Talk:Scottish National Party

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Membership numbers

The current and most up to date source for this figure is the Twitter account of Peter Murrell, the party's Chief Executive. At 8.36 am on 2 October 2014 he tweeted that progress was being made with the processing of the huge influx of applications, and only 26,946 remained to be processed. At 5.00 pm the same day he tweeted that total membership was 75,759. This total clearly included the 26,946 mentioned that morning as awaiting processing - the paperwork wasn't dealt with, but they were counted. However some twitter users added 26,946 to the 75,759 figure and spent quite some time during the day on 3 October creating and tweeting lurid graphics claiming that membership was now over 100,000.

At 9.58 pm on 3rd October Peter Murrell tweeted "Lights out time at HQ, about done processing applications. Next up, we prepare membership packs. Total @theSNP members now a whopping 76,688." This should have settled the matter, obviously. I came to this page about half and hour later and edited in the new number, with a link to the new tweet. However it seems that one or more anonymous users are intent on defending their mistaken claim of 100,000 by changing the number on this page to 100,000. The link however goes to the correct source which reads 76,688.

I have no idea how to prevent this false claim being edited in again and again, but it's wrong. Morag Kerr (talk) 08:49, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Sigh. Here we go again. Huffington Post published the erroneous number in an article at the weekend, so now someone is using that to justify claiming 100,000 once again on this page. It's still wrong. HP just picked up on the wrong number being tweeted, and didn't check. Morag Kerr (talk) 10:53, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

RE the intro. You know, some political parties these days are big on their voters also being members (like the Greens and the nationlist parties - both of which are selling specific agendas) while others simply don't get the numbers they used to once get almost routinely. Labour and Conservatives in particular have seen a steady overall decline over many years. I think it is WP:OR just to assume this is simply down to party popularity. Yes it probably is to some degree, but there is known to be much less interest in general in being a tradional party member today too. People seem to like to keep their votes open these days perhaps -but for whatever reasons, membership-decline in the trad non-agenda parties a recognised modern phenomenon. The intro doesn't make this distinction (it suggests parity in fact), so as it currently stands it could easily look 'biased' towards the subject to some people as a result - as intro's often do when they over-develop this kind of data to be frank..

Actually looking at it again, it develops a cute factoid on a slightly crooked premise - having more members than all the others "combined" says something about the SNP, but to some degree less then a lot of people might assume. I found that it currently reads, perhaps consequently, a bit like a brochure too. The intro that is, I'm not planning to read any more of it. Matt Lewis (talk) 01:53, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I can find no source for the figure of 85,000, often touted as belonging to December 2022. This cannot have come from the SNP because membership figures are in the party's annual review, which comes after the accounts are finalised. The accounts covering December 2022 don't end until May 2023, yet this number is being circulated in March 2023. The only reference to 85,000 I can find is a tweet boasting this level of membership by Peter Murrell in November 2014. --Herneshound (talk) 09:20, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Pro-Europeanism

Some clarity needs to be drawn here. Is this a question of "pro-Europeanism" or "pro-European Union". Political parties can be pro-European, and anti-EU. User:RoverTheBendInSussex (talk) 15:39, 21 September 2016 (GMT)

Why is their no moniker in the side-column at the top clearly indicating that the SNP is "pro-EU"/"Remain party"?

The arrest of Peter Murrell

Added a section about the arrest of Peter Murrell former CEO of the SNP, this is a very important part of the SNP's history. --Devoke water 13:06, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

CEO

I noticed that another user has updated the Peter Murrell article so that his tenure as CEO starts 2001.

Ref: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12143178.swinney-shuns-spin-in-party-posts/

It appears that the position was vacant for years from 1999 following Mike Russell's election as an MSP.

I'll update this page to match. Watty62 (talk) 16:09, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

HI Watty62 (talk). This article goes into so much detail. Regards. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23703844.investigation-inside-snp-money-machine/ Devoke water 20:21, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

= Recent edits, baby +

I appreciate the instinct that leads some editors to default to rejecting edits from those of us who work anonymously, but we should seek to apply our site's standards to this page.

The section on the party's foundation has issues around undue weight and unreliable sourcing. The second sentence on Douglas Young and his opposition to conscription needs to be sourced, but sources can be brought in from his wikipedia biography. The third sentence uses wiki voice to declare that members of the SNP were pro-nazi. There is no citation for this and it frames a discussion on Scottish poet and communist Hugh MacDiarmid and Arthur Donaldson. For MacDiarmid there are three sources. First, there is an opinion piece by former Labour MP Brian Wilson. As set out in Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources, opinion pieces "are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." It does not belong here. Like the second source, it quotes MacDiarmid as describing the axis powers as "violently evil". Like the other two sources, it does not describe MacDiarmid as pro-nazi, and it is curious that an editor would use wiki voice to pretend it does to make that judgment. Of Arthur Donaldson, wiki voice is used to declare that "he believed a Nazi invasion would benefit Scotland" and a quote is provided. The citation used makes clear that neither the opinion nor the quote are sourced from Arthur Donaldson, his speeches, writings, or correspondence, but from the report of an MI5 agent whose claims were given no credence by wartime authorities.

