There’s a lot of chat about new parties ahead of the next Scottish Parliament election, so how have new parties of various sorts fared in the devolution era?

For the purposes of this discussion, a new party is one that contested a Holyrood election having never previously held a parliamentary seat.

I’m also excluding those outfits who never got more than 10,000 regional votes in any of the five Scottish Parliament elections. Winning the same seat in two elections counts for two, also.

The largest of the new parties, by this definition, and the only one represented at Holyrood, is @scotgp.
MSPs ever: 18 (1999 = 1: 2003 = 7: 2007 = 2, 2011 = 2, 2016 = 6)
Peak votes: 150,426
Peak vote year: 2016

Next, @The_SSP_, the only other new party by my definition to ever elect more than one MSP.
MSPs ever: 7 (1999 = 1, 2003 = 6)
Peak vote: 128,026 (2003)

Next, and who remembers them, the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party. The third and last party on this list to elect an MSP.
MSPs ever: 1 (2003)
Peak votes: 39,038
Peak vote year: 2007

The rest of the also-rans, in order.
Socialist Labour: 55,135 (1999)
UKIP: 46,426 (2016)
Solidarity: 31,096 (2007)
Pensioners: 28,655 (2003)
Scottish Christian: 26,575 (2007)
BNP: 24,598 (2007)
Christian People’s Alliance: 14,745 (2006
RISE: 10,911 (2016)

Point being that even with PR it’s exceptionally hard for anyone to break through into the Scottish Parliament. Parties aren’t just an ideology (eg “what if SNP but more hostile to trans people?”). They’re people, members, and organisation.

That difficulty applies even to massively well funded parties with a topical issue. Think UKIP in 2016, less than two months before the Brexit vote, and still electing no-one.