Keep tabs on all the latest Scottish polling, articles and information ahead of the 2024 UK Parliament election via the Ballot Box Scotland GE24 Hub!
With just a couple of weeks left for parties and candidates to lock-down those votes, and an increasing number already cast by post, it’s time for that BBS election staple: Ballot Box Battlegrounds. Throughout this series, we’ll take a look at the 17 marginal constituencies in Scotland, based on the notional results of the 2019 election on the new boundaries. Before getting into the meat of this piece, it’s worth reflecting a bit on the slightly strange circumstances we find ourselves when it comes to talking about marginals.
Ahead of 2019, Scotland was in the odd situation that almost all of our seats were “formal” marginals – that is, requiring a swing of 5% or less to change hands, i.e. a majority of 10% or lower. This time around we’ve got a much more modest pile of formal marginals, but that disguises the fact that most of the seats that are likely to change hands aren’t on this list. As I laid out in this piece, Labour’s poll lead over the SNP is likely to see them win most Central Belt seats.
Those “informal” marginals, if you will, are obviously vitally important, but it just wouldn’t really be as interesting to read “this is a Central Belt seat, so even though it’s not formally marginal, Labour will likely win it” over and over again. I’m therefore sticking to covering formal marginals as I did before 2019, and the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. This should give a wider flavour of what’s going on in Scotland beyond just the Central Belt, though there are a few of those seats in this list as well!
Key Details
Notional 2019 Winner:
🟡SNP: Neale Hanvey
Majority: 3220 (6.8%)
Boundary Changes: Major & Name Change
Boundary Change Impact: Same Winner
Closest 2019 Equivalent: Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath
Sitting MP Status: Changed Party to ⚫Alba & Reselected
2024 Candidates
SNP: Lesley Blackhouse
Labour: Melanie Ward
Conservative: Jonathan Gray
Lib Dem: Fraser Graham
Green: Mags Hall
Alba: Neale Hanvey
Reform UK: Sonia Davidson
Libertarian: Calum Paul
Summary of Boundary Changes and Impacts
It’s not just the order of the name that’s changed in this constituency, but a fairly significant redrawing. For one thing, funnily enough the old seat didn’t include the entirety of either Cowdenbeath (lacking the section out to Hill of Beath) or Kirkcaldy (around Chapel), which has been rectified here. It’s also gained Kingseat, Crossgates Inverkeithing and North Queensferry. In return, it’s ceded Lochgelly, Ballingry and Kelty to the new Glenrothes-centred seat.
Those are quite weighty changes, and that’s reflected in the size of the majority compared to the previous Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, which had been the 6th narrowest at 2.6%. That’d have meant a comfier result for then-suspended SNP candidate Neale Hanvey, but less than 18 months later he was one of the two SNP MPs to defect to Alba. He’s been re-selected for his new party, and the SNP have had to find a new candidate to replace him, going for local Burntisland, Kinghorn and Western Kirkcaldy councillor Lesley Blackhouse.
Notional 2019 Result
Commentary
This is the first of just two Labour marginals the Battlegrounds series will cover, though remember the nature of polling ahead of this election means Labour would expect to win many non-marginal seats. It’s worth remarking that the parallels between both formal marginals are really weird; both SNP re-gains from Labour, both had their MP defect to Alba, both in places with quite chunky Conservative vote shares despite the SNP-Labour marginality. One significant difference though is that as noted above, Neale Hanvey was actually suspended from the SNP at the time of the last election, over allegations of antisemitism.
Campaigning on his behalf was ended, and naturally there was a lot of media coverage. In an election in which the SNP had a national swing of +8%, that led to this being the only seat where they seemingly lost votes, dropping by 1%. As such for the overwhelming majority of the new seat that was in the old seat, we have to assume the SNP vote share was somewhere in the region of 5-8% short of what it would have been otherwise, based on how well the SNP did in other 2017 Labour seats. That means it will actually be a bit harder for Labour to take this one than it seems on the surface, albeit it shouldn’t be particularly hard at all on current polling anyway.
Something else that will count in Labour’s favour here is the size of that Conservative vote. A lot of that was already in the old constituency, but it’s about 2% higher than that one, due in large part to the inclusion of areas like Dalgety Bay and the removal of the villages north of Cowdenbeath. Given we’re expecting the Conservatives to suffer at this election anyway, that’s a little bit of an extra pool of tactical votes for Labour to draw on too. Add in the fact that an Alba run, however ill-fated, will naturally draw support away from the SNP, and something will have to go very wrong here for Labour not to win.