As an exercise in citation, this section's treatment of the ideas it seeks to advance is inadequate. This section's discussion falls foul of our standards on due weight: • If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; • If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;

I therefore reinstated a previous version of that section.

Further down in the history section, there is a discussion of the party's recent leadership election: "Yousaf's views align with the party establishment and he is expected to continue Sturgeon's policies. The other two candidates, Forbes and Regan, were seen to be part of a new generational shift in the party."

The first sentence is unsupported by citation. The second sentence's description of Forbes and Regan as part of 'generational shift in the party' is not substantiated by a Guardian article that uses those words to describe, not Forbes and Yousaf, but John Swinney stepping down with Sturgeon. Neither unattributed opinion belongs on these pages in wiki voice.

Next to this, we have a lengthy and convoluted treatment of Operation Branchform's activities and issues around the SNP's accounts in April. This section suffers from being written as each sentence's piece of news breaks. I have restructured it for clarity, concision and the spirit set out in 'Misplaced Pages is not a newspaper'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.251.177.87 (talk) 20:25, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I have been watching this edit war with interest, usually I would be very cautious about anonymous changes but think your edits have greatly improved this article. Dont think I have seen one of your edits that has not been clearer and more concise than what was there before and better sourced and evidenced

Thank You Soosider3 (talk) 21:40, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I am very cautious too. regarding anonymous changes like this, 99+% of the IP edits which I revert are pure vandalism, prima facie the edits by this IP editor appeared to be deleting content from political parties that was negative (this happens all the time regarding politicians etc). This IP editor has also had their edits reverted by experienced editors on other Wiki pages, see Alba Party again their edits looked very suspicious to me. Did not want to get into an edit war, so on my second revert I mentioned going to talk, which the IP Editor did (normally they don’t) and argued their case, their edits were bona fide and agreed upon by other editors, see Soosider3 (talk) above. Regards Devoke water 12:35, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Although I like to have my edits scrutinised, I should probably create an account so that they aren't seen as part of the wash of attempted vandalism (acute on political pages) and it'd bring together the edits I make at home, work and when bored on the train. Here and on the Alba page (which, I regret to say, I'm going to return to with an expansion on my edits), I was quite genuinely frustrated at how sources were handled and wikivoice used. I hope I haven't been too grumpy! 90.251.177.87 (talk) 15:02, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Political Ideology

There seems an extraordinary number of entries in the Info Box under Ideology, presently 8. The Infobox is for simple facts and not the place to be having this sort of almost discussion. For context check out any other major party in the UK they have 2 maybe three entries. Whereas many of the topics raised are very interesting they belong in the ideology section in the article and not cluttering up the infobox. I would propose to reduce these entries to 2 or 3 and the others transferred to ideology section. Tidies up infobox and allows for fuller discussion on topics of ideology for those that wish it. Soosider3 (talk) 12:55, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

IMO a workable streamlining would be to list Scottish nationalism, regionalism and social democracy, in that order, for three ideologies, and a two ideology solution would be simply Scottish nationalism and social democracy. (Scottish independence is a policy goal, not an ideology, and is basically redundant with Scottish nationalism.)-- Autospark (talk) 13:05, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I strongly support Scottish independence and Scottish nationalism remaining in the infobox. The rest in my view are subject to debate around moving into the main body. I think "big tent" could possibly be a good one to keep in the infobox, since the party has often generally been portrayed as a broad group united around the themes of Scottish nationalism and Scottish independence. In regards to social democracy stated above, the most recent source we have for this is coming up on 8-years-old in June, with the other sources for this claim years older than that, so it’s debatable whether that means it merits such a place of prominence as the infobox or its prominence in the opening of the article. Helper201 (talk) 17:10, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

This still holds true. I replaced a primary source with sources that call SNP social-democratic, from 2023 and 2021 respectively. Brat Forelli🦊 17:22, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, isn’t “Scottish independence” a policy goal, not a distinct political ideology? Even if one considers it an ideology, it’s a component of Scottish nationalism. As for “big tent”, it’s still a predominantly centre-left party, and hasn’t altered its ideological stance in the last decade. One could just as equally state the Tory or Labour or LibDem parties are equally as much “big tents” as the SNP.— Autospark (talk) 17:24, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

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