Ward Profile
Cause of By-Election
As we gear up for what is likely to be a fair spate of council by-elections as, presumably, most if not all of the many councillors (18 by my reckoning) just elected as MPs resign their council seats, we’ve unfortunately got a much sadder vote to get past first. Stuart Borrowman, a long serving Independent councillor for West Lothian’s Armadale and Blackridge ward, sadly died in May.
Borrowman was an interesting character, first elected in 2003 for the SNP in the old First Past the Post Easton Ward, which covered the east of Armadale and a slice of western Bathgate. A senior figure in John Swinney’s staff during part of his ill-fated original tenure as leader, he had a very public falling out with the party, which led to his standing as an Independent at every following election. Despite his prior affiliations, he was open about his intentions to vote No in the 2014 referendum.
Ward Details
Armadale and Blackridge is one of 9 wards in West Lothian, and elects 3 councillors at a full election. You’d never believe it from the name, I know, but the primary components of this ward are Armadale and Blackridge, the former being about six times larger in population terms. It also includes the smaller villages of Torphichen and Westfield. There haven’t been any boundary changes to this ward since it was created, meaning it retains its charmingly doglike shape.
For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is entirely within the Linlithgow constituency, which has been SNP held since they gained it from Labour in 2011. In the UK Parliament it’s within the new Bathgate and Linlithgow constituency which Labour won last month. The prior Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency had been SNP since their 2015 landslide.
Electoral History
On the surface, absolutely no change whatsoever in this ward, with the SNP, Labour and Borrowman winning a seat at every election since STV was brought in. Underlying these though we had a few personnel changes. The original SNP councillor Isabel Hutton was disqualified for not showing up in early 2015, and was replaced by her party colleague Sarah King at the resulting by-election. That was also contested by Labour candidate Andrew McGuire, who would go on to replace the outgoing councillor from his party in 2017.
Come 2022, there was another shift as King was replaced by new SNP councillor Lynda Kenna. McGuire quit Labour earlier this year citing a “toxic atmosphere”, temporarily giving this ward two Independents until Borrowman’s sad passing.
At his first outing in the ward, Borrowman had a very respectable share indeed for an Independent, placing just a smidge ahead of Labour, but more substantially behind the SNP. At every election following however he was immensely, unchallengeably popular, winning a substantial majority of the vote in 2012. It’s just not very common for Independents in the Central Belt to do this well, so he was clearly very well-liked by his constituents.
Looking at the other parties, there’s obviously a big spike when Borrowman wasn’t on the paper in the 2015 by-election, but otherwise the general trend over those years was pretty much in line with national trends. The SNP relatively stable, Labour down before a mild recovery in 2022, and the Conservatives surging in 2017.
Councillors and Key Stats
3 Councillors, in order elected:
⚪Independent: Stuart Borrowman
🟡SNP: Lynda Kenna
🔴Labour: Andrew McGuire
Change vs 2017: No change
Turnout: 40.4%
Electorate: 13162
Valid: 5256 (98.9%)
Spoiled: 58 (1.1%)
Quota: 1315
Candidates
⚪Independent: Stuart Borrowman
🟢Green: Sophie Brodie
🟤Independence for Scotland: John Hannah
🟡SNP: Lynda Kenna
🟠Lib Dem: Helen MacKenzie
🔴Labour: Andrew McGuire
🔵Conservative: Chris Terry
First Preferences
Votes Excluding Independent (Double-Distributed)
Note: Given Borrowman’s incredible popularity, it seemed useful to give a clearer indication of how the votes look if he is eliminated and his second preferences re-distributed. In this case I’ve done what I’ve dubbed a “double-distribution”, where I assume that most of the first preference only voters would actually have backed someone else if he hadn’t been on the ballot at all. I simply further re-distribute the non-transfers in the same proportion to his actual transfers. I’m a bit dubious about the Green share, which would have been the second strongest result in West Lothian if this was the reality, but that is what the second preferences said!
Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Party Preferred
By-Election
Candidates
It’s the full Holyrood 5 for this one, plus Reform UK and the Independence for Scotland Party. The latter have the only fully returning candidate, having stood in this ward in 2022. Conservative Douglas Smith is also a bit of a familiar face as he stood in the 2022 by-election for Broxburn, Uphall and Winchburgh. The Reform candidate stood in the Livingston constituency last month, which oddly isn’t the one that covers this bit of West Lothian. Otherwise, everyone else is a completely new candidate this time around.
I’m pretty sure this is only the second time that Reform UK have stood in a local election at all in Scotland, after the North Lanarkshire’s Murdostoun by-election in 2021. They certainly completely sat the full 2022 local elections out. This may be a sign of the party starting to get serious about Scotland after a positive result last month.
However, remember that although they stood in every constituency in the General Election, they had to ship in 8 of their 57 candidates from England. That option isn’t available for local elections, where you need some form of connection (usually residency, but things like employment work too) to the council area you are standing in. What has so far been a very limited activist base in Scotland may therefore present a challenge for finding candidates for other local elections going forward, but we’ll see.
🟡SNP: Keith Barclay
🟠Lib Dem: Douglas Butler
🟤Independence for Scotland: John Hannah
🔴Labour: Susan Manion
🟣Reform UK: David McLennan
🟢Green: Adam Rafferty
🔵Conservative: Douglas Smith
Analysis
Borrowman’s absolute dominance would make a by-election elsewhere in the UK hard to say anything meaningful about, but thankfully in Scotland we get that juicy data that allows me to perfectly re-calculate results based on preferences. Doing so in this case shows Labour winning over the SNP, albeit with a relatively small lead.
If times were good for the SNP, I’d mark this out as either a tossup or perhaps a lean for Labour. However, times are really not good for the SNP, and much better for Labour. As such, I therefore reckon they have a very good chance at restoring this ward to the 2022 status quo of one SNP, one Labour, on Independent, albeit only because their original councillor resigned from the party. I’m not going to go as far as saying there’s no chance for the SNP, but I would be surprised.
Prediction
Likely Labour.
2022 Results (Detailed Data)
Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
Two-Candidate Preferred
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