View source for Scottish Labour Party (1976)

{{About||other political parties with the same name|Scottish Labour Party (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2017}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2017}}
{{Infobox political party
| name               = Scottish Labour Party
| logo               = Scottish Labour Party (1976) logo.svg
| colorcode          = #F0271E
| abbreviation       = <!-- official abbreviation -->
| leader             = [[Jim Sillars]]
| chairman           = <!-- or chairperson, but not both -->
| chairperson        = <!-- or chairman, but not both -->
| president          = 
| secretary_general  = 
| spokesperson       = 
| founder            = [[Jim Sillars]]<br />[[John Robertson (Paisley MP)|John Robertson]]<br />[[Alex Neil (politician)|Alex Neil]]
| slogan             = 
| founded            = 18 January 1976
| dissolved          = 1981
| merger             = 
| split              = [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]]
| predecessor        = 
| merged             = [[Scottish National Party]]
| successor          = 
| headquarters       =  
| newspaper          = ''Forward Scotland''
| paramilitary_wing  = 
| student_wing       = 
| youth_wing         = 
| wing1_title        = 
| wing1              = 
| membership_year    = 
| membership         = 
| ideology           = [[Scottish nationalism]]<br />[[Democratic socialism]]
| position           = [[Left-wing]]
| colors             = <!-- use "colours" for British English -->
| symbol             = 
| flag               = 
| state              = Scotland
}}
{{PoliticsScotland}}

The '''Scottish Labour Party''' ('''SLP''') was a socialist party in Scotland that was active between 1976 and 1981. It formed as a breakaway from the UK [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]]. It won three council seats in 1977 but lost its MPs at the 1979 election and was dissolved two years later.

==History==
The party formed on 18 January 1976 as a breakaway from the UK [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]], by members disaffected with the then Labour Government's failure to secure a devolved [[Scottish Assembly]], as well as with its social and economic agenda. The formation of the SLP was led by [[Jim Sillars]], then MP for [[South Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency)|South Ayrshire]], [[John Robertson (Paisley MP)|John Robertson]], then MP for [[Paisley (UK Parliament constituency)|Paisley]], and [[Alex Neil (politician)|Alex Neil]], the UK Labour Party's senior Scottish researcher.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=c5JAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BaUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3766%2C2899772 |title=Queue to join Sillars's rebels |first=William |last= Clark |work=The Glasgow Herald |date=19 January 1976 |page=1 |accessdate=6 April 2017}}</ref> The split came just before the resignation of [[Harold Wilson]] as prime minister and party leader and the election of [[James Callaghan]] as his successor.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/background/pastelec/ge79.shtml|title=BBC Politics 97|website=www.bbc.co.uk}}</ref>

Within a few weeks of its formation, ''The [[Glasgow Herald]]'' reported that a [[Kantar TNS|System Three]] [[opinion poll]] showed the party was taking a quarter of the Labour Party's electoral support in Scotland. The same poll also gave the SLP a higher share of support in Scotland (8%) than the well-established [[Scottish Liberal Party|Liberal Party]] (6%). Neil was reported to be "staggered and delighted by this wonderful result" and warned that SLP could expect to make gains in areas of urban deprivation in the west of Scotland that usually supported Labour.<ref name="Herald8thMarch1976">{{cite news |last1=Finlay |first1=Anthony |title=SLP steal a quarter of Scottish Labour vote |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19760308&printsec=frontpage&hl=en |accessdate=19 May 2020 |work=The Glasgow Herald |date=8 March 1976 |page=1}}</ref>

Almost immediately the SLP became the focus for [[entryism]] from the [[International Marxist Group]] (IMG), and at the party's first congress in October 1976 the IMG was expelled, along with a number of branches whose members were not associated with the IMG.  According to [[Henry Drucker]]'s account, the IMG's role was rather limited; Sillars used this as an excuse for purging anyone he did not see entirely eye-to-eye with or who represented a significant threat to his leadership. The expellees formed a rival Scottish Labour Party (Democratic Wing), and this in turn later renamed itself the Scottish Socialist League (SSL). Gradually, those members of the SSL who had not been associated with the IMG drifted out, and the SSL was reabsorbed into the [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] [[Reunified Fourth International|Fourth International]].

