Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party was founded in 1934. During World War II, its leader Douglas Young told Scottish people not to join the war effort and as a result he was widely disliked. The first SNP Member of Parliament was Robert McIntyre, who entered parliament in a by-election for Motherwell in 1945, but he lost the seat at the general election of that year. The party struggled in the 1950s but achieved greater success in the 1960s and in 1967, Winnie Ewing was elected as an MP for the party at a by-election in Hamilton. Only 1 seat was won by the SNP at the 1970 general election but at the February 1974 general election, it won 7 seats. Following the discovery of oil in the North Sea, the SNP ran a campaign called 'It's Scotland's oil' meaning that they thought it should benefit only the Scots and the party won 11 seats and 30% of the vote in Scotland at the October 1974 general election.