Jim Sillars

Sillars was elected at a by-election in 1970 as Member of Parliament (MP) for South Ayrshire constituency, representing the Labour Party. He became well known as an articulate, intellectual left-winger, strongly in favour of the establishment of a devolved Scottish Assembly.

In 1976 he led a breakaway Scottish Labour Party (SLP). The formation of the SLP was inspired primarily by the failure of the then Labour Government to secure a Scottish Assembly. Sillars threw himself into establishing the SLP as a political force, but ultimately it collapsed following the 1979 general election. At that election the SLP had nominated a mere three candidates (including Sillars who was attempting to hold on to his South Ayrshire seat). Only Sillars came remotely close to winning and it was this failure to secure a meaningful share of the vote that prompted the decision to disband.

In the early-1980s, Sillars (along with many other former SLP members) joined the Scottish National Party (SNP).[3] Being a left-winger he had fostered close links with the SNP internal 79 Group; who had encouraged him to join.[4]

Sillars, along with the 79 Group and the former SLP members in the SNP, started to shape the SNP as a clearly defined, left-of-centre party. Policies adopted included the support of a non-payment scheme in relation to the poll tax introduced by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, as well as the policy of independence within the European Union, of which Sillars was a leading exponent. Sillars also started talking in terms of direct action to bring prominence to the Scottish independence cause, stating that: "we must be prepared to hear the sound of cell doors slamming behind us if we are prepared to win independence".

Having failed to win the Linlithgow seat from Tam Dalyell of the Labour Party at the 1987 general election, Sillars was chosen to be the SNP candidate for the Glasgow Govan by-election. Govan was a Labour seat (although Sillars's wife Margo MacDonald had won it for the SNP in a by-election fifteen years previously, in 1973), but Sillars won a dramatic victory.[5]

Sillars became the SNP's Depute Leader, with many surprised he did not stand for the party leadership when it became available in 1990. The 1992 general election proved a disappointment for Sillars personally; as he lost his Glasgow Govan seat. It was at this time that Sillars made his famous comment that the Scottish people were "90 minute patriots" (a reference to the amount of time a football match lasts).[6]

This comment proved the beginning of a break with the SNP leadership. The SNP leader at the time, Alex Salmond, had been a Sillars ally, but his comments in the aftermath of the 1992 general election (and it is also suspected the fact that Sillars supported Salmond's opponent in the leadership contest, Margaret Ewing), started this break.

In June 2004, Sillars called for the resignation of John Swinney as SNP leader and also claimed that the party's acceptance of devolution had been a tactical blunder. He told BBC Radio Scotland's Sunday Live programme: "Devolution has parochialised Scottish politics and marginalised Scotland at Westminster. I would challenge any of your listeners. Turn to your partner, wife, friend and say 'name me 12 Westminster members of parliament' and they'll be hard pushed to do that. Not because they're dummies, but the Scottish media hardly gives them any coverage from a Westminster point of view, so the people in the big league, they don't really count."[7]

In 2014 his book In Place of Fear II: A Socialist Programme for an Independent Scotland was published, in which he outlined his vision of a socialist and independent Scotland.[8] The book was named after Aneurin Bevan's 1952 work, In Place of Fear.[8]

In 2016, contrary to the SNP position, he announced he would campaign in favour of British withdrawal from the European Union during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.[9] He has said: "I think [the EU] is a profoundly undemocratic organisation which has shown a callous disregard for people, in Portugal, Spain and Greece for example. They've been willing to make people destitute - beggar nations - in pursuit of a single policy to create a United States of Europe irrespective of whether the people want it."[10]

On 3 March, the Daily Record revealed that Sillars had donated £2,000 to Labour MSP Jackie Baillie during the 2021 Scottish Parliament election campaign.[11] According to the Electoral Commission, Sillars made two separate donations of £1,000 in the weeks before polling day. Baillie retained her seat in Dumbarton, thus depriving the SNP of a majority at Holyrood. Explaining his decision, Sillars said he believed Baillie was "a very impressive member of Parliament" and that he had been impressed with her performance on the Holyrood committee scrutinising the Government's unlawful probe into sexual misconduct allegations into Alex Salmond. "She was a stand out on that committee," he said. "I would prefer her in the parliament to a clone on the backbenches. I don't think there is any doubt she is an asset to the parliament. My concern, in donating to Jackie Baillie, was to have a very able person in parliament. I didn't want someone with considerable ability to disappear." When asked if his donation could have helped Baillie win and ultimately deprived the SNP of an outright majority, Sillars responded: "If that was a consequence of it, so be it."[11] Responding to the revelations, Tony Giugliano, the SNP candidate whom Baillie defeated at the election, said: "Mr Sillars has more in common with Jackie Baillie than he does with the SNP these days - so I’m not surprised. It’s only a matter of time before he's asked to be the frontman for the next Better Together campaign."[12]

During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Sillars said: "BP, in an independent Scotland, will need to learn the meaning of nationalisation, in part or in whole, as it has in other countries who have not been as soft as we have forced to be. We will be the masters of the oil fields, not BP or any other of the majors."[13][14][15]

On 26 March 2021, Sillars backed Alex Salmond's new Alba Party, saying: "This is a very welcome development as it gives the independence voters a party that is not the SNP - which many, including me, with justification, believe is tainted with political corruption, and which is grossly incompetent in a whole range of its activities from building ferries to building hospitals, and boasting about being the Saudi Arabia of wind, without creating jobs."[16] He still remains a member of the SNP, but told Holyrood magazine's Politically Speaking podcast that he had not voted for them "for a long time". He said: "I didn't join Alba, and I won't join Alba. Alba and the SNP means the movement is split, and a split movement will not win. I'm hoping a change of leadership in the SNP is going to happen and I'm staying in the SNP, hoping to influence people, saying 'look, we've got to have a rapprochement with the people who left to join Alba.'"[17]