Key Details
Notional 2019 Winner:
🔵Conservative: Colin Clark (2019 candidate)
Majority: 3224 (6.8%)
Boundary Changes: Major & Name Change
Boundary Change Impact: Conservative win over SNP
Closest 2019 Equivalent: Gordon
Sitting MP Status: 🟡SNP Richard Thomson (Not Notional 2019 Winner) re-selected
2024 Candidates
SNP: Richard ThomsonLabour: Nurul Hoque AliConservative: Harriet CrossLib Dem: Conrad WoodReform UK: Kris Callander
Summary of Boundary Changes and Impacts
What was previously just the Gordon constituency was a slightly awkward urban-rural split seat, containing the northernmost portions of Aberdeen City which was too big to be contained within two seats at the time of the last boundary review. Those areas, consisting of most of the Bridge of Don and the Dyce, Bucksburn and Danestone wards, now sit fully within Aberdeen North. In their place comes a portion of inland Buchan, primarily the whole Turriff and district ward of Aberdeenshire, but also parts of the Central Buchan ward such as Maud, New Deer, Old Deer and Stuarfield.
Those changes take what was an SNP majority of 1.5% under the old boundaries, the fourth smallest in the country, and flip it to a Conservative seat. Had that been the case in 2019, we can assume former Gordon MP Colin Clark would have been able to hold his seat. Instead, the notional “defending” candidate this time around for the Conservatives is Harriet Cross. She stood unsuccessfully for her party in both Aberdeen Donside and 9th on the North East list in the 2021 Holyrood election, as well as in the Banchory and Mid Deeside ward in the 2022 Aberdeenshire local elections. The SNP’s actually sitting MP, Richard Thomson, was re-selected by his party.
Notional 2019 Result
Commentary
This is the first of four “reversal” seats we’ll touch upon in this Battlegrounds series, where the boundary changes are significant enough to have changed who would have won the seat in 2019. The SNP had only very narrowly won this seat in its old form, and that was entirely down to those Aberdeen City components within the constituency. Stripping them out and turning it into a purely rural Aberdeenshire seat quite naturally plays in the Conservatives’ favour.
If only the Conservatives were doing badly in polling at the moment, this would certainly be a strong possibility for an SNP (notional) gain. However, with the SNP also really struggling, they aren’t exactly in a great position to overtake. Similar to a few seats we’ve discussed so far, and will discuss later in the series, although this used to be a Lib Dem stronghold, I’m not particularly convinced they’ve got enough ground game here anymore to get anywhere. Putting it another way, it’s just not mathematically possible for the Lib Dems to be on the national vote share they are polling and also be surging back in all of their old seats.
Key Details
Notional 2019 Winner:
🟡SNP: Karl Rosie (2019 candidate)
Majority: 2788 (5.3%)
Boundary Changes: Major
Boundary Change Impact: SNP win over Lib Dem
Closest 2019 Equivalent: Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross
Sitting MP Status: 🟠Lib Dem Jamie Stone Reselected (Not Notional 2019 Winner)
2024 Candidates
SNP: Lucy BeattieLabour: Eva KestnerConservative: Fiona FawcettLib Dem: Jamie StoneGreen: Anne ThomasAlba: Steve ChisholmReform UK: Sandra Skinner
Summary of Boundary Changes and Impacts
The changes to this constituency are absolutely huge, both in terms of geography and electorate. Under the rules in place the last time this constituency was drawn, it was given an exemption from meeting the usual electorate requirements due to its immense geographic size, easily the largest constituency in the UK. No such exemptions were possible under the rules for this review, to the deep unhappiness of many locals, which meant there had to be a massive expansion to the seat.
That involved a much bigger sweep of Ross-shire, including the Black Isle, Dingwall, Garve, Strathpeffer and Ullapool. This alone means it probably shouldn’t have continued to use simply “Easter Ross” as the name as whilst, sure, it’s missing the westernmost portions of Ross-shire, it’s still, uhh, most of it! Add in the fact that it’s got just the teensiest little smidge of Inverness-shire around Beauly and Kirkhill, and as impersonal as it was, “Highland North” probably was a bit more accurate as a name.
This had been the second most marginal seat in the country under its old form, with a 0.6% advantage for the Lib Dems over the SNP. That’s completely swamped under the expansion, meaning the notional 2019 MP would actually have been the SNP’s Karl Rosie (or, perhaps, Ian Blackford, whose seat disappears entirely; Rosie is a councillor who since defected to Alba). The notional defender this time around for the SNP is instead Lucy Beattie, who seems to be a fresh face in this electoral cycle. The Lib Dems’ actually sitting MP, Jamie Stone, was re-selected by his party.
