Referendum as platform: the SNP and Scottish Green membership surge
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Author | Rob Johns,James Mitchell,Lynn Bennie |
| DOI | 10.1177/2041905817744629 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
16 POLITICAL INSIGHT • DECEMBER 2017
Party membership has been in
steady decline across Western
democracies. We’ve come to expect
that more members leave than join
parties these days. In the light of this, recent
developments in two Scottish parties – the
Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Scottish
Green Party – are doubly extraordinary. The
Scottish National Party (SNP) had 25,000
members at the end of 2013. By December
2016, it had 119,000 members, the vast bulk
having joined in the months immediately
following the September 2014 independence
referendum. The Scottish Greens experienced
Referendum as platform:
the SNP and Scottish
Green membership surge
Membership of political parties has been falling across Western
Europe – but not in Scotland. In the wake of the 2014 independence
referendum more than 100,000 people joined political parties.
James Mitchell, Lynn Bennie and Rob Johns examine the surge in
membership for the SNP and the Scottish Greens.
a similar surge, albeit from a much lower base.
The party had 1,200 members in December
2013, about 1,500 members immediately
before the referendum, and 9,200 by April
2015. This amounts to an unprecedented
vefold increase in SNP members and a six-
fold expansion of Scottish Greens, although
by the end of 2016 SGP numbers had
declined a little, to 8,120. At one level, the
surge in membership is easily explained – the
referendum was obviously the trigger – but
that tells us little about who these people are,
what they believe and how the parties have
been aected.
© Press Association
Political Insight December 2017.indd 16 03/11/2017 10:54
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