Ward Profile
Cause of By-Election
Oddly enough, the same day brings us two by-elections in wards that already had an extra poll in November last year. For this return to West Lothian’s Whitburn and Blackburn, it is in fact to replace the councillor elected last time around. In a peculiar turn of events, Labour councillor David Russell quit the seat he had won less than a year previously, and was also reported to have quit the party. No explanation for either decision was forthcoming. Mysterious!
As we’ve already had a by-election here, much of the below content is lifted directly from the previous preview.
Ward Details
Whitburn and Blackburn is one of 9 wards in West Lothian, and elects 4 councillors at a full election. You don’t need a degree in Scotland’s human geography to guess what this one covers, it’s right there in black and white (cue drum crash). The primary components of this are obviously Whitburn and Blackburn, but it also includes Greenrigg and Seafield. Locals also insist that East Whitburn is a separate village rather than simply east Whitburn, which I always found deeply irrational much to the amusement of a past Whitburn-born boyfriend. No West Lothian wards have had any boundary changes since they were drawn, so this remains perfectly comparable across elections.
For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is mostly within the Linlithgow constituency, which the SNP gained from Labour in 2011 with Seafield instead in Almond Valley, also an SNP seat held since that election; although they won the prior Livingston seat in 2007, the area of this ward was entirely within the older version of Linlithgow. At the UK Parliament it’s within the Labour held Bathgate and Linlithgow seat, having previously been split awkwardly down the middle of Blackburn between Linlithgow and Falkirk East to the west and Livingston to the east. Both of those prior constituencies were SNP gains from Labour in 2015.
Electoral History
A bit of an alternation between shapes of representation here. 2007 started with two for Labour and one each for the SNP and the local Action to Save St John’s Hospital. The latter managed to win three seats across West Lothian in 2007, a pretty decent result for a local single-issue party. However, they lost all of those in 2012, which meant the SNP picking up a second seat at their expense. With the Conservatives surging in 2017 the SNP dropped back down to a single seat, before reverting to the two:two Labour:SNP split in 2022, a split that Russell’s victory last November preserved.
The initial seat distribution makes sense when you see that Labour had roughly what they needed for two seats, whereas the SNP fell a bit short, creating exactly the sort of gap a localist party with a respectable share could squeak through. Then, with both Labour and the SNP gaining in 2012, that space just wasn’t there anymore for Action, especially given they’d lost a little bit of support in their own right.
Both 2017 and 2022 would deliver remarkable seat results in relation to vote shares. In 2017 the SNP took a vote lead for the first time and should have been able to win two, but I reckon the fact they inexplicably stood three candidates spread their vote too thin, which meant Labour winning the final seat by about 1.2%. Similarly, in 2022 the Conservatives were very close to quota, and usually when you get within a couple of percentage points, it’s plain sailing. However in this case they had so few other sources to pick up transfers from, the SNP’s second was able to pip them by not even 9 whole votes at the key stage.
Although both SNP and Labour support dropped in last year’s by-election, the SNP fell that bit harder and so Labour pulled back into the lead. This was also an early example of Reform almost completely displacing the Conservatives, and note too a pretty respectable showing for Independent candidate Thomas Lynch.
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
Labour: David Russell
Change vs 2022 (notional): Labour Hold
Change vs vacating: Labour Hold
Turnout: 20.7% (-16.7)
Electorate: 17247
Valid: 3542 (99.0%)
Spoiled: 35 (1.0%)
Quota: 1772
3 Continuing Councillors:
SNP: Jim DicksonLabour: George PaulSNP: Mary Robertson Dickson
Candidates
SNP: Aileen Brown
Lib Dem: Douglas Butler
Green: Cameron Glasgow
Conservative: Charles Kennedy
Independent: Thomas Lynch
Reform UK: David McLennanLabour: David Russell
First Preferences
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
By-Election
Candidates
It’s a relatively busy ballot for voters in this one, with all six of the current major Scottish parties as well as two Independents. A few of these candidates are direct returns from last year’s by-election: the Lib Dems and Reform both also contested a by-election in neighbouring Armadale and Blackridge last year, and Lynch is making a second Independent run. The only other returnee is the other Independent, who stood for Livingston South in 2022.
đźź Lib Dem: Douglas Butler
🟡SNP: Callum Cox
⚪Independent: Thomas Lynch
đź”´Labour: Samuel McCulloch
🟣Reform UK: David McLennan
⚪Independent: Eddie Millar
🔵Conservative: Reece Sinnott
🟢Green: Robbie Walker
Analysis
This one has the potential to be a really messy contest, with lots to watch out for. To begin with, Labour are likely to be under pressure for two reasons this time. Firstly there’s the fact that although they beat the SNP by 5.2% after transfers last year, since then their support in the polls has crashed by about 7%. The second problem is that whilst that isn’t necessarily fatal under a transferrable system, if they go to Reform as first preferences, they may not actually transfer back this time.
There’s a very good chance that Reform do substantially increase their share here. Last year I described this as the kind of ward likely to be demographically favourable for Reform, and that was borne out by the fact that out of 19 by-elections they contested last year with an average share of 11.4% of the vote, in this ward they got 16.3%, their fourth best share out of the lot. In by-elections this year they’ve averaged 15.7% of the vote, so I think it’s nailed on they’ll cross 20% now.
The next thing to watch then is how much further they take the Conservative share down. I think it’s all but given they drop below 5%, and I’d also be watching to see how they do compared to the Greens and Lib Dems. I don’t expect either of those parties to do well but they have recently typically had at least small upticks, and in several wards of this general type the Conservatives have placed behind or only just ahead of the Greens. If that sort of result materialises here too, that’s further bad news for their Central Scotland and Lothians West candidates in May. It also likely impacts Labour because last year, Conservative voters might still have transferred to them, whereas those that move to Reform may no longer want to do so.
Finally, pay attention to what happens to Lynch’s vote. With a second Independent on the ballot paper, the generalised “I don’t want to vote for a political party” vote will be split. However, his share last year was very creditable, which speaks to genuine presence. One thing I failed to really discuss in my results analysis was that he’d have been in serious contention for one of the four seats if his roughly 12% was replicated at a full election, as both Labour and the SNP would have to manage near-perfect splits between two candidates to keep both ahead of him. If he does well again, he could be on track for a seat in 2027.
All of the above said, it’s still the case that Labour and SNP voters still much prefer (by around 2:1 recently) one another to Reform. As such, even anticipating a very strong Reform share, they’d have to place quite substantially in first in order to win. I’m therefore inclined to see this as a tossup between Labour and the SNP.
Prediction
Labour-SNP Tossup.
2024 By-Election Results (Detailed Data)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
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