This year’s Holyrood election was easily the most transformational since 2011. Even the great Scottish Conservative revival of 2016 doesn’t compare to a collapsing SNP vote, the bombshell entry of Reform UK, the current (i.e. in most recent national election) best Green performance anywhere in the world, and a Lib Dem recovery that all combined to give us a remarkably fractured parliament.
With local elections looming next year, change is soon going to sweep Scotland’s councils as well. Unlike England’s absolutely bonkers arrangements, Scotland actually has a consistent and coherent approach to local government elections: we have them all on the same day, and every seat is up for grabs.
Local results have typically matched up relatively well with the Holyrood list vote, which means that it should be possible to read at least something in the runes of May’s results. This piece isn’t intended to replace my Party Profiles which will go out as normal ahead of the election, but to give an early finger in the wind overview of what we can expect if – if! – the electorate takes a similar shape next year.
SNP
Vote Share History (Holyrood List and Local Elections)
Local Election Candidates Nominated and Councillors Elected
Analysis
The SNP’s post-2011 dominance of Scottish politics never quite transferred to local elections, as the consistent substantial gap between their Holyrood and Local vote shares indicates. In large parts of more rural Scotland, including the Highlands, Aberdeenshire and Angus, some of that comes down to competing with very successful local Independents for votes.
That doesn’t explain the whole gap however, with urban Central Belt councils generally falling notably short too. In Glasgow for example, generally seen as the biggest prize, there was nearly 10% between their 2021 and 2022 results. In those cases, we may be able to point to the substantially lower turnout, which due to the demographics of who does and doesn’t turn out affects the SNP more than any other party bar the Greens.
The gap did nonetheless narrow over the years, reaching a record local share in 2022. Yet having suffered their first true Holyrood setback since 2011, there’s quite a lot to worry the SNP about next May. Whilst the much reduced turnout for this Holyrood election may mean there’s less far to fall compared to previous years, a reasonable expectation would be for them to roughly match their Holyrood result, which would entail losing quite a few councillors.
In the likes of the Borders and Edinburgh, expect to see the emergence of a few more wards that don’t have SNP representation at all. In wards with multiple SNP representatives, their biggest threat is likely to be the Greens, especially in the big cities. Clever voter management could just about still give the SNP two councillors on 27% even when the Greens are on around 10%, by splitting the SNP first preferences evenly, but that’s relying on voters paying a lot of attention to materials.
I’ve also heard on the grapevine that there may be some difficulty finding enough candidates in some parts of the country. That may sound surprising given they are still by some way Scotland’s largest party by membership, but remember that in 2022 they failed to find candidates in a handful of mainland wards, and in some other wards (e.g. Buckie or North West Dumfries) did themselves out of seats for failure to stand a second candidate.
Reform UK
Vote Share History (Holyrood List)
Analysis
New kids on the Holyrood block, Reform UK are yet to be truly tested at a full local election. In 2022 they didn’t stand a single candidate, which was hardly surprising given their paltry 0.2% result at Holyrood the year before. Their predecessor party, UKIP, did have some history of contesting local elections, but did poorly enough I’ve just omitted their local results entirely.
Based on their Holyrood results this year however, and having won two by-elections thus far with plenty of strong showings elsewhere, we should expect Reform to do well come May. Just like how they (narrowly) failed to win any constituencies this year however, it’s highly doubtful Reform are on track to be the largest party in any council. That continues to be a point of substantial divergence between Scotland and England.
Instead, Reform’s relatively evenly spread vote share should put them in contention to win a councillor in most mainland wards. The most obvious gaps are going to come from Edinburgh where they might even struggle to get beyond 5 seats, the Southside and Kelvin areas of Glasgow, and most of both East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire.
Overall, this illustrates how Reform UK are a very different beast to the Conservatives. They are going to easily win councillors in outer Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire wards that the Conservatives never broke into, whilst missing the leafy bits the Conservatives did. They also won’t turn up very many areas where they could reasonably expect to elect more than a single councillor.
That’s not to say there aren’t any such areas: if they replicated their recent Larkhall result, they’ll get two there. However, that’s an absolutely, uniquely, perfectly Reform leaning ward, and you’ll be able to count comparable wards on your fingers. They can’t even be reliably sure of it even within the boundaries of their best Holyrood constituency, as another recent by-election indicated.
In addition, transfer patterns thus far suggest that in a head-to-head scenario, such as might happen for the final seat in a ward, every other major party is more highly preferred by voters than Reform. Reform may also be on a downswing, especially with questions swirling around Farage’s finances, and even the loss of a couple of percentage points relative to Holyrood could seriously impact their chances.
Labour
Vote Share History (Holyrood List and Local Elections)
Local Election Candidates Nominated and Councillors Elected
Analysis
There’s no sugar coating just how dire the Holyrood results were for Labour: Anas Sarwar went from Scotland’s Next First Minister to sharing a distant second place with Malcolm Offord. Not only does he not get to pick out the curtains for Bute House, but he hasn’t even got to move over to the benches on the other side of the chamber.
