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James Sillars (born 4 October 1937) is a Scottish politician and campaigner for Scottish independence. Sillars served as a Labour Party MP for South Ayrshire from 1970 to 1976. He founded and led the pro-Scottish Home Rule Scottish Labour Party in 1976, continuing as MP for South Ayrshire until he lost the seat in 1979.
Sillars joined the Scottish National Party in 1980 and later served as MP for Glasgow Govan after winning a by-election in 1988, and was Depute Leader of the Scottish National Party. He was married to Margo MacDonald until her death in 2014.
In 1976 Sillars 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 with strong executive powers. 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 nearly two years later.
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, held on 10 November 1988. 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 over Labour's Bob Gillespie. A Labour press officer drafted from London for the campaign later recalled the Proclaimers "driving round Govan on the back of a flatbed truck urging everyone to kick Labour where it hurt".
At the 1991 party conference, Sillars was elected the SNP's Depute Leader, beating Alasdair Morgan by 279 votes to 184. Many had been surprised that 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 to Ian Davidson of the Labour Party. It was at this time that Sillars made his famous comment that "Scotland has too many ninety-minute patriots whose nationalist outpourings are expressed only at major sporting events". This comment proved the beginning of a break with the SNP leadership; the 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." In a 2019 interview with Tribune magazine, Sillars said that he felt vindicated over his decision to oppose devolution. "The creation of Holyrood has narrowed the political intellectual spectrum in Scotland, and provincialised the nation," he claimed. "They seem to be happy arguing about gender equality, smacking children, and who spends enough money in the health service. Where is the imagination?"
On 3 March 2022, the Daily Record revealed that Sillars had donated £2,000 to Labour MSP Jackie Baillie during the 2021 Scottish Parliament election campaign. 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." Responding to the revelations, Toni 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."
The week before the EU referendum was held, Sillars criticised claims by First Minister and SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon that leaving the EU would put Scots "at the mercy of the most right-wing Tory government in modern history." He told the BBC that he was "extremely disappointed" in Sturgeon for "adopting the same tactic as David Cameron and company, which is to try to drive people into the Remain side through unjustified fear". Sillars also dismissed SNP MP Joanna Cherry's suggestion that the UK would no longer have access to trading with the EU's free market. "There's actually no reason to believe that if the United Kingdom comes out of the European Union, there will be any problem in us trading with the EU as we're doing at the moment," he told CNBC, citing the billions of pounds worth of goods that other EU member states sold to the UK every year.
In March 2022, Sillars claimed that it was "foolish" to talk about another independence referendum whilst the Russo-Ukrainian War was going on. In an open letter, he wrote: "The prime objective of the independence movement is not to hold a referendum now, but to create an overwhelming majority for independence. Only when that is achieved do we want a referendum, because that will be one we can win. That is not the case today." An SNP spokesperson responded: "Jim Sillars recently called for independence to be 'deprioritised' – and donated cash to keep Scotland under Westminster control. Any claims he has to support independence are contradicted by his own words and deeds."
Sillars told an Alba Party meeting in July 2023 that Scottish independence supporters were "in no position to win" in proposed second referendum. He also backed the creation of a single pro-independence organisation, which was unaffiliated to any party, to campaign for Scottish independence.
Following the defeat of the SNP in the 2024 United Kingdom general election, Sillars described John Swinney's leadership as "a busted flush" and Nicola Sturgeon as "Stalin's wee sister".
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