Although it had a small membership, the group caused sufficient disquiet that it was expelled from the SNP in 1982, although its members were subsequently readmitted and many attained senior positions in the Scottish Government after 2007.

The idea for the 79 Group came from Roseanna Cunningham, then assistant research officer for the SNP, and her brother Chris, during the devolution referendum in early 1979.

[9] Sillars, who was elected as the SNP's Executive Vice-Chairman for Policy, was put in charge of the campaign with the details planned by the Demonstrations Committee.

[10] He led the campaign on 16 October 1981 by breaking in, with five other 79 Group members, to the Royal High School in Edinburgh which had been converted to house the Scottish Assembly.

The intention had been to symbolically read out a declaration on what the Scottish Assembly would have done to counter unemployment, but the participants were arrested before they had the chance, and a planned later mass demonstration was cancelled.

[13] After the group was proscribed, Graeme Purves, Douglas Robertson and graphic designer Crawford Cumming became members of the team which relaunched Radical Scotland as a bi-monthly political magazine edited by Kevin Dunion in February 1983.

With Provisional Irish Republican Army violence ongoing, Sinn Féin were considered unacceptable to public opinion in Great Britain.

[1] Soon after, the 1982 conference of the SNP voted to ditch "Scottish Resistance", despite a strong speech by Salmond claiming that to do so was to adopt "a defeatist and cringing mentality".

[1] A Scottish Socialist Society was formed, open to non-SNP members; among those who joined were Susan Deacon and Sarah Boyack, who later became Labour MSPs.

However, the substantial support for those expelled and the minority report submitted by Stewart Stevenson persuaded National Council to allow their re-admission to the SNP.