Let’s start with a relative positive for Labour though: the voting system. Just like at Holyrood, Labour have been and are likely to again be saved from near wipeout by a voting system they never actually supported. So long as Labour can win 15-20% of the vote, a share they can still rely on exceeding across most of the Central Belt even on a bad day, they’ll secure a councillor in most wards. With 226 wards that had at least one councillor last time, their floor may not be too much below that.
Now, the negatives: that’s probably also their ceiling. With 282 councillors overall, that means 56 wards had a Labour double act. In the majority of those wards where there isn’t also a Conservative councillor, they’ll be extremely vulnerable to losing one of their seats to Reform, given the huge overlap between Labour doubles and strong Reform results.
And although I said most of their Central Belt wards will still return a Labour councillor, their scattering of more rural representatives are in much more trouble. Wards like Fochabers Lhanbryde (Moray), Forth and Endrick (Stirling) and Mid Galloway and Wigtown West (Dumfries and Galloway), some of which were completely accidental wins in any case, are almost certainly gone next year.
Probably the worst thing for Labour though is that they are going to actually have to make real choices about local administrations this term. Last term their utterly stupid, anti-democratic “no coalitions with the SNP or Conservatives” policy, implemented by Anas Sarwar over the heads of local councillors, went about as well as you’d expect. It led to chaos in some local authority areas (e.g. Edinburgh and South Ayrshire) and obvious but unspoken reliance on Conservative backing in others (e.g. Stirling and West Lothian).
They aren’t going to have the luxury of even paper-thin deniability this time. Don’t expect Reform groups to be as willing to be quiet partners as the Conservatives have been, content merely to keep the SNP out. In councils across the Central Belt, Labour will probably have to decide: do they facilitate or enter into administration with the SNP, or do they work with Reform instead?
Your average voter doesn’t pay a huge amount of attention to local administrations, sure, but this will all feed into wider political mood music. Just like their trying to avoid formal ties to either the SNP or Conservatives in 2022, there may not be a winning position for Labour here. Either they upset centre-left voters who find Reform abhorrent, or they further drive Pro-Union voters elsewhere.
Green
Vote Share History (Holyrood List and Local Elections)
Local Election Candidates Nominated and Councillors Elected
Analysis
Thus far, STV has not been particularly kind to the Scottish Greens. It gave them an earlier foot in the door that First Past the Post wouldn’t have, but it’s really not a very proportional form of PR. Even where they crossed the 5% mark that a typical PR system would grant seats under, such as in Aberdeen, Dundee, East Dunbartonshire or Midlothian, that didn’t translate to councillors in 2022. Add in the fact that their vote share has typically been weaker at local level, and that has limited their growth thus far.
Even so, 2022 was a major breakthrough for them. They almost doubled their number of councillors, and with 15 of the 35 outside of Glasgow and Edinburgh, that was their widest spread of representation as well. With a huge increase in their Holyrood support this year, something would have to go hugely wrong for them not to see similarly explosive growth next May.
Indeed, based on past performance, it seems likely they will enter double digits for the locals as well. Crossing 10% has the potential to really ramp up their local representation, because in a 4-member ward that’s halfway to a councillor, and in cases where that puts them ahead of a second SNP candidate, they can expect to benefit from a very large proportion of their transfers. There’s even a possibility, though a relatively small one, that they could come ahead of the Lib Dems.
Looking at where their votes were this year, they have very strong prospects of finally breaking onto Aberdeen and Dundee City Councils; it’s been a real failing of theirs that they hadn’t yet done so, but it’s not impossible they even win multiple councillors in each now. They should also add to their representation in places like the Borders, East Lothian and Stirling.
Beyond those areas, there’s real unpredictability. For example, they won 15% in the Paisley constituency. Assuming they can find candidates for all 5 wards there this time, and imagining they come close to replicating that (i.e. at least 12%), they could genuinely get anywhere between 0 and 5 councillors, depending on exactly how their vote is spread relative to other parties.
For all the expectations of further growth elsewhere, Glasgow and Edinburgh remain the ones to watch. Edinburgh has real potential to be the first council in Scotland with the Greens as the largest party, and potentially leading it. They already beat the SNP there at Holyrood, so can they do it again locally, and can they place ahead of the Lib Dems?
In Glasgow in 2022, they bucked their national trend by winning a higher share than at Holyrood the year before. If they did the same again, given the SNP’s tendency towards the opposite they could even be the largest party in Glasgow, a sentence that would have been unthinkable even three months ago. These are absolutely huge “ifs” though, so whilst both cities can expect larger Green contingents, and surely the first ever double Green representation in the likes of Langside and Leith Walk wards, there’s no guarantee of the first ever Green leads.
Conservative
Vote Share History (Holyrood List and Local Elections)
Local Election Candidates Nominated and Councillors Elected
Analysis
The Conservatives were the big losers at Holyrood this year, and they’ll very likely come away with that title next May as well. They may draw a tiny bit of comfort from their previous tendency to do better at local elections; the fact that 2022 bucked that trend probably has more to do with the specific circumstances of Boris Johnson’s government being in a slow collapse.
