South Scotland – 2016 Results and 2021 Candidates

Stretching from coast to coast, South is  includes all of both East and South Ayrshire, the Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway. It also covers most of East Lothian, a southern chunk of Midlothian around Penicuik and Gorebridge, plus the rural Clydesdale part of South Lanarkshire. The original 1999 version didn’t have the Kilmarnock area, instead having a part of North Ayrshire around Irvine, and it also had slightly less of the Midlothian and Clydesdale areas.

This is perhaps the region that best exemplifies how,  as much as AMS is an improvement over pure FPTP, it can still give just really geographically bizarre electoral areas. The eastern and western components of the region are pretty poorly linked to one another, bound only by the vague geography of being southern. One side looks to Edinburgh (and Newcastle), whilst the other connects with Glasgow (and Carlisle).

There are, at least, some demographic similarities, with the rural farming interior common to Galloway, Dumfriesshire and the Borders, mining was historically common to both Midlothian and Ayrshire, and fishing dominating coastal Galloway the same way it did Berwickshire.

By the end of the 20th century, Labour were the party to beat in Mid and East Lothian as well as the mining communities in Clydesdale and southern Ayrshire, whilst the Conservatives held sway over the more affluent town of Ayr itself, Dumfriesshire and Galloway. Completing the picture were the strongly Liberal Democrat Borders, rooted in David Steel’s remarkable 1965 by-election victory in Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles.

In the 1997 Conservative wipeout, Labour came to hold Dumfriesshire and Ayr, whilst the SNP nabbed the Galloway seat. That can feel like a surprise these days, with the south broadly being seen as the most strongly pro-Union part of the country, but voters have complex identities, which have shifted over time.

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

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

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

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

7 SNP (4 Constituency, 3 Regional)
6 Conservative (4 Constituency, 2 Regional)
3 Labour (2 Regional, 1 Constituency)

In constituency terms, Labour are in definite danger of losing East Lothian to the SNP based on recent polling, though they did manage a surprise increase in their majority in 2016. Meanwhile, all of the Conservative seats except the Borders are highly marginal, and any or all of them could flip if the SNP sustain their astonishing level of polling.

If constituencies do change hands, that would drive a lot of churn in the regional seats by itself, though Labour seem unlikely at the moment to be able to hold onto a total of three seats. The Greens don’t have much distance to make up compared to 2016 so could nab a seat here if they have a good day.

Though the Lib Dems are slightly more distant, and likely hampered by the fact this isn’t one of the regions they’ve funnelled money and activists into for Westminster, this is also one of their two best shots at growing their MSP group.