Ward Profile
Cause of By-Election
Scotland’s barrage of council by-elections continues in Falkirk South, where Labour Councillor Euan Stainbank has resigned following his election as MP for Falkirk. Stainbank was only first elected as a Councillor in 2022, and his election to Parliament makes him the youngest serving Scottish MP.
Ward Details
Falkirk South is one of 9 wards in Falkirk, and elects 3 councillors at a full election. As you’d expect it covers the southern portion of Falkirk itself, including the town centre, Bantaskin, Woodlands, Tamfourhill, and the neighbouring village of Hallglen. There were some quite significant boundary changes in 2022, losing the Camelon and Carmuirs areas but gaining the town centre and Bantaskin, as well as one of its councillors.
For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is almost entirely within the Falkirk West constituency, with only one small rural district outside it. That has been an SNP seat since 2007, having previously been held by the Independent MSP Dennis Canavan, a former Labour MP that the party foolishly banned from selection in 1999. At the UK Parliament it’s part of the Falkirk constituency that obviously returned to Labour hands in this year’s election, having been SNP since their 2015 landslide.
Electoral History
The pattern of representation here shows the same seat distribution for each of the two elections fought under the different boundaries. On the original formulation, Labour took two seats, and the SNP and Conservatives took one each. In 2012, one of the original Labour councillors stood unsuccessfully as an Independent, and the SNP incumbent lost out to a party colleague via the alphabet effect.
With the changeover to new boundaries in 2017, the seats shifted to one apiece for the SNP, Labour and Conservatives. Only the Conservative councillor directly returned from previously, but in the boundary shuffle a sitting Labour councillor from each of North and South swapped over. Said councillor in South resigned shortly before the end of the term, with the SNP winning the resulting by-election, before the full 2022 election brought a completely new slate of councillors for the same parties. At that election, the SNP’s by-election councillor was again alphabet effected out of their seat.
Remember when looking at these votes that there was a significant redrawing of the ward in 2017; the Falkirk North ward the new additions came from was very strongly SNP, so 2007 and 2012 results on current boundaries might have been less strong for Labour.
Councillors and Key Stats
3 Councillors, in order elected:
🟡SNP: Lorna Binnie
🔵Conservative: Sarah Patrick
🔴Labour: Euan Stainbank
Change vs 2017: No change
Turnout: 46.3%
Electorate: 13395
Valid: 9106 (98.4%)
Spoiled: 102 (1.6%)
Quota: 1527
Candidates
🟡SNP: Lorna Binnie
🔵Conservative: Sarah Patrick
🟡SNP: Emma Russell
🔴Labour: Euan Stainbank
🟢Green: Hunter Thomson
⚪Independent: Richard Wilson
First Preferences
Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Candidate Preferred
By-Election
Candidates
This time around we’ve got the Holyrood 5 plus current regulars Reform UK, as well as an Independent. Most of the candidates here stood somewhere else in Falkirk in the 2022 locals; the Conservatives in Bonnybridge and Larbert; the Reform UK candidate stood for UKIP in Grangemouth; and both the Greens and Lib Dem candidates stood in Carse, Kinnaird and Tryst.
🔴Labour: Claire Aitken
🟡SNP: Carol Anne Beattie
🔵Conservative: David Grant
🟣Reform UK: Stuart Martin
🟠Lib Dem: Sean McCay
⚪Independent: Sharron McKean
🟢Green: Tom McLaughlin
Analysis
As is so often the case for Central Belt by-elections at the moment, this is pretty much an open and shut case of “Labour should win.” Although the actual two-candidate contest in 2022 would have been between the SNP and Conservatives, Labour were a bit below 5% away from being the ones to face off against the SNP. If we eliminate the Conservatives instead anyway, Labour then end up about that far (4.5%) short of beating the SNP. Those are extremely easy margins for Labour to overturn at the moment, so I’d be pretty shocked if they didn’t.
Prediction
Likely Labour.
2022 Results (Detailed Data)
Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
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