Part two of our look at the SNP’s electoral history

IT’S not quite true to say that the electoral history of the SNP shows very little action for the 20 years after Robert McIntyre became the party’s first MP by winning the Motherwell by-election in 1945.

The party’s progress was diverted, some would say, or even stymied, as others might put it, by the arrival of the National Covenant for Home Rule in 1949, brainchild of former party leader “King” John MacCormick. Two million people eventually signed up to the Covenant, but it may have blunted the SNP’s message on independence.

That message was kept alive by Wendy Wood and her Scottish Patriots group, which engaged in direct confrontation of the British state through activities such as vandalising post boxes because they were emblazoned with QEII after the current Queen ascended to the throne – there was no first Queen Elizabeth of Scotland, Wood argued.

In 1950, the SNP had around 1000 members or fewer, but the party got a boost from the removal from Westminster Abbey of the Stone of Destiny and, all too briefly, Scottish independence and home rule were back on the political agenda.

The weakness of the SNP in the 1950s was shown by the party’s inability to fund election campaigns. There were just two candidates in 1951 and 1955, the latter year seeing the Conservative and Unionist Party reach its zenith in Scotland by taking more than 50 per cent of the vote.

That year also saw a schism in the SNP when mainly younger members frustrated at the lack of progress founded the 55 Group and eventually split to form the short-lived Nationalist Party of Scotland.

In the 1960s, the SNP went back to the tactics of the 1930s, concentrating what little resources the party had on by-elections. It was to prove a resounding success.

Having not contested a single one of the six Scottish by-elections between the 1955 and 1960 General Elections – there were just five candidates in the latter, all losing their deposits – the 1961 by-election in Glasgow Bridgeton saw full-time party organiser Ian Macdonald, who had done so much to found branches and bring in almost 2000 members, come third with 18.1 per cent of the vote.

It was a start, and no flash in the pan for, the following year, Willie Wolfe caused a shock when he came second in the West Lothian by-election that sent Tam Dalyell to Westminster. Wolfe gained 23.3 per cent of the vote to force the Tories and Liberals into third and fourth place respectively.

The party was growing steadily and contested more by-elections and put up 15 candidates at the 1964 election. That entitled the SNP to a five-minute party political broadcast, its very first of that kind, and Wolfe led it on September 29, 1965. By the following morning, SNP HQ had received 1500 membership enquiries.

By the March 1966 General Election, the SNP’s membership had grown to 5000 and the party fielded 23 candidates who enjoyed varying degrees of success. It seems remarkable looking back, but in terms of votes cast the SNP came fourth in the UK with 128,474, albeit well behind Harold Wilson’s Labour, plus the Tories and Liberals. Still, it was five per cent of the Scottish vote, and was easily the party’s best performance in a General Election to that date.

Further signs of progress came with the leap in party membership to around 25,000 in 190 branches by the end of 1966, and in early 1967 George Leslie came third in the Pollok by-election with 23.8 per cent of the vote. In the local elections, the SNP won control of their first council, Stirling, where Robert McIntyre became provost.

In all, 170 councillors were elected.

The scene was set for the game changer, the breakthrough, the by-election which most experts consider to have been the start of the modern SNP. Winifred Ewing was a lawyer, aged 38, and the “vivacious mother of three young children”

as The Guardian called her, when she beat Labour against all the odds in the Hamilton by-election on November 2, 1967.

It was a seat that had been rock solid for Labour for decades, and it was all the more extraordinary because Ewing was fighting her first campaign.

The victory was down to a piece of arrogance by Labour. The sitting MP, Tom Fraser, resigned to take a job as head of the Hydro Board, the party thinking it was absolutely safe territory.

Ewing fought a brilliant campaign, and party activists came from all over Scotland to work the streets and knock on doors. She polled 18,397 votes, or 46 per cent of the vote, against Labour’s 16,589 and the Conservatives’ 4986.

Ewing was told by the party to try “to come a good second in order to encourage the members”.

The SNP even then felt they were not ready to win. “As ever,” Ewing would later write, “I overdid it, and as a result my life changed forever.”

When the result was announced, one newspaper recorded that “outside in the pitiless rain the vast Nationalist camp went crazy with delight at the breakthrough victory the movement has been seeking for years”.

The result was a catastrophe for the Conservatives who lost their deposit by 11 votes, a mere 12 years after dominating the Scottish election scene. The Guardian commentator wrote: “What cost Labour the election? Both the Labour and the Conservative candidates were adamant that Hamilton’s growing anti-socialist protest vote had come from both sides of politics and backed the candidate that seemed most set to win.

