As of May 2021[update], only three people have ever been elected to the Scottish Parliament as independent candidates.
Dennis Canavan and Jean Turner were independents throughout their time in the Parliament.
Margo MacDonald was elected in 1999 as a Scottish National Party (SNP) candidate, but sat as an independent after her expulsion in early 2003, and was re-elected three times as an independent candidate.
The other nine MSPs who sat as independents did so after leaving the party for which they had been elected.
Margo MacDonald was the only former party MSP to win re-election as an independent, but John Finnie was re-elected in 2016 as a Scottish Greens candidate.