The SLP had little electoral success, winning only three council seats at the [[1977 Scottish District local elections|1977 local elections]].{{efn|The party officially stood 35 candidates at that election, while the breakaway SSL stood a further 12 candidates (winning no seats) and a renegade group in Dundee that had applied unsuccessfully to join the SLP in May 1976 stood three candidates in the city under the party's name (also winning no seats). The three council seats won by the SLP were: Whitecrook ward in [[Clydebank (district)|Clydebank district]] (where the candidate was the sitting councillor, who had defected from the Scottish National Party); [[Old Cumnock Parish (ward)|Old Cumnock Parish ward]] in [[Cumnock and Doon Valley|Cumnock and Doon Valley district]]; and [[Patna and Dalrymple (ward)|Patna and Dalrymple ward]], Alex Neil's birthplace, also in Cumnock and Doon Valley. See H. M. Drucker, ''Breakaway: The Scottish Labour Party'' (Edinburgh: EUSPB, 1978), pp. 130-1; {{cite web |author1=J. M. Bochel |author2=D. T. Denver |title=The Scottish District Elections 1977: Results and Statistics |url=https://www.electionscentre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Scottish-District-Elections-1977.pdf |pages=62, 79, 92}}}} The party polled only 583 votes in the [[1978 Glasgow Garscadden by-election|Garscadden by-election in 1978]]. At the [[1979 United Kingdom general election|1979 general election]], the SLP fought three seats, including Sillars's attempt at being re-elected (Robertson chose to step down). Sillars came close to retaining his seat in South Ayrshire, but this was clearly a personal vote built up over the years he had already served as an MP, as the other two candidates – standing in Paisley and [[Edinburgh Central (UK Parliament constituency)|Edinburgh Central]] respectively – polled very poorly indeed.

This failure prompted the SLP to disband in 1981; and members either fell out of active politics, re-joined the Labour Party, or chose to join the [[Scottish National Party]] (SNP), which both Sillars and Neil did, with both rising to high office in the SNP.

The SLP adventure is generally looked upon as an ambitious failure, but Sillars has himself put this down to a lack of planning before the decision to launch the party. Unlike the SLP, the [[Social Democratic Party (UK)|Social Democratic Party]] (SDP) meticulously planned their breakaway from the Labour Party, and were much more successful. Sillars has claimed that the SLP did at least provide a forerunner to the SNP's later dialogue with the left.

==Membership==
Although the SLP was initially reported (usually by the party's leaders) to have as many as 2,000 to 3,000 members, Drucker later estimated that numbers had actually peaked at 883 in October 1976, the same month that the party split in two.<ref>Drucker, H. M. (30 October 1976). "Can Scotland's rebels unite to make the Labour nightmare come true?". ''The Times''. p. 12. Retrieved 3 May 2023.</ref><ref>Drucker, H. M., ''Breakaway: The Scottish Labour Party'' (Edinburgh: EUSPB, 1978), pp. 65, 70 and Appendix B, pp. 150-1.</ref> This figure disguised a strong imbalance in favour of Sillars's Ayrshire fiefdom, with 276 members (nearly one-third of the total) recorded as being represented by that county's delegation to the party's 1976 congress. Thus a highly unusual situation emerged whereby branches in small Ayrshire villages such as [[Patna, East Ayrshire|Patna]] and [[Ochiltree]] reported membership numbers higher than those for the cities of [[Aberdeen]] and [[Stirling]].<ref>Drucker, ''Breakaway'', Appendix B, pp. 150-1.</ref>

The SLP did, however, contain a number of committed activists who would later go on to achieve a name for themselves as mainstream politicians, including [[John McAllion]], who became MP and then MSP for [[Dundee East (UK Parliament constituency)|Dundee East]]; [[Maria Fyfe]], one time MP for [[Glasgow Maryhill (UK Parliament constituency)|Glasgow Maryhill]]; [[Sheila Gilmore]], later MP for [[Edinburgh East (UK Parliament constituency)|Edinburgh East]]; and [[Charlie Gordon]], future leader of [[Glasgow City Council]] and MSP for [[Glasgow Cathcart (Scottish Parliament constituency)|Glasgow Cathcart]]. These individuals all chose to join (or in some cases re-join) the Labour Party rather than follow Sillars into the SNP.