“This Nationalist coup – in a seat where they had lost their deposit last time out in 1959 – follows Plaid Cymru’s Carmarthen success for Gwynfor Evans a year ago, and serves the London-based parties with a clear warning that Scotland and Wales are increasingly impatient about Westminster’s total failure to solve their special problems.”

Amazingly for a newspaper that has been thirled to Labour for most of its life, the Daily Record went overboard in its coverage of the new MP.

It reported: “Scotland’s first Nationalist MP for 20 years yesterday took her seat in the House of Commons. It was Winnie Ewing’s day – and a proud day it was. As she passed, smiling broadly and giving the thumbs-up sign to a cheering avenue of nearly 600 supporters, the fragile-looking heroine of Hamilton said: ‘This is a wonderful feeling.

I don’t think any woman in Scotland could ask for more. I’m proud to be here for Scotland’.

“On her new role in the corridors of power, she declared, ‘Of course I expect to make an impact … not today and perhaps not tomorrow … but certainly before my time at Westminster is up.’ “After the hard slog of the Hamilton by-election, this was the hard-earned icing on the cake. Earlier, a railway special emblazoned with the SNP crest emptied 250 supporters on to the platform at King’s Cross. In the pre-dawn darkness banners waved and a lone piper played Scotland the Brave.

The glare of television arc lights recorded the tartan triumph.

“Winnie was joined on the overnight express from Glasgow by party members and kindred spirits in Hamilton and Edinburgh.

“And for 400 miles the whisky flowed fast and song flowed faster. But in spite of yesterday’s pomp and ceremony, it was also a family day.

“Winnie was accompanied by her husband Stewart and the children – Fergus 10, Terry, three, and Anabelle seven. At King’s Cross they were met by cars to match the mood. Three all-Scottish [Hillman] Imps whisked the Ewings to their Kensington hotel while special buses took supporters to a victory breakfast.

“Meanwhile party members held a summit meeting with Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalists, at London’s Caxton Hall. The hall was festooned with banners and placards, including one on the Boston Tea Party theme, ‘taxation without representation is tyranny’.

“Back at the hotel, Winnie was searching for a lost sock.

As she helped the children dress, parliament was still three hours and three miles away. Then dad arrived on the scene to take the family sightseeing while Winnie left for a trial run through of the afternoon’s ceremony.

“She was greeted at the gate of the House by Manus Boyle, a Scots bobby. ‘Welcome to London, madam,’ he said. Then he turned and said, ‘She’s rather sweet isn’t she? She’s bound to cause quite a stir’.

“Then at 2.35, the climax, Winnie in purple costume – with a sprig of lucky heather – walked with her family through the crowds and into the Commons. The Hope of Hamilton had become the Wonder of Westminster.”

What a sensation Ewing caused, especially when she quipped: “Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on.”

It is difficult now to convey the sense of shock and wonder across Scotland. The three parties which had all had their turns at being top dogs – the Liberals, Conservatives and Labour – all went into deep shock.

The Labour Government reacted by setting up the Kilbrandon Commission to prepare the way for a devolved Scottish Assembly. Tory leader Edward Heath promised a Scottish Assembly if elected prime minister – he was in 1970, and guess what didn’t happen … At that year’s General Election only Donald Stewart was elected, but since then the SNP have always been represented in Westminster. He was famously joined by Margo MacDonald who won the Glasgow Govan by-election in 1973 and went on to be a kenspeckle figure in the fight for Scottish independence until her tragically early death. Yet after winning seven and then 11 seats in the 1974 General Elections, the SNP split over the devolution referendum, with some in favour but others not because it didn’t go far enough. The cursed 40 per cent rule meant the referendum was won but lost.

The party’s MPs then picked a fight they couldn’t win – the Unionists on all sides blamed the party for causing the 1979 General Election by voting against Jim Callaghan’s Labour Government in a vote of confidence.

The party did not prosper electorally in the 1980s, as people turned to Labour to fight Margaret Thatcher’s government. That they were largely ineffective – it took popular protest, not parliamentary action, to defeat the poll tax – counted for nothing, and then the late John Smith and Tony Blair, heavily influenced by Donald Dewar, pledged a second referendum on devolution if Labour was elected in 1997.

Famously, the woman who reconvened the Scottish Parliament was that Hamilton victor, Winnie Ewing. The rest, as they say, is recent history and the SNP has not looked back in elections, largely because people have committed to the cause of independence and will not be varied from that stance.

The 2014 referendum was lost, so all on the Yes side need to make sure that the next one is not.