Gil Paterson
Scottish politician (born 1942)
Gilbert Martin Paterson (born 1942) is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician, who served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Clydebank and Milngavie, from 2011 to 2021. Previously he had been an MSP for the West of Scotland region, having been elected on 3 May 2007. From 1999 to 2003 he was an MSP for Central Scotland.
Career
Brought up in Springburn in the North of Glasgow, Paterson attended Possilpark Secondary School, before building up his own business Gil's Motor Factors. He served as a Scottish National Party (SNP) councillor in Strathclyde Regional Council and sat on the SNP's National Executive Committee, before being elected as one of five SNP MSPs for Central Scotland in the first election to the Scottish Parliament. During the first parliamentary term he sat on both the Local Government and Procedures committees in the Parliament.
At the 2003 election, only three SNP MSPs were returned for Central Scotland and Paterson lost his seat in Parliament. He returned to running his business but stayed active in the SNP, becoming the party's vice-convenor in charge of fundraising, a position he had held previously.
Paterson was one of the heaviest critics of the leadership style of John Swinney, and in the aftermath of the 2004 European election he openly called for Swinney's resignation, which happened shortly afterwards.
In 2006, Paterson was selected to stand as candidate for the Clydebank and Milngavie Scottish Parliamentary constituency.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Gil Paterson” is scottish politician (born 1942). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Paterson, Scottish and politician, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q200615. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 2011, 2021 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gil Paterson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.