The politician Winifred Ewing, who has died aged 93, was the most remarkable vote-winner in modern Scottish politics. Her triumph at the Hamilton byelection in 1967 heralded the breakthrough of the Scottish National party as a serious electoral force; later in her career she retired undefeated from the European parliament after four terms as MEP for the Highlands and Islands.
She then concluded a unique treble by becoming a founding member of the devolved Scottish parliament when it was established in 1999 and indeed, as the oldest MSP, took the chair at its first session before a presiding officer had been elected. She drew on her experience to call for the new body to “follow the more consensual style of the European parliament and say goodbye to the badgering and backbiting that one associates with Westminster”.
Ewing was a fundamentalist who occasionally clashed with those who tried to claim the SNP for a more leftwing identity, particularly in the post-1979 period. Much of her success at the ballot box, which transcended the transient fortunes of her party, was attributable to her own formidable personality and well-cultivated image as a fighter for Scottish interests.
The Hamilton byelection was undoubtedly a watershed in postwar Scottish politics, which dictated that, thereafter, the lines of debate would increasingly be drawn in terms of constitutional options. For the Labour government of the day, it was a self-inflicted wound. The recent victory by Gwynfor Evans for Plaid Cymru in Carmarthen had sent out a clear warning that nationalists could win in the circumstances of a byelection.
There had also been increasing signs that the Scottish electorate was looking for ways to pass critical judgment on Harold Wilson’s government. In the Glasgow Pollok constituency, eight months before Hamilton, the SNP took nearly 30% of the vote in a seat Labour lost to the Tories. In spite of this, Labour created the byelection by appointing Tom Fraser – the former transport minister – as chairman of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. It was an act of folly.
A previous attempt to pension off Fraser with a quango had been abandoned in the face of public outcry. However, the legacy of that episode was that the SNP already had their candidate in place for an anticipated byelection. At the time, Ewing was a Glasgow solicitor with three young children who had been building a reputation within the SNP as an effective public speaker. The byelection, and the circumstances of its creation, provided her with the perfect platform, and she duly overturned a 16,000 majority in one of the great byelection upsets of the century.
Ewing’s first stint in the House of Commons was not particularly distinguished, and a deep antagonism developed between her and some of the Labour MPs whom she freely criticised in Scotland while expecting somewhat gentler treatment at Westminster. For her part, Ewing resented the charges levelled against her of absenteeism, and later claimed in her autobiography to have been “stalked” by a Labour MP who took personally her charge that Scotland’s biggest enemies were not the English but “traitors within the gates”.
In spite of her celebrity status, she lost the Hamilton seat in 1970 by more than 8,000 votes. As well as returning to legal practice, she became a candidate in the Moray and Nairn constituency, then held by the secretary of state for Scotland, Gordon Campbell. Once again it was a formidable challenge, and indeed the SNP tactic was that, in a general election, the Tories would throw everything into saving Campbell’s skin, leaving themselves weakened in two neighbouring constituencies.
By then, however, the “Scotland’s Oil” campaign was gaining ground, particularly in the north-east, and the SNP took all three seats in February 1974, with Ewing prevailing in Moray and Nairn by 2,000 votes.
The following year, Ewing’s political career took a significant turn when she was nominated as a member of the fledgling European parliament, at that time indirectly elected. She quickly became an admirer of this institution, claiming to have felt “more at home there than I ever did at Westminster”. In the 1979 general election, after the SNP had supported the Tories in the vote of confidence against the Callaghan government, they lost all but two of their 11 seats at Westminster, and Ewing was ousted in Moray and Nairn.
Within weeks, however, she returned to Strasbourg following the first direct European elections as the MEP for the Highlands and Islands – yet again her personal appeal and very genuine concern for the region’s interests made her an unexpected victor at the polls, this time over the Liberal Russell Johnston, who had been expected to win comfortably. It was the first of four successful campaigns that carried Ewing up to her retirement as an MEP in 1999. Her particular interests in Strasbourg were fishing policy, the Lomé convention trade and aid agreement, and the promotion of an EU youth travel pass.
She enjoyed cordial relations with some Irish MEPs in Strasbourg and initially joined the European Progressive Democrats group, which also included representatives of Fianna Fáil and the French Gaullists. However, she courted controversy in 1989 by transferring to the more rightwing Rainbow Group, which accommodated a range of nationalist parties including the Italian Northern League. During her time in Europe, Ewing adopted the sobriquet “Madame Ecosse” which undoubtedly chimed with the image she projected.
The daughter of Christina (nee Anderson) and George Woodburn, Winnie was the product of a Glasgow upbringing. Her father used a £500 compensation award for an industrial injury to set up in business as a paper merchant and to put his three children through university. He was a member of the Independent Labour party in the city but Winnie later claimed to have become a nationalist at the age of nine. She was educated at Queen’s Park secondary school and studied law at Glasgow University, qualifying as a solicitor in 1952.
Before her election in Hamilton, she was secretary of the Glasgow Bar Association and became its president in 1970-71. She was president of the SNP from 1987 to 2005. Her husband, Stewart Ewing, whom she married in 1956, was both her partner in legal work and also a close political collaborator. In later years, their principal home was near Lossiemouth. He died in 2003.
They produced an influential political dynasty within Scotland and the SNP – their daughter, Annabelle, was MP for Perth (2001-05) and has been an MSP since 2011, and their son Fergus is the MSP for Inverness and Nairn. In addition, Fergus’s wife, Margaret, was a Westminster MP for many years until 2001, and latterly MSP for Winnie’s old Westminster seat of Moray and Nairn until her death in 2006.
Ewing is survived by her three children, Fergus, Annabelle and Terry, and four grandchildren, Natasha, Ciara, Jamie and Sophie.
• Winifred Margaret Ewing, politician, born 10 July 1929; died 21 June 2023
