55 Group

The 55 Group were an internal body within the Scottish National Party (SNP) formed in 1955 (hence the name of the group).

This grouping started an organised campaign of internal dissent. This group was formed mainly of younger SNP members frustrated at the lack of electoral progress of the party in this period. There was also overt tones of anti-English sentiment amongst this grouping, epitomised by the publication of a leaflet The English: Are They Human?. This anti-English streak proved too much to bear for the SNP leadership and the 55 Group were expelled.

Some of their members went on to form a new political party, the Nationalist Party of Scotland (not to be confused with the earlier National Party of Scotland which merged with the Scottish Party in 1934 to form the SNP). This split in the SNP proved to be minor and involved only a few members, mainly located in the city of Edinburgh, and the new party made no impact whatsoever in the long-run.

The 55 Group are not the only organisation to have been proscribed by the SNP. In the early 1980s the 79 Group (like the 55 Group, named after the year they were formed, but unlike the 55 Group not an anti-English body, but a radical socialist organisation) and Siol nan Gaidheal were banned, and in more recent times they have banned their members from joining the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement.

References

SNP:The History of the Scottish National Party, by Peter Lynch, 2002

Scottish National Party (SNP)

Leaders	MacEwen Gibb Power Young Watson McIntyre Halliday Donaldson Wolfe Wilson Swinney Salmond Sturgeon

Depute Leaders	Milne Wolfe Leslie Henderson Wilson MacDonald Henderson Fairlie M. Ewing Salmond Morgan Sillars Macartney Swinney Cunningham Sturgeon Hosie Robertson

Presidents	Graham Muirhead Gibson McIntyre Wolfe Stewart W. Ewing Hudghton

Leader in the Scottish Parliament	Salmond Swinney Sturgeon Salmond Sturgeon

Leader in the House of Commons	Stewart M. Ewing Morgan Salmond Robertson

Treasurers	Rollo Rankin Cook G. Gibson Gloag Murgatroyd Morgan Chalmers MacAskill Blackford Mather Beattie

National Secretaries	MacCormick McIntyre Dott Curran Smart Shaw Wilson M. Gibson Hall M. Gibson MacWhirter Murray MacCallum Swinney Morgan Hosie Allan Ross Grady

Leadership elections	1942 1967 1969 1990 2000 2003 2004 2014

Depute leadership elections	2014 2016

Related topics	55 Group 79 Group Election results Federation of Student Nationalists National Party of Scotland Radio Free Scotland The Scots Independent Scots National League Scottish Party SNP Trade Union Group

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