Even so, starting from their worst Holyrood result ever means that it’s possible they’ll have a record low share at council level too. It’s not unreasonable for the Conservatives to brace for the loss of half of their seats – not least because they’ve already lost a fair few of them to Reform defectors. In the Central Belt especially, expect most of the remaining Conservative councillors to give way to Reform representatives instead.
The only thing preventing the Central Belt from becoming a complete bloodbath for them is that they already lost a lot of their 2017 gains in 2022. It’s still going to be ghastly for them though. West Dunbartonshire was the only mainland council they failed to win anything in last time, and at minimum expect Glasgow to follow suit. East Dunbartonshire, North Lanarkshire, West Lothian and Midlothian are all also serious prospects for Conservative wipeouts.
They were the smallest party by number of councillors in Edinburgh at the last election, and will surely now place behind the other long-established parties in votes too. Reform only very narrowly beat them in votes in the capital however, and the Conservatives are both marginally more transfer friendly and have a more concentrated vote share which really helps under STV.
Outwith the Central Belt, Conservative prospects are marginally brighter, in large part due to having a lot more wards with a history of double representation. It won’t be fun for them to lose councillors across for example Aberdeenshire, Moray, and Perth and Kinross, but in most cases they’ll at least maintain representation in the ward and could remain in contention to actually lead the council, especially if we assume that Reform groups will prefer them to the SNP.
The glaring exception to the above will be the Highlands, where they didn’t win any councillors in the first two STV elections, before going on to win 10 in both 2017 and 2022. Their vote this year collapsed spectacularly in the Highland constituencies, from 23.5% to 6.8%, which was the major contributor to them going from 4 MSPs to just one across the wider region. Especially in the face of resurgent Lib Dems, this could be another area they simply evaporate in.
Lib Dem
Vote Share History (Holyrood List and Local Elections)
Local Election Candidates Nominated and Councillors Elected
Analysis
After the Greens, the Lib Dems were the biggest winners of the established Holyrood parties this year. After languishing on the same vote share for three elections in a row, and losing official party group status in 2021, they have a sizeable group and registered an increase in support in almost every constituency. They should certainly be able to look forward to further gains at local level, especially when you consider their trend of doing better in the locals than at Holyrood; the broadly quite affluent Lib Dem voter base tends to have high turnout.
What puts a very distinct cap on Lib Dem growth though is how their vote is distributed. The fact they nearly doubled their list vote this year was genuinely impressive, especially when you compare to their completely static Welsh counterparts. Yet in most of the country, they were still well below 10%, and most of the vote share growth came from just the 8 constituencies they saw an increase of over 10%.
This is where the Lib Dems are somewhat threatened by the Greens. In 2022, the fact the Green share was relatively well spread whilst the Lib Dem share was highly concentrated is how the latter could win more than double the number of seats on less than 1.5x the votes. As noted in the Green section though, if they are above 10% in a large number Central Belt and urban wards, that could translate to a lot of councillors. It’s therefore possible the Greens could overtake them nationwide for the first time.
Outside of Edinburgh and East Dunbartonshire, the Central Belt overall continues to be the party’s Achilles Heel. They failed to win an MSP in either Glasgow or Central Scotland and Lothians West, and it’s hard to imagine them gaining any councillors in the likes of Glasgow or North Lanarkshire. Elsewhere, for example in South Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, they may be playing more to hold on to what they have rather than make real gains.
At the same time, in some of their strongest areas the Lib Dems have almost certainly reached the limit of what they can achieve. In the 5 wards covered by Fife North East for example the Lib Dems already have two councillors in each. The same is true in the 3 wards covering the bulk of the Edinburgh North Western seat – in fact, they have 3 of the 4 in the Almond ward! Winning every single seat in a ward is a huge task, and it hasn’t yet happened for anyone, anywhere.
On the other hand, there’s nowhere within the Highlands that has a double Dem, nor in Argyll and Bute which has a lot of wards without any at all. Given their very strong growth in support across those areas, they may contribute the most to the party’s growth. The remainder of Edinburgh also has opportunities in wards like Fountainbridge and Craiglockhart where they could fill in gaps. With a very good Edinburgh result in 2022, it’s not impossible they end up winning the most votes there overall next May.
Finally, I’m always saying to keep an eye on the likes of Aberdeenshire and the Borders for the Lib Dems. Those are historic strongholds that they have yet to try and regain, and they haven’t meaningfully recovered at local level yet. Aberdeenshire in particular has two elections on the trot saw the Lib Dems winning councillors they wouldn’t have had the Conservatives or SNP stood additional candidates. Bolstered by the return of MSPs in the overlapping regions, perhaps this could be the election they start to turn that around.
Don't count your ballots before they're marked...
There are still nearly 10 months left to go until the local elections, of course, and a lot could change in that time. We know for sure that one thing will change on Monday: the Prime Minister. Will Andy Burnham help turn things around for Labour? Will he at least get a honeymoon, and if so, will it last all the way up until May? Only time will tell!
Hopefully we’ll start to get some Holyrood polling later this year which will allow us to get a better sense of what is going on. Unlike 2022 however, I won’t be commissioning any polling of my own; ultimately, local election polling just isn’t very accurate it seems, and it’d feel weird to crowdfund for a poll not actually about the election coming up.
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