Highlands and Islands – 2016 Results and 2021 Candidates

The Highlands and Islands Region is a geographic behemoth, covering around half of Scotland’s land area. It includes all of the three Islands Councils – Orkney, Shetland and Western – and Highland, plus most of Argyll and Bute (the Lomond area is missing) and Moray (missing the area around Buckie).

Despite that tremendous geographic extent, this is by far the smallest region in terms of population. That isn’t a mere reflection of rurality, but rather partly down to the infamous Highland Clearances where landlords deliberately destroyed communities which had existed for centuries, sending them to the Lowlands or overseas to make way for sheep farming. This was not without strong resistance from many of the residents, with Land Reform becoming the key political priority by the late 19th century.

That the Liberals adopted that policy as their own would gain them long-lasting support, especially amongst crofters. They would also find strong support in the Northern Isles, although the Norse-descended, Scots speaking peoples of those islands differed greatly from the Gaels of the Highlands and Western Isles. Even at their lowest ebb in the 50’s when they had just 6 MPs across the UK, one of those was Orkney and Shetland. As they began to revive in the 60’s, this was first seen in Highland seats, and by the 90’s the freshly merged Liberal Democrats had become dominant in western and northern Highlands.

At the same time, the SNP tended to be very strong in Moray. They also had enough support across the region that, during the First Past the Post era of European Elections, their solitary MEP Winnie Ewing represented the region. Labour had pockets of support in Caithness, Sutherland and Inverness, and the two parties regularly battled it out for the Western Isles. Even when various strands of Liberalism were the strongest force in the Highlands, the region was often more politically diverse than the Central Lowlands.

5 Liberal Democrat (all Constituency)
4 SNP (2 Constituency, 2 Regional)
4 Labour (3 Regional, 1 Constituency)
2 Conservative (all Regional)

5 Liberal Democrat (all Constituency)
4 SNP (2 Constituency, 2 Regional)
3 Labour (2 Regional, 1 Constituency)
2 Conservative (all Regional)
1 Green (Regional)

6 SNP (4 Constituency, 2 Regional)
4 Liberal Democrat (all Constituency)
3 Labour (all Regional)
2 Conservative (all Regional)

9 SNP (6 Constituency, 3 Regional)
2 Liberal Democrat (all Constituency)
2 Labour (all Regional)
2 Conservative (all Regional)

7 SNP (6 Constituency, 1 Regional)
3 Conservative (all Regional)
2 Liberal Democrat (all Constituency)
2 Labour (all Regional)
1 Green (Regional)

With the SNP riding high in the polls and the Lib Dems being immovable objects in the Northern Isles, it may seem unlikely that there will be any changes to constituencies. However, shifting voting patterns since 2016 may still have two constituencies in play.

The Conservatives won the UK Parliament’s Moray constituency in 2017, and held it with a narrow majority in 2019. With slightly better polling or a strong local campaign, they may pull it off. It’s a similar story for the Lib Dems in Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, who hold the roughly equivalent Westminster seat of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.

We’re still more likely to see changes via the regional list seats, however. Labour are at serious risk of dropping to a single MSP in the region. If the SNP continue to poll strongly they could benefit, but they’ll be facing off against the Lib Dems who aren’t a million miles off winning a third seat in the region. By contrast, both the Conservatives and Greens are at relative “sweet spots” where unless there’s a much bigger shift in polling they should neither gain nor lose seats.