With all eyes on the Makerfield by-election and the potential ensuing challenge to Keir Starmer’s leadership, readers from England, Wales and Northern Ireland may be forgiven for not noticing the two by-elections held in Scotland today.
These were precipitated by the resignations of the SNP’s “two Stephens” from Westminster (Flynn and Gethins), as they were elected to Holyrood last month and its rules now bar members from holding a dual mandate.
Aberdeen South (my own constituency, as it happens) is known for being unpredictable, having returned Labour, SNP and Tory MSPs just within the past 16 years. A diverse constituency, it encompasses most of the young and diverse city centre, traditional working-class areas like Torry and Ferryhill, well-to-do enclaves like Rubislaw and semi-rural suburbs like Peterculter and Cove Bay.
This time around, it was widely regarded as a two-horse race between the SNP and Conservatives. The Tory campaign focussed on two things. Firstly, the SNP’s supposed lack of support for the oil and gas industry our local economy relies on and secondly, Reform’s splitting of the ‘unionist vote’ in the recent Holyrood elections, where Flynn won on a mere 34.1% to a combined Tory-Reform showing of 48.2%.
The SNP actually decided to abandon its opposition to oil and gas expansion back in April, but it seems this was ‘too little, too late’. Against the odds, Douglas Lumsden has taken the seat for the Conservatives with 49.5% of the vote, a staggering 20.9-point lead on the SNP’s Richard Thomson, the bookmakers’ favourite.
Turnout also nearly halved compared to the general election, a sign that the SNP might begin to have a problem getting out the nationalist vote. Around 68% of votes were picked up by unionist parties, a huge skew compared to the polling figure for opposition to independence hovering between 45-52% (excluding don’t knows).
While Scottish politics cannot be reduced to that single dimension, perhaps the growing dissatisfaction with the SNP’s record after nearly two decades in government is finally starting to bite them in the backside.
Arbroath and Broughty Ferry was created in 2024 from a merger of Angus and Dundee East. As you might guess, on that basis it is likewise characterised by a mix of urban and rural voters.
Nonetheless, it is a far less marginal seat than Aberdeen South. Dundee East returned SNP MPs at every election since 2005, while Angus elected the SNP at every election since its creation in 1997 bar a brief Conservative blip in 2017. The combined constituency appeared a little less safe for the SNP in 2024, when a huge 15.6-point swing to Labour left them barely scraping a win by only 1.9 percentage points.
However, Scottish Labour has since all but collapsed. At last month’s Holyrood elections, the near-equivalent Angus South constituency returned the SNP’s Lloyd Melville with a whopping 21-point lead over his Tory challenger and with Reform placing third on only 17.8% of the vote.
It therefore comes as a shock to absolutely no one that the SNP’s Lara Bird has managed to hold the seat for her party on 41.1% of the vote, a comfortable 21.7-point lead over the Tories. Labour was the major loser with a swing of minus 18.1 points, which all other parties took a piece of, including the SNP’s gain of 5.7 points. That goes to show the constitutional question isn’t everything and there is in fact some voter mobility between unionist and nationalist parties.
Overall, these results are a mixed bag. Anti-fascists can breathe a sigh of relief that disgruntled Scots haven’t chosen to register their protest by voting Reform en masse and for a party with two decades of incumbency to actually increase its vote share in any constituency is no small feat.
The resounding loss of what even the bookies deemed an easy SNP victory, though, may be the first sign of things to come, as enthusiasm for the party dwindles even among its core demographic – independence supporters.
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