By-Election Preview: Kilmarnock North (East Ayrshire) 20th of February 2025

Ward Profile

Cause of By-Election

Continuing our run of early in year by-elections, we’re off to Kilmarnock North. This is our second trip to Kilmarnock in relatively short order, having had a by-election in neighbouring Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse just in November. Sadly however this is because Labour councillor Maureen McKay passed away late last year. She’d been leader of the Labour group on the council, and had been serving for 21 years, having first been elected for the old single member Dunlop and Stewarton East ward in 2003.

Ward Details

Kilmarnock North is one of 9 wards in East Ayrshire, and elects 3 councillors at a full election. Covering the north of Kilmarnock (shockingly), it takes in what I’ve definitely got mapped as Knockinlaw and Onthank, whilst OpenStreetMap reckons the westernmost portion is Altonhill. Minor boundary changes in 2017 transferred everything between Glasgow Road and the Kilmarnock and Craufurdland Waters to Kilmarnock East and Hurlford, only affecting a few residential streets.

For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is entirely within the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley constituency which the SNP have held since they gained the prior Kilmarnock and Loudoun version from Labour in 2007. At the UK Parliament it’s within the Kilmarnock and Loudoun seat that Labour gained from the SNP in July, having been SNP for the period since their 2015 landslide.

Electoral History

But for a blip in 2017, this ward would have had the same partisan representation at every election: two SNP, one Labour. There was a fair turnover in councillors though, as Willie Coffey’s election as SNP MSP in 2007 saw party colleague Andrew Hershaw replace him at the next full election; somewhat oddly, unlike some other colleagues, Coffey didn’t resign from one of his two same-day wins. Hershaw himself sadly passed and was replaced in a March 2014 by-election by another SNP councillor, Elaine Cowan.

Cowan was the casualty of the Conservative surge in 2017, when Ian Grant replaced her. Grant himself was chucked by the Conservatives a few months before the 2022 election, standing unsuccessfully as an Independent, as Cowan mounted a return alongside an SNP newcomer.

Looking at the voting pattern over the period, and if you discount the (pre-referendum) 2014 by-election it tells a relatively consistent story for the SNP, which is of a gentle decline in vote share over the period. That’s similar to what they experienced in the neighbouring ward, although starting from a higher point, and is in contrast to consistent growth in support nationally. As I said with KWC, I wonder if the fact the SNP started so strong in Kilmarnock meant they had nowhere left to go but down.

In another parallel with KWC, Labour were overtaken as the second party in 2017 by the resurgent Conservatives. That was short lived however, not least due to those internal ructions that led to their councillor standing as an Independent in 2022, as Labour pulled back into second. Not uncommonly for Killie, note that the Greens only ever stood in the 2014 by-election, and the ward hasn’t previously seen hide nor hair of a Lib Dem.

Councillors and Key Stats

3 Councillors, in order elected:
🟡SNP: Elaine Cowan
🔴Labour: Maureen McKay
🟡SNP: David Richardson
Change vs 2017: +1 SNP, -1 Conservative
Turnout: 40.4%
Electorate: 9748
Valid: 3882 (98.7%)
Spoiled: 53 (1.3%)
Quota: 971

Candidates

🟡SNP: Elaine Cowan
Independent: Ian Grant
🔵Conservative: Allan MacDonald
Alba: Wendy MacDonald
🔴Labour: Maureen McKay
🟡SNP: David Richardson

First Preferences
Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Candidate Preferred

By-Election

Candidates

A reasonably busy ballot for this one, as the whole Holyrood 5 put in an appearance in this ward for the first time ever. They’re joined by Reform UK and two Independents. Of the candidates, the Conservative is the same as stood here in 2022, and his predecessor Ian Grant is also re-standing as an Independent. The Conservative also stood in November’s Kilmarnock by-election, as did the Lib Dem and the other Independent, who is something of a perennial candidate by this point.

🟢Green: Finlay Affleck
🟡SNP: Caroline Barton
Independent: Ian Grant
🟣Reform UK: Sandra Kirkwood
🔵Conservative: Allan MacDonald
🔴Labour: Greg MacKenzie
🟠Lib Dem: Lee Manley
Independent: Stephen McNamara

Analysis

Although this is a very strong ward for the SNP in first preference terms, after transfers they still only beat Labour by 10%, right at the upper edge of traditional marginality. Around about the General Election, I’d have therefore pegged this as “Likely” Labour. A few months ago, I’d have gone for “Lean” Labour. A matter of weeks ago, I’d have hedged my bets and gone for “Labour-SNP Tossup”. Now, however? Sticking my neck out with a “Lean SNP”.

A 5% swing is absolutely not outwith the realms of possibility for Labour at the moment. They got 5.7% in Partick East and Kelvindale, for example. The problem is that although possible, that’s been an outlier in recent months. Most of their after-transfers swings have been a fair bit below 5%. In neighbouring Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse what looks like a chunky 8.1% swing on first preferences shrunk to 3.7% after transfers. That was fine there, a ward Labour had a notional 2022 lead in anyway. It wouldn’t be enough here.

Adding to Labour’s difficulties on that front are the presence of Reform. They’ve been creaming off Labour votes across a lot of recent by-elections, and there hasn’t been a phenomenal willingness on the part of those voters to then give Labour a later preference. If Labour only got a 3.7% swing in a neighbouring ward by-election that didn’t have a Reform  candidate, 5% in one that does looks like a much taller order.

It’s important to emphasise what a “Lean” prediction is, as too many people read election predictions as a binary, black and white statement that a party will or will not win. Not so. I think the SNP are the most likely winners here, but not the runaway favourites. Labour can and have won by-elections like this recently, and they could well do so here. If Labour do win this I won’t be shocked, it’ll merely be a case of them achieving a stronger than recent averages result. Nonetheless, given the SNP’s recent woes it’s notable to parse them as the most likely winner at all, no matter how marginal that call is.

Prediction

Lean SNP.

2022 Results (Detailed Data)

Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences

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