Scottish National Party

The Scottish National Party (SNP; Scottish Gaelic: Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba [ˈpʰaːrˠtʰi ˈn̪ˠaːʃən̪ˠt̪ə nə ˈhal̪ˠapə] Scots: Scots Naitional Pairty) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The party holds 58 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament after the 2026 Scottish Parliament election and election of Kenneth Gibson as the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 58 Scottish seats in the House of Commons. It is represented by 413 of the 1,226 local councillors across Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom and for Scotland's membership in the European Union, with a platform based on center-left wing progressive social policies and civic nationalism.

Founded in 1934 with the amalgamation of the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party, the party has had continuous parliamentary representation in Westminster since Winnie Ewing won the 1967 Hamilton by-election. In the February 1974 election it scored 22% of the vote and 30% in the October election of the same year, but only notched 7 seats in the former and 11 in the latter of 72 Scottish seats up for election. With the establishment of the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999, the SNP became the second-largest party, serving two terms as the opposition to a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition.