investigations revealed that more than likely her email had simply been taken and she herself had nothing to do with the website or adultery.

Liberating Funds

In November 2015 it came to light that, unsurprisingly, one of the newly elected SNP MPs had been campaign for independence at the recent referendum. Natalie McGarry, the newly elected member for Glasgow East, had been one of the founding members of "Women For Independence" (WFI) and in particular had been responsible for the campaign's funds as WFI treasurer in the early days. There were alleged "discrepancies" in the group's finances - which were kept in a PayPal account that only Ms McGarry had access to. So concerned were the other members of the WFI that there was apparently up to £30,000 missing from the donations account that the police were called in a number of times following Ms McGarry not being able to account to the rest of the group where the money had gone. The SNP MP has stated that she will comply fully with the ongoing police investigation into the allegedly missing money which seems, at the moment, to be centering on her. Needless to say there have been calls for Ms McGarry to stand down from the SNP while the issue is investigated but as of this update she is still a member and representative of the SNP. She has, however, decided to stop updating her twitter account for a while, claiming that it is "an extremely angry medium" and that should be using her offical facebook account instead. However, this didn't stop people asking her about WFI. Angry that these things can't just be left on twitter where baseless accusations belong Ms McGarry - or her office staff - decided it was a good idea to go around and delete all the comments on her page about the missing money.

On 24 November 2015, after Nicola Sturgeon had initially said that she did not have enough information to formally suspend her, Ms McGarry jumped before she was pushed and so the 56 became the 54...

Arguing with JK Rowling

In January 2016 Natalie McGary was once again trending on twitter, this time because she decided to be mean about JR Rowling.

Rowling thanked someone on twitter who had raised money for her charity. McGarry didn't like this because she considers the guy thanked to be a misogynist and abuser so being the adult that she is McGarry decided to tweet at Rowling about it. JK Rowling kept asking for receipts which, as per usual, McGarry refused to supply. She then flounced, saying she had a plane to catch so couldn't talk to the likes of JK Rowling. Rowling then basically said "fite me IRL".

Shortly afterwards McGarry deleted the original tweet and sent an apology to JK Rowling which basically said "I'm sorry you thought I said you support misogyny and abuse when what I actually meant was you support misogynists and abusers". Rowling was chill about everything and told her army of fans to chill out and leave McGarry alone.

Almost immediately after McGarry apologised, she then tweeted the following image at Rowling:

The alleged "evidence"

It appears to show Rowling calling another user a "good man" after he tweeted something nasty. In actual fact the picture is of different sets of tweets - Rowling's tweets were in response to the man raising money for Lumos and not because Rowling though his comments pictured were a-ok. JK Rowling then asked McGarry whether she was actually sorry or just dicking about - and also, wasn't she meant to be on a plane right now? McGarry responded by making her twitter account private. In turn Rowling said that she was going to help McGarry understand how defamation works with all profits going to her charity Lumos.

Policies

Independence

Their key aim to Scottish independence, but they'll take ruling Scotland and being an influential part of Westminster for the time being. Generally populist in nature.

There is a general split between the gradualists who want to take power away from Westminster bit by bit and the fundamentalists who want an independent Scotland yesterday.

Other

They want to ban English people teaching in Scottish schools because why the fuck not? They also want to ban GM crops approved by the EU in Scotland.

Portrayal

A lot of people outside Scotland seem to think that Alex Salmond is the leader of the party, but he stepped down following a referendum on Scottish independence which was won by the "No" campaign (the campaign against Scottish independence) by 55.3%. The leader of the party now is Nicola Sturgeon. This lead to the joke that the SNP must always be run by a fish.

In the 2015 general election they gained the backing of The Sun in Scotland as well as a number of other Scottish newspapers. The portrayals of a female party leader were as you would expect from such wonderful institutions.

SNP Politicians and Activists

Current SNP MSPs

• Nicola Sturgeon

Current SNP MPs

• Angus MacNeil
• Alex Salmond
• Angus Robertson