By-Election Result: Bannockburn

Background

Our first crop of by-elections for the year had a real mix of causes, from boring (SNP councillor becomes SpAd), to amusing (Lib Dem by-election winner quits a week later), to peculiar (accidental Labour councillor throws in the towel). Unfortunately, Stirling’s Bannockburn vote falls under the “tragedy” heading, following the death of Labour councillor Margaret Brisley. Brisley not only had a remarkable 44 years of service to her name, but she had only recently been appointed Council Leader.

In my preview, I’d noted that Labour have fallen somewhat from the dizzying highs of their General Election win. That meant that although this was a ward a few months ago I’d have thought likely to go their way, I was really hedging my bets and viewing this as a Labour-SNP tossup. I’ve been waiting for some final data bits for this one by the way, hence the delay in publication.

Headline Results

Councillors and Key Stats

1 Councillor Elected:
🟡SNP: Bob Buchanan
Change vs 2022 (notional): SNP Gain from Labour
Change vs vacating: SNP Gain from Labour
Turnout: 17.6% (-25.1)
Electorate: 9097
Valid: 1576 (98.6%)
Spoiled: 22 (1.4%)
Quota: 789
2 Continuing Councillors:
Independent: Alasdair MacPherson
🟡SNP: Brian Hambly

Candidates

🔵Conservative: Moira Benny
🟡SNP: Bob Buchanan
🔴Labour: Yvonne Dickson
🟣Reform UK: William Docherty
🟠Lib Dem: William Galloway
🟢Green: Marie Stadtler

First Preferences

Note: Independent Alasdair MacPherson won 26.0% and the Family Party 1.1% in 2022.

First Preference History

I was right not to think Labour were the favourites here, because the SNP placed significantly ahead. Given the absence of popular Independent Alasdair MacPherson both appear to have gained share, though a bit lower than the estimate for what they’d have had in 2022 without him. As just a little bit of an extra salt in the wound of this result, even by that comparison Labour are worse off than the SNP.

Reform UK polled very strongly, placing just over 1% behind Labour. That’s a really quite remarkable vote, and whilst you may be tempted to assume it was largely at the Conservatives’ expense, as they lost almost half of their vote, I wouldn’t be so sure. Reform are doing very well indeed in historic Labour strongholds, and the wee mining villages that make up most of the voter base here certainly fit that bill.

Bringing up the rear we have the Lib Dems and Greens, with just two votes separating them. Both will content themselves with any growth at all in an absolute no-hope ward, and the Greens with the thought that their voters are least likely to turn out at by-elections and so they’d likely place ahead at a full vote. However, comparing against the 2022 figures excluding the Independent, the Lib Dems are closer to their estimated share than the Greens are.

Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred

Although the SNP had a reasonably strong lead in first preferences, they were still a good distance away from quota, and faced a majority for Pro-Union parties. Yet through the transfer rounds, they maintained their lead over Labour. I had wondered if given the spread of available first preferences, Reform might have overtaken Labour on transfers, but they didn’t. We can run that head-to-head anyway out of interest, and find the SNP win by 17%.

Part of what secured the SNP’s victory here was a continued unwillingness on the part of Reform UK voters to transfer to Labour. Although this didn’t repeat the oddity we saw in neighbouring Stirling East where more went SNP, fewer than one in five Reform terminal transfers went to the SNP, and two-thirds just exhausted entirely, amounting to 18% of all votes cast. Most importantly though, this is the first genuine SNP gain from Labour in a very long time.

Although October’s Lochee by-election and last month’s Stirling East saw Labour vacancies filled by an SNP councillor, those were wards where the SNP were the single-seat winners in 2022. Narrow as their lead may have been (not even a full 1%), Bannockburn was a Labour ward by that measure. This is an almost 5% swing to the SNP after transfers, something that was unthinkable a few short weeks ago. Although there’s something a bit on the nose about Bannockburn being the ward where a Pro-Independence party experiences a revival in fortunes against a Pro-Union rival, I’d caution against reading too much into this.

Certainly, Labour are in a bit of a pickle at the moment, but I guarantee you a lot of that Reform UK vote will have come from their usual voter pool, even if they weren’t willing to transfer in this moment. If people are voting Reform (or telling pollsters the will) in part as a protest in the mid-election period, that may not hold up when staring down an actual “pick your government” election. We’re still a good while away from May 2026, and a lot could change.

Detailed Results

Results by Polling District

As turnout was so low for this by-election, and the polling districts so small anyway, the required box mergers basically boiled down to “the villages” and “Bannockburn itself”. Compare to 2022 when a much larger pile of votes meant we were able to get separate data for Plean, Cowie and the combined Fallin and Throsk. That means there’s not really all that much we can glean from this data, unfortunately. In short, the SNP and Reform did better in the villages, whilst everyone else was stronger in Bannockburn. Of the two near-tied pairings, Labour placed behind Reform and the Lib Dems behind the Greens in the villages.

Second Preferences

Looking at the direct second preferences, let’s get the least remarkable stuff out the way first. SNP to Green mutual transfer flows? Check, though check out the fact both are pretty much identical to 2022 flows despite MacPherson not being on the ballot to draw votes away this time. Reform voters most preferring Conservatives? Shocker. Conservatives doing likewise also unsurprising, though the Lib Dems weren’t far behind.

The more interesting bits are that of what few Lib Dems there were locally, a plurality opted for the Conservatives, though not far ahead of a tie for Labour and the Greens. Labour, for their part? Their voters were most likely to go SNP. That follows a relatively strong (just behind the Lib Dems) preference flow in Stirling East, and likewise preferring the SNP to Conservatives in Dunblane and Bridge of Allan in August.

Now, look, it’s not my business to say who should or should not be in government together anywhere. However, this by-election has left Labour with just 4 councillors out of 23 in Stirling. Running a solo minority administration on 6 of 23, from third place, was already bizarre. How on earth can you possibly run a council with a mere 4 seats? 

The national edict from Scottish Labour that their councillors had to exit coalitions with the SNP should have outraged anyone with a genuine belief in local democracy. Like a given party or not, it should be for local councillors to decide what’s best in their area. We have to assume Anas Sarwar would utterly reject any suggestion Keir Starmer should have a say who he works with in Holyrood, so why does he get to tell his Stirling group who they can govern with?

With such a tiny administration, it might be time to face reality and either let the SNP or Conservatives take control. With 9 SNP and 8 Conservative seats, the 4 Labour make a majority either way. They could remain in administration as a junior partner and almost certainly get more done as they will having to go begging to parties twice their size for backing; the fact their voters prefer the SNP to Conservatives might indicate which option would serve them better. Failing that, with no ability to force an early council election, if I were the Conservatives especially I’d be calling Labour’s bluff and making bid for control.

Although the pace of by-elections has slowed after last year’s intense flurry, we’ve still got a few to come. The next is due in mid-February, as the final councillor-turned-MP triggered vote takes us to East Dunbartonshire’s Kirkintilloch East, North and Twechar ward.

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