History
The SNP was formed in 1934 through the merger of the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party. Professor Douglas Young, who was the leader of the Scottish National Party from 1942 to 1945 fought for the Scottish people to refuse conscription and his activities were popularly vilified as undermining the British war effort against the Axis powers. Young was imprisoned for refusing to be conscripted.
The SNP first won a parliamentary seat at the Motherwell by-election in 1945, but Dr Robert McIntyre MP lost the seat at the general election three months later. They next won a seat in 1967, when Winnie Ewing was the surprise winner of a by-election in the previously safe Labour seat of Hamilton. This brought the SNP to national prominence, leading to the establishment of the Kilbrandon Commission.
The high point in a British General Elections thus far was when the SNP polled almost a third of all votes in Scotland at the October 1974 general election and returned 11 MPs to Westminster, to date the most MPs it has had, although its representation was reduced significantly in the 1979 general election.
In the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary election the SNP emerged as the largest party with 47 seats, narrowly ousting the Scottish Labour Party with 46 seats and Alex Salmond became Scottish First Minister.
Between 2007 and 2011, the Scottish Green Party supported the appointment of the SNP government under an agreement which also specified areas of common policy and gave the Greens input to the budget process and convenorship of the parliamentary committee on transport, infrastructure and climate change.
In May 2011 the SNP won an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament with 69 seats. Overall majorities are unusual in the Additional Member system that is used for elections to the Scottish Parliament, which was specially designed by the Labour UK government in 1999 to prevent any party gaining overall control of the parliament."
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