Le Scottish National Party de 1979 à 1997 : anatomie d’un parti parvenu à la maturité politique
The dissensions within the SNP between gradualists and fundamentalists on the strategy that the party ought to adopt in order to achieve its political objective, namely independence for Scotland, meant that the party wavered between moderation and extremism when it had to take a stand on the devolut...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Centre de Recherche et d'Etudes en Civilisation Britannique
2006-01-01
|
| Series: | Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1174 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | The dissensions within the SNP between gradualists and fundamentalists on the strategy that the party ought to adopt in order to achieve its political objective, namely independence for Scotland, meant that the party wavered between moderation and extremism when it had to take a stand on the devolution proposals made by the Labour government in the 1970s. The SNP finally supported devolution, but the consensus between the moderates and the fundamentalists did not hold after the failure of the devolution referendum and the Conservative victory in the 1979 general election, and a long period of introspection began for the Nationalists, which lasted until the late 1980s. The 1987 general election results, however, and the unpopular reforms implemented by Margaret Thacher during her third term in office helped the cause of independence and brought the Labour Party to commit itself again to devolution. Eventually from 1990 on, the SNP, under Alex Salmond’s leadership, came to adopt a more moderate and pragmatic strategy which enabled the Nationalists to campaign alongside the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats for a ‘Double Yes’ in the 1997 referendum. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0248-9015 2429-4373 |