The SNP is the largest political party in Scotland in terms of both seats in the Westminster and Holyrood parliaments, councillors in local government and membership. It currently has 43 members of Parliament (MPs), 64 members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and over 450 local councillors.[30] As of December 2023 the party had 69,325 members.[2]
^ abMitchell, James; Bennie, Lynn; Johns, Rob (2012), The Scottish National Party: Transition to Power, Oxford University Press, pp. 107–116
^ abKeating, Michael (2009), "Nationalist Movements in Comparative Perspective", The Modern SNP: From Protest to Power, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 214–217
^Gibb, Kenneth (2021). "Divergent approaches to affordable housing supply in a devolved policy system: Scotland and England after 2010". International Journal of Urban Sciences. 25 (1). Informa UK Limited: 220. doi:10.1080/12265934.2020.1730935. The paper examines the period after the financial crisis and recession of 2007–2009, since this led to the austerity coalition UK government led by David Cameron (2010–2015), as set against the distinctively social democratic, Scottish National Party (SNP) Government in minority government from 2007 to 2011 and then majority government from 2011 to 2016.
^Peterson, Lindsay (2023). "Education and support for Scottish Independence, 1979-2016". Journal of Education Policy. 38 (3): 524. doi:10.1080/02680939.2021.2005148. hdl:20.500.11820/6ca759eb-209b-4cbd-b8a3-0566fdd1916c. That is why it seems reasonable for Norris and Inglehart (2019: 486) to classify the SNP as a left-wing populist party.
^Vampa, Davide (2020). "Competing forms of populism and territorial politics: the cases of Vox and Podemos in Spain". Journal of Contemporary European Studies. 28 (3): 312–313. doi:10.1080/14782804.2020.1727866. To be sure, literature has acknowledged the fact that some regionalist parties have combined their demands for increasing regional autonomy (or even independence) with forms of left-wing or right-wing populism. For instance, the Northern League (Lega Nord) and the Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang) have been regarded as good examples of regionalist parties adopting a right-wing populist discourse (Albertazzi and McDonnell 2005; Art 2008). On the other hand, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru have been more inclined to resort to leftwing populism in their struggle against austerity (Massetti 2018).
^Gallardo, Cristina (27 November 2019). "Scottish National Party's manifesto explained". Politico. London. Archived from the original on 21 March 2021. Retrieved 4 May 2020. The SNP wants Scotland to become an independent country and stay in the European Union.