Scots National League

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The Scots National League (SNL) were a body seeking Scottish independence in the early 1920s. They were formed in 1921 largely at the efforts of Ruairidh Erskine of Mar and William Gillies.

The SNL suffered due to it being primarily based in London and during its first few years often spent more time discussing the Irish situation than the Scottish. The group was accused of being anti-English.

The SNL was largely influenced by Sinn Fein and advocated the removal of elected Scottish nationalist MPs from the Westminster Parliament to set up an independent Scottish Parliament.

The SNL established the Scots Independent newspaper in 1926 to further their aims. In 1928 they helped form the National Party of Scotland (NPS) and merged themselves into that party.

By the time of the formation of the NPS the SNL had outgrown its London roots and become stronger in Scotland, largely due to the influence of Tom Gibson. Gibson had realised that nationalist politics needed to be connected to everyday issues in order to become popular. This strain of thought was prominent within the NPS and many SNL members drifted from it due to their belief that the NPS was too moderate. This included Ruairidh Erskine himself who drifted totally from politics.