1967 Hamilton by-election

Background

Prior to this by-election, the SNP had been a peripheral movement in Scottish politics. They had taken only 5% of the vote across Scotland in 1966, having stood candidates in 23 out of 71 seats. In the 1950s, they had never stood more than five candidates or taken more than 1% of the Scottish vote in general elections. However, Hamilton was not the first Westminster seat to be won by the SNP; the party had won a short-lived victory at the 1945 Motherwell by-election. In the years before Ewing's victory, there had been other breakthroughs by nationalist parties in Britain – including Gwynfor Evans' similarly groundbreaking victory for Plaid Cymru at the 1966 Carmarthen by-election, a big advance for the SNP at the 1967 Glasgow Pollok by-election, and SNP gains in local elections, including becoming the largest party in local government in Stirling.

On the day of the election it was reported that Labour were strong favourites to win the seat with bookmakers, who made them 10 to 1 on to win the seat, and that Labour candidate Alex Wilson had indicated the previous day that he was more confident than ever of victory.

Result

Aftermath and legacy

The SNP's leadership merely told Ewing to: "try to come a good second in order to encourage the members". "As ever," Ewing later wrote, "I overdid it, and as a result my life changed for ever." After her victory was declared, Ewing famously said to the crowd outside "Stop the World, Scotland wants to get on."

Historian Tom Devine describes the 1967 Hamilton by-election as "the most sensational by-election result in Scotland since 1945" and Isobel Lindsay called it a "watershed" moment in Scottish political history. Gerry Hassan similarly describes it as being a pivotal moment in Scottish politics.

In 2007, on the 40th anniversary of Ewing's victory, the then SNP leader Alex Salmond said: "That by-election was undoubtedly a catalyst for reform, without which the movement for a Scottish Parliament would have been delayed still further. It forced the pace of change and demanded attention for the cause of Scottish independence from Westminster."

References

References

1. Winnie Ewing, ''Stop the World'', edited by Michael Russell, Birlinn: Edinburgh, 2004, p. 10
2. Christopher Harvie and Peter Jones, ''The road to home rule: images of Scotland's cause'', p.84
3. (2 November 1967). "Betting firmly on Labour for a Hamilton Victory". The Glasgow Herald.
4. "1967 By Election Results".
5. Winnie Ewing, ''Stop the World'', edited by Michael Russell, Birlinn: Edinburgh, 2004, p. 15
6. Winnie Ewing, ''Stop the World'', edited by Michael Russell, Birlinn: Edinburgh, 2004, p. 15
7. Winnie Ewing, ''Stop the World'', edited by Michael Russell, Birlinn: Edinburgh, 2004, p. 11
8. (2006). "The Scottish nation, 1700–2007". Penguin.
9. Isobel Lindsay, "The SNP and Westminster", pp. 93–104, in ''The Modern SNP: From Protest to Power'', edited by Gerry Hassan, Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, p. 94
10. Gerry Hassan, "The Making of the Modern SNP: From Protest to Power", pp. 1 – 18, in ''The Modern SNP: From Protest to Power'', edited by Gerry Hassan, Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, p. 1
11. Mitchell, Robert. (2 November 2017). "Fiftieth anniversary of Winnie Ewing's historic Hamilton by-election victory".