Background
It’s nice and quiet on the Scottish by-election front these days, with a good few weeks between outings. This month’s solo vote took us to West Dunbartonshire’s Clydebank Waterfront, where SNP councillor James McElhill had resigned for health reasons. This gives us a complete set of Clydebank by-elections in one year, following on from Clydebank Central and the Kilpatrick ward by-elections in 2024.
Previewing this I had noted that the turning of the tide against Labour lately meant this was likely to go the SNP’s way. They had an absolute majority of the vote in 2022 and whilst some decline would be expected, Labour have also been losing out and are completely incapable of flipping nearly 10% margins in the SNP’s favour at the moment.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
🟡SNP: Kevin Crawford
Change vs 2022 (notional): SNP Hold
Change vs vacating: SNP Hold
Turnout: 25.3% (-16.7)
Electorate: 11657
Valid: 2050 (98.7%)
Spoiled: 38 (1.3%)
Quota: 1459
3 Continuing Councillors:
Labour: Daniel Lennie
SNP: Lauren OxleyLabour: June McKay
Candidates
🟢Green: Eryn Browning
🟡SNP: Kevin Crawford
âš«Alba: Kristopher Duncan
đź”´Labour: Maureen McGlinchey
🟤Family: Andrew Muir
🟣Reform UK: David Smith
đźź Lib Dem: Cameron Stewart
🔵Conservative: Brian Walker
First Preferences
First Preference History
I was once again spot on with my call here, but the SNP took an absolute thumping nonetheless. Until very recently a first preference crash of 17% would have, by rights, doomed them. The fact Labour have completely and utterly blown it though saved them, as we’ll see at the transfers section. It’s nonetheless a share that, with the spread of votes elsewhere, would easily see the SNP with two seats at a full election. In addition, poor as this is, always remember with the SNP that their voters are relatively unlikely to turn out for by-elections, and that this ward hadn’t previously had other pro-Independence options.
Labour’s own crashing share was only a little bit less severe, taking them to their worst yet and leading to them being narrowly pipped by Reform UK. This is the first Scottish by-election where they have come second, a truly stunning outcome. This will heap further misery on an embattled Anas Sarwar, a man that last week was using his voice to say he was going to fight and win next year’s election, but couldn’t prevent his face from saying “thanks for coming to the wake for my hopes and dreams”.
Moving down the ballot, nobody else got what would be at (undemocratic) deposit-having elections a deposit-holding share. The Lib Dems came pretty close though, with a creditable share in an area they have no historic presence but actually campaigned in for the first time in decades. I wouldn’t otherwise have expected them to place fourth in Clydebank, though it’s not entirely surprising the Conservatives did this badly.
What I might have expected is the Greens to place fourth – not with a particularly brilliant share, but what I’ve previously termed a “modest but respectable” 4-5%. However, shortly after nominations closed, their candidate was suspended over sexual misconduct allegations, bringing an end to any possible campaigning and leading to voters (rightly) taking their vote elsewhere; the remainder will be voters who were just completely unaware. Even so, it says something about how awfully the Conservatives did that the Greens came so close to beating them even in the circumstances.
Bringing up the rear we have Alba and the Family party. This result is simply further proof that Alba are a completely spent force. The SNP share is down almost a third. The Greens had to abandon candidate and campaign. This was one of the most strongly Pro-Independence areas in 2014. To still not even get 2% of the vote in that context is grim for them. You have to be a complete and utter moron to believe polling putting them on 7%, and this vindicates my decision to ignore it. Completing a whole set of negative swings for returning parties, the Family party were down two-thirds of their support in relative terms.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
The SNP’s starting position here was effectively unbeatable, given recent by-election transfer patterns. Even if Labour could overtake to get into second ahead of Reform, they simply wouldn’t get the transfers. They’ve been struggling to get even 25% of Reform’s terminal transfers, and given the SNP get some of them too, there was simply no way that could pad out their support enough.
It didn’t even come to that. They failed to make up the difference, with a surprising number of Lib Dem votes going Reform and leaving Labour 0.6% adrift at the second-to-last stage. That gives us our first SNP versus Reform head-to-head, and in the worst possible council for it: it would have been useful to be able to re-calculate an SNP vs Labour contest for comparative purposes, and every other council in the country I’d be able to do so. Alas, the Council I grew up under lets me down with hand counts. A rough estimate based on recent Reform to Labour terminal transfer rates suggests a final SNP lead over Labour of something like 9%; barely any narrower than 2022’s 9.5%.
With it therefore coming down to the SNP or Reform, Labour votes mostly didn’t transfer but those that did went two-to-one to the SNP. That shouldn’t be a surprise and speaks to the challenge for Labour: certainly, Reform are nibbling on their vote rather more than might be the case down South, but at the end of the day their voters do still prefer the SNP overall. That’s a warning sign that if Reform keep surging in the polls, some 2024 Labour voters may very well see the SNP as the means of stopping Reform, rather than seeing Labour as the means of stopping the SNP.
There’s no sugar coating it: this is a catastrophic outcome for Labour. I often and strongly advise against reading too much into a single by-election, but whilst this is the first Reform UK first time in second place up here, it’s a culmination of a trend. Reform have been growing in strength and threat to Labour’s position over the past few by-elections across the Central Belt. They’ve got just under a year now to try and turn this around.
Detailed Results
As this was counted by hand, no detailed data is available.
The next by-election due up is a big one: it’s the Scottish Parliament’s Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. After a result like this one, I expect Labour to be extremely worried about their prospects of making a gain from the SNP. Indeed, the grapevine has it that at least some Labour sources are floating the idea they may place third behind Reform UK there too.
Whilst I don’t expect all that many voters in that constituency to see this result, rather more may see a media narrative that is partly shaped by it. If that starts to look like “it’s the SNP vs Reform”, that’ll make things all the worse for Labour’s prospects.
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