Also involved as members of the SLP were:
* [[Neal Ascherson]]
* [[Chris Bambery]]
* [[Colin Boyd, Baron Boyd of Duncansby]]
* [[George Kerevan]]
* [[Tom Nairn]]
* [[Danus Skene]]<ref>See Jackson, Ben, ''The Case for Scottish Independence: A History of Nationalist Political Thought in Modern Scotland'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), p. 101; and Drucker, ''Breakaway'', pp. 121, 126.</ref>

Neal Ascherson was the Scottish political correspondent for ''[[Scotsman (newspaper)|The Scotsman]]'' at this time, and was the most prominent example of a curious phenomenon that distinguished the party from its rivals: namely, the relatively high proportion of journalists on its membership roll. Other leading figures from the Scottish press who joined the SLP were Bob Brown of ''[[The Times]]'' (who was the party's first chairman), Stewart MacLachlan and Ruth Wishart of the ''[[Daily Record (Scotland)|Daily Record]]'', James Fyfe (husband of Maria) of the ''[[The Herald (Glasgow)|Glasgow Herald]]'', and James Frame of the ''[[Edinburgh Evening News]].'' [[Chris Baur]], Scottish political correspondent for both the [[BBC]] and the ''[[Financial Times]]'', was a sympathiser who was consulted by the others, but did not join the party.<ref>Drucker, ''Breakaway'', pp. 20-1, 57, 66.</ref>

==Electoral performance==
{| class="sortable wikitable"
|-
! width=100px| Election
! width=100px| Vote No.
! width=100px| Vote %
! width=100px| Seats
! width=100px| Seat ±%
! width=470px| Outcome of election
|-
| align=center|[[1977 Scottish local elections]]
| align=center|
| align=center|
| align=left  |{{Composition bar|3|1107|hex=#AA0000}}
| align=center|{{nochange}}
| align=left|
|-
| align=center|[[1978 Scottish regional elections]]
| align=center|6,629
| align=center|0.4%
| align=left|{{Composition bar|0|431|hex=#AA0000}}
| align=center|{{nochange}}
| align=left|
|-
| align=center|[[1979 United Kingdom general election]]
| align=center|13,737
| align=center|0.5%
| align=left|{{Composition bar|0|71|hex=#AA0000}}
| align=center|{{decrease}}2
| align=left|Conservative victory
|}

==See also==
*[[Scottish Workers Republican Party]]
*[[Scottish Labour|Scottish Labour Party]] (1994–present), modern party that is the [[Labour Party (UK)|UK Labour Party]]'s [[devolution in the United Kingdom|devolved]] [[Scotland]] [[administrative subdivision]].

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* H. M. Drucker, ''Breakaway: The Scottish Labour Party'' (Edinburgh: EUSPB, 1978).
* Ben Jackson, ''The Case for Scottish Independence: A History of Nationalist Political Thought in Modern Scotland'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

{{Defunct political parties in Scotland}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Defunct socialist parties in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Labour parties in Scotland]]
[[Category:Political parties established in 1976]]
[[Category:International Marxist Group]]
[[Category:Home rule in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Defunct political parties in Scotland]]
[[Category:Labour Party (UK) breakaway groups]]
[[Category:Scottish National Party]]
[[Category:1976 establishments in Scotland]]
[[Category:Political parties disestablished in 1981]]
[[Category:1981 disestablishments in Scotland]]