Ward Profile
Cause of By-Election
It’s another busy week for by-elections in Scotland. We’ve got four in total, all of which have arisen because Labour councillors were elected as MPs in July’s UK General Election. In West Lothian, Whitburn and Blackburn has arisen from Kirsteen Sullivan being elected to represent Bathgate and Linlithgow. She’d been a councillor for the ward since 2017, and had also been the deputy leader of the council for the period since.
Ward Details
Whitburn and Blackburn is one of 9 wards in West Lothian, and elects 4 councillors at a full election. You don’t need a degree in Scotland’s human geography to guess what this one covers, it’s right there in black and white (cue drum crash). The primary components of this are obviously Whitburn and Blackburn, but it also includes Greenrigg and Seafield. Locals also insist that East Whitburn is a separate village rather than simply east Whitburn, which I always found deeply irrational much to the amusement of a past Whitburn-born boyfriend. No West Lothian wards have had any boundary changes since they were drawn, so this remains perfectly comparable across elections.
For elections to the Scottish Parliament, the ward is mostly within the Linlithgow constituency, which the SNP gained from Labour in 2011 with Seafield instead in Almond Valley, also an SNP seat held since that election; although they won the prior Livingston seat in 2007, the area of this ward was entirely within the older version of Linlithgow. At the UK Parliament it’s within Sullivan’s Bathgate and Linlithgow seat, having previously been split awkwardly down the middle of Blackburn between Linlithgow and Falkirk East to the west and Livingston to the east. Both of those prior constituencies were SNP gains from Labour in 2015.
Electoral History
A bit of an alternation between shapes of representation here. 2007 started with two for Labour and one each for the SNP and the local Action to Save St John’s Hospital. The latter managed to win three seats across West Lothian in 2007, a pretty decent result for a local single-issue party. However, they lost all of those in 2012, which meant the SNP picking up a second seat at their expense. With the Conservatives surging in 2017 the SNP dropped back down to a single seat, before reverting to the two:two Labour:SNP split in 2022.
The initial seat distribution makes sense when you see that Labour had roughly what they needed for two seats, whereas the SNP fell a bit short, creating exactly the sort of gap a localist party with a respectable share could squeak through. Then, with both Labour and the SNP gaining in 2012, that space just wasn’t there anymore for Action, especially given they’d lost a little bit of support in their own right.
Both 2017 and 2022 would deliver remarkable seat results in relation to vote shares. In 2017 the SNP took a vote lead for the first time and should have been able to win two, but I reckon the fact they inexplicably stood three candidates spread their vote too thin, which meant Labour winning the final seat by about 1.2%. Similarly, in 2022 the Conservatives were very close to quota, and usually when you get within a couple of percentage points, it’s plain sailing. However in this case they had so few other sources to pick up transfers from, the SNP’s second was able to pip them by not even 9 whole votes at the key stage.
Councillors and Key Stats
4 Councillors, in order elected:
🟡SNP: Jim Dickson
🔴Labour: George Paul
🔴Labour: Kirsteen Sullivan
🟡SNP: Mary Robertson Dickson
Change vs 2017: +1 SNP, -1 Conservative
Turnout: 37.4%
Electorate: 16945
Valid: 6136 (96.8%)
Spoiled: 204 (3.2%)
Quota: 1228
Candidates
🟡SNP: Jim Dickson
🟡SNP: Mary Robertson Dickson
🔵Conservative: Bruce Fairbairn
🟠Lib Dem: Derek Pattle
🔴Labour: George Paul
🟢Green: Carole Racionzer
🔴Labour: Kirsteen Sullivan
First Preferences
Transfers (single winner recalculation)
Two-Candidate Preferred
By-Election
Candidates
Of the four by-elections happening on the same date, the ballot here feels the most “normal” for the current circumstances: the Holyrood 5, Reform UK, and an Independent. A few returning faces here, but none directly from the ward. The Green candidate stood for the Livingston South ward in 2022, as well as the Livingston constituency in July’s general election. The Conservative also had a local-parliamentary split, standing in Bathgate at the locals and for Linlithgow in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, as well as the final spot on the Lothian regional list. Meanwhile, both the Lib Dem and Reform UK candidates stood for the Armadale and Blackridge by-election earlier this year.
🟡SNP: Aileen Brown
🟠Lib Dem: Douglas Butler
🟢Green: Cameron Glasgow
🔵Conservative: Charles Kennedy
⚪Independent: Thomas Lynch
🟣Reform UK: David McLennan
🔴Labour: David Russell
Analysis
Labour’s advantage over the SNP in 2022 wasn’t huge, but it was an advantage, and in an area that has historically been very favourable to Labour. I’m therefore inclined to say that although this isn’t really starting from a stronger place in raw numbers compared to, say, the Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse by-election due on the same day, it does start with a stronger foundation. As such, I’m going to go out on a limb and outright predict a clear Labour win here rather than hedge my bets with a likely.
One thing I do think worth particularly watching here is Reform UK. In that Armadale and Blackridge vote they did astonishingly well, enough that if repeated in 2027 they’d win a councillor. This is a neighbouring ward and has many demographic similarities, as it does with the Fortissat area just over the border in North Lanarkshire which is notable for having the only British Unionist Party councillor. Overall this strikes me as quite a fertile patch for that end of the spectrum, so I also think it’s quite likely Reform will post a “seat at a full election” winning share here too.
Prediction
Labour Win.
2022 Results (Detailed Data)
Transfers (full election)
Results by Polling District
Second Preferences
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