Neil was reported to be "staggered and delighted by this wonderful result" and warned that SLP could expect to make gains in areas of urban deprivation in the west of Scotland that usually supported Labour.

According to Henry Drucker's account, the IMG's role was rather limited; Sillars used this as an excuse for purging anyone he did not see entirely eye-to-eye with or who represented a significant threat to his leadership.

Sillars came close to retaining his seat in South Ayrshire, but this was clearly a personal vote built up over the years he had already served as an MP, as the other two candidates – standing in Paisley and Edinburgh Central respectively – polled very poorly indeed.

[4][5] This figure disguised a strong imbalance in favour of Sillars's Ayrshire fiefdom, with 276 members (nearly one-third of the total) recorded as being represented by that county's delegation to the party's 1976 congress.

Thus a highly unusual situation emerged whereby branches in small Ayrshire villages such as Patna and Ochiltree reported membership numbers higher than those for the cities of Aberdeen and Stirling.

Also involved as members of the SLP were: Neal Ascherson was the Scottish political correspondent for The Scotsman at this time, and was the most prominent example of a curious phenomenon that distinguished the party from its rivals: namely, the relatively high proportion of journalists on its membership roll.