Ward Profile
Cause of By-Election
It’s another busy day for by-elections, as alongside one in Highland, Glasgow follows on from Aberdeenshire with a triple-bill. A fourth is due a couple of weeks later as well. In Maryhill this comes from Labour councillor Keiran O’Neill’s resignation, as he’s taking up a new job away from Glasgow. O’Neill was only elected for the first time in 2022, though he’d stood as a parliamentary candidate before that too.
Ward Details
Maryhill is one of 23 wards in Glasgow, and elects 3 councillors at a full election. This covers the bulk of the Maryhill area of the city, which had a brief period as its own burgh before being absorbed into the rapidly expanding city. The wider Maryhill area extends along the whole of Maryhill road, but this ward doesn’t quite get as close to the city centre as that. It covers the old core of Maryhill, as well as the Summerston, Gilshochill and Wyndford areas, plus a western portion of North Kelvinside. This was a very significant 2017 redrawing of what had previously been the Maryhill and Kelvin ward, which included Cadder, Kelvindale and Kelvinside, but not that little bit of North Kelvinside.
For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is mostly within the Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn constituency that the SNP gained from Labour in 2016, though the North Kelvinside portion is within Kelvin which was a 2011 win for them. At the UK Parliament it’s within the Glasgow North constituency that Labour regained this year after the SNP had held it from 2015 onwards.
Electoral History
Due to the significant boundary changes, I’m considering this Maryhill to only have come into existence in 2017; pretending that a ward with Kelvindale and Kelvinside in it would be politically comparable to this version without would be absurd. At both elections since it was created this ward returned the same pattern of councillors: two SNP and one Labour. In 2022 only one of those, Franny Scally, was a returning councillor, with a new councillor taking up the second SNP seat and O’Neill being the victor of the two fresh Labour faces.
The SNP started with a substantial lead over Labour in 2017, and with nobody else meaningfully in the running that easily secured them their two seats. A significant narrowing of the gap arose in 2022, but not to the level where Labour were close to a second seat, with the Greens instead placing the distant runner up (sorry Gwen!) for the final seat. At just about halfway to quota however, this was their second strongest result not to lead to a councillor in Glasgow that year.
Councillors and Key Stats
3 Councillors, in order elected:
🔴Labour: Keiran O’Neill
🟡SNP: Franny Scally
🟡SNP: Abdul Bostani
Change vs 2017: 5663
Turnout: 38.3%
Electorate: 15292
Valid: 5663 (96.6%)
Spoiled: 201 (3.4%)
Quota: 1416
Candidates
🟡SNP: Abdul Bostani
🟤Freedom Alliance: Damian Clark
🟠Lib Dem: Derek Dunnington
🔵Conservative: Heather Macleod
🟢Green: Amy Marquez
🔴Labour: Keiran O’Neill
🟡SNP: Franny Scally
🔴Labour: Gwen Wall
First Preferences
Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Candidate Preferred
By-Election
Candidates
All three of the Glasgow by-elections on this day have seven candidates, consisting of the Holyrood 5, Reform UK, and A N Other. For this ward that’s Alba. Quite a few returning faces here; the SNP candidate stood for Dennistoun in 2022, the Green in Cardonald, the Conservative in Anderston, City and Yorkhill, and finally the Lib Dem in the Hillhead by-election earlier this year. Both he and the Alba candidate also stood for Glasgow North at the General Election.
Labour candidate Marie Garrity meanwhile is a returning councillor: she represented East Central from 2017 to 2022, and prior to that a term in Baillieston. She stood down in 2022, but seems to have decided to make another run at it. I seem to have the phrase “elect socialist fighters” in my head in association with “Marie and Frank” so although I can’t find the evidence these days, I’m pretty sure she and her 2017 ward colleague Frank Docherty were the duo who had a bizarre… techno mix(?) election video made about them in 2017, which is a fun little bit from niche Twitter brain rot archives.
⚫Alba: Nick Durie
🟡SNP: Lorna Finn
🔴Labour: Marie Garrity
🟢Green: Ellie Gomersall
🔵Conservative: Susan McCourt
🟣Reform UK: David McGowan
🟠Lib Dem: Daniel O’Malley
Analysis
Of the Glasgow by-elections, this one is by far the most interesting. It’s the only one where the 2022 leader for a single seat is the SNP, which means it’s one where Labour are on the hunt for a notional gain rather than hold. Their performances lately have been a bit mixed: winning those notional holds, but not always managing to convert where they were behind even on theoretically easily overturned margins. I’d still mark them out as favoured here because at just 3.4% they don’t have much of a gap to close, but I’m going for Likely rather than making an outright win prediction.
The other bit of this that will be key is what happens to the Green vote. This should be a key target for the party if they are seeking further growth in the councillors in 2027, and the polling district results already show the areas they have a base of support to grow from. Indeed, I’m pretty sure this is one of three wards across the country where they took a lead in a district but didn’t win a seat. If they can push beyond 15%, they are probably in a strong place to overtake a second SNP candidate and possibly win on transfers in 2027 – but only if transfer rates are decent, which they haven’t been lately. If they instead get up to about 18% or above, that’s the kind of share you can, but aren’t guaranteed to, win by default from as no one can catch up.
One little personal note for all of the by-elections on this date: I’ll be very busy at the end of this week, including a work commitment on the Friday which means I can’t take the day off as I normally would for such a busy by-election day. It’s possible I won’t be able to report on these live.
Prediction
Likely Labour.
2022 Results (Detailed Data)
Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
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