By-Election Preview: West Fife and Coastal Villages (Fife) 28th of November 2024

Ward Profile

Cause of By-Election

The deluge of by-elections is beginning to come to a close by the end of November, as most of the newly elected MPs who held council seats will have been replaced by this point. West Fife and Coastal Villages is at the later end of that spectrum, where Labour councillor Graeme Downie has become MP for Dunfermline and Dollar. Downie had only been elected for the first time in 2022.

Ward Details

West Fife and Coastal Villages is one of 22 wards in Fife, and elects 3 councillors at a full election. This covers a dizzying number of small villages including (cue deep breath) Kincardine, Culross, Valleyfield (High and Low), Torryburn, Cairneyhill, Gowkhall, Carnock, Oakley, Comrie, Blairhall, Saline and Steelend. As originally drawn it also included Crombie, Charlestown and Limekilns, but those were removed in 2017, alongside one of the councillors.

For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is entirely within the Dunfermline constituency that the SNP gained from the Lib Dems in 2011. The Lib Dems had themselves won the prior version as Dunfermline West from Labour in 2007. Labour did briefly regain the constituency at a 2013 by-election, but couldn’t hold it at the full elections since. At the UK Parliament it’s within Downie’s Dunfermline and Dollar constituency which the SNP had held from 2015, when it was Dunfermline and West Fife. It was won by Labour at both of the pre-referendum general elections, but Lib Dem Willie Rennie won a 2006 by-election.

Electoral History

In its original form, the ward initially went one councillor each to Labour, the SNP, Lib Dems and Independent William Ferguson; he’d been the councillor for Kincardine, Culross and Low Valleyfield beforehand. When the Lib Dems collapsed in 2012 Labour picked up a second councillor, with a new SNP councillor replacing their 2007 winner Bill Walker, who had gone on to become an MSP in 2011. Walker was an ultimately short-serving MSP, as he was convicted for an appalling pattern of domestic violence against three of his ex-wives and a stepdaughter.

The trimmed down ward then gave the same pattern in each of 2017 and 2022: Labour, SNP and Conservative. 2017’s SNP councillor chucked the party partway through the term, and then everyone retired in 2022, meaning the last election was a trio of completely new councillors including Downie.

For most of the ward’s existence, Labour have been in the lead here, starting with a solid advantage over the Lib Dems and SNP who were vying for second place and a strong result for Ferguson. Labour benefitted significantly from the Lib Dems going into freefall in 2012, easily securing the votes for two seats. Although the Lib Dems were down they weren’t guaranteed to be out as Ferguson’s support also dipped a fair bit, but he managed to remain a bit over 2% ahead by the final stage.

Come 2017, both the SNP and Conservatives had a significant increase to their vote shares, putting the former within touching distance of Labour. The Lib Dems continued to decline, and the Greens had a very modest initial showing. In 2022, the SNP managed to overtake Labour, but the split of votes just didn’t work to change the spread of councillors. The Greens and the Lib Dems both managed a bit of growth though nowhere near entering contention for a seat, and although I’ve marked him simply as “IND OTH” above, the same Independent from 2017 found his support evaporate, perhaps because another Independence hardliner option was available in the form of Alba.

Councillors and Key Stats

3 Councillors, in order elected:
🔴Labour: Graeme Downie
🟡SNP: Sam Steele
🔵Conservative: Conner Young
Change vs 2017: No change
Electorate: 13553
Turnout: 44.9%
Valid: 5963 (97.9%)
Spoiled: 129 (2.1%)
Quota: 1491

Candidates

🟠Lib Dem: Jo Cockburn
🔴Labour: Graeme Downie
Alba: William Gavin
Independent: Martin Keatings
🟢Green: Craig McCutcheon
🔴Labour: Jacqueline McKenna
🟣Family: Danny Smith
🟡SNP: Sam Steele
🟡SNP: Katie Strang
🔵Conservative: Conner Young

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

By-Election

Candidates

A pretty similar ballot paper to 2022 here, with all of the Holyrood 5, plus the Family party an an Independent. It’s a different Independent and no Alba, but that’s a lot more similarity than other by-elections lately. A couple of these candidates are direct returns from 2022, the SNP putting up their unsuccessful second candidate and the Family party candidate likewise making another go of it. The latter had also stood for the Westminster seat in July, as did the Independent; he’d been a Libertarian candidate for Rosyth in 2022 and for the party list in Mid Scotland and Fife in 2021. The Green candidate also contested Rosyth in 2022, and the Conservative Dunfermline South.

🔴Labour: Karen Beaton
🟠Lib Dem: Paul Buchanan-Quigley
🟢Green: Fiona McOwan
Independent: George Morton
🔵Conservative: David Ross
🟤Family: Danny Smith
🟡SNP: Paul Steele

Analysis

Although the SNP had a slender first preference advantage over Labour in 2022, that’s not enough in a transferrable system. A significant chunk of the vote sat with the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems were ahead of the Greens and Alba, meaning the balance of transfers favoured Labour to win a single seat by nearly 5%. As I’ve been saying in quite a few of these cases lately, Labour are not struggling to manage what are effective holds, and therefore I expect them quite simply to win here.

Prediction

Labour Win.

2022 Results (Detailed Data)

Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences

If you find this or other Ballot Box Scotland output useful and/or interesting, and you can afford to do so, please consider donating to support my work. I love doing this, but it’s a one-man project and takes a lot of time and effort. All donations, no matter how small, are greatly appreciated and extremely helpful.
(About Donations)