in the course of the twentieth century, scottish labour rose to prominence as scotland's main political force. the party was established to represent the interests of workers and trade unionists. from 1999 to 2007, they operated as the senior partners in a coalition scottish executive. they lost power in 2007 when the snp won a plurality of seats and entered a period of dramatic decline, losing all but one of their seats in the 2015 uk election and falling to third place in the 2016 scottish election. the 2017 uk election produced a mixed result for the party as it gained six seat and increased its vote by 2.8% but the party came in third behind the snp and scottish conservatives.