Notional 2019 Result
Commentary
Another of our “reversal” seats, I think it’s important to understand just what I mean when I say the Lib Dems’ 2019 majority was “swamped” by the boundary changes. The Boundary Commission estimate an absolutely staggering 28,249 voters were added to the constituency, increasing its size by 60%. Accounting for turnout, the notional figures here assume that to be a mighty 21,263 actual votes. That’s an unbelievable 68% increase.
Under the old boundaries, the Lib Dem majority was 204 votes. For the other Lib Dem to SNP notional flip on new boundaries, some people may quibble that had those boundaries actually existed, voters would have taken that into account for tactical voting, and that’s a fair point though not how notionals work. Not so here – the notional SNP share is just too big for us to reasonably expect voters inclined to vote tactically would have handed the Lib Dems a victory, given they barely did so on the old boundaries.
That said, especially given how massive the additional chunk of voters are, I’m actually surprised to see how tight this marginal is estimated to be. The good folk doing the notionals have, not unreasonably, assumed a very large proportion of the Lib Dem vote from the old Ross, Skye and Lochaber has transferred over to this seat. I think that’s a fair assumption. Although Holyrood seats are usually smaller, the Scottish Parliament’s Caithness, Sutherland and Ross seat is actually bigger. It already contained more of Wester Ross than this new Westminster seat, though not the Black Isle or Dingwall, and the Lib Dems gave that a fair shake in 2021, so we know there will be some Lib Dem form for campaigning outwith the CSER they won in 2019.
Crucially though, this is a level of marginality that will be very easy for the Lib Dems to overcome at an election where the SNP are expected to do badly. What I said in the previous seat, and as I’ve written previously notwithstanding, the Lib Dem national share is basically meaningless. Where the party shines is in absolutely entrenching itself in a very small number of seats, even as they allow their vote to wither everywhere else. It doesn’t matter one bit to the Lib Dems if losing some of their 2019 Brexit boost in dozens of Central Belt seats costs them 2-4% of the national vote, if instead they’ve absolutely inundated every house in this seat with campaign material, and that’s exactly what I guarantee you they’ll have done here.
Key Details
Notional 2019 Winner:
🟠Lib Dem: Christine Jardine
Majority: 2888 (5.2%)
Boundary Changes: Minor
Boundary Change Impact: Same Winner
Closest 2019 Equivalent: Edinburgh North and Leith
Sitting MP Status: Reselected
2024 Candidates
SNP: Euan HyslopLabour: Michael DavidsonConservative: Alastair ShieldsLib Dem: Christine JardineGreen: James PuchowskiReform UK: Otto InglisLiberterian: Tam Laird
Independent: David HenryIndependent: Nick Hornig
Summary of Boundary Changes and Impacts
Relatively mild changes to this seat, losing the Muirhouse area but gaining Craigleith, Dean Village and an area around the Orchard Road. Departing from the bounds of the old seat chips away at the Lib Dem majority a little bit, reducing it from 6.9%. Christine Jardine, the sitting Lib Dem MP, was re-selected by her party.
Notional 2019 Result
Commentary
We finish this entry up with another SNP-Lib Dem marginal, though this one remains in Lib Dem hands even after boundary changes. Effectively, the only reason there are mild changes here are because the constituency loses one area that’d have had intensive Lib Dem leafleting in 2019 and gains some that wouldn’t. The impact is minor enough as it is, and those homes won’t go ignored this time around. If the SNP were doing well and the Lib Dems especially badly, this would be the kind of majority the SNP could overcome. In reality, they haven’t got a hope.
As I noted for the seat above, the Lib Dems cling onto their few Scottish seats like limpets, and they’ve been furiously digging into this part of the city for years now. The only slightly smaller Holyrood Edinburgh Western seat had a chunky swing towards the party in 2021, to the extent Alex Cole-Hamilton is able to boast the largest number of votes to ever accrue to a single constituency candidate in the history of the Scottish Parliament. I’d humble him slightly by pointing out those will be largely party votes, as demonstrated by their similar 2022 dominance in the City of Edinburgh council wards covering the seat, but that’s just another reason for Christine Jardine to sleep very soundly knowing she’s unlikely to get the boot this year.
The midpoint of this series will go live tomorrow (the 19th). Given it contains one of the seats that’s gotten the most attention this election, make sure you check back then to see what’s going on!
If you find this or other Ballot Box Scotland output useful and/or interesting, and you can afford to do so, please consider donating to support my work. I love doing this, but it’s a one-man project and takes a lot of time and effort. All donations, no matter how small, are greatly appreciated and extremely helpful.
(About Donations)
