Background
Our first Scottish by-election following a couple of months of blissful piece (that allowed me to focus on the Holyrood Hub page for 2026) took us to East Renfrewshire. After a long spell as a Labour councillor for Barrhead, Liboside and Uplawmoor, Betty Cunningham sadly passed away earlier this year. Oddly, in my head I’d dreamt up that there had been a Clarkston by-election at some point in recent years. That means it was only on reading in-depth previewer Andrew Teale’s usual piece that I realised this was the first East Renfrewshire by-election I’ve covered. That means, after nearly 8 years on the go, I’ve reported on at least one by-election in all 32 local authorities.
In said preview, I’d had this pegged as a total tossup between the SNP and Labour. The most popular individual councillors here in 2022 (after transfers) would be a long serving Independent, Danny Devlin, and removing him from the equation only put the SNP 2% ahead of Labour. That should have been easy enough for them to overturn when things were going well for them, but lately it hasn’t, and in demographically similar wards they’ve failed to make those conversions. Hence, tossup.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
Labour: Julie Ann Costello McHale
Change vs 2022 (notional): Labour Gain from SNP
Change vs vacating: Labour Hold
Turnout: 29.9% (-17.2)
Electorate: 15311
Valid: 4542 (99.1%)
Spoiled: 43 (0.9%)
Quota: 2272
3 Continuing Councillors:
Independent: Danny Devlin
SNP: Angela ConverySNP: Chris Lunday
Candidates
Conservative: Farooq ChoudhryLabour: Julie Ann Costello McHale
Abolish the Scottish Parliament: Gus Ferguson
Family: Andy MacGibbonSNP: David McDonald
Green: Karen Sharkey
First Preferences
Note: In 2022 Independent Danny Devlin won 26%, Independent Paul Aitken 5.1%, and Alba 1.1%.
First Preference History
Instead, Labour absolutely romped home whilst the SNP were run pretty close for second place by Reform. I was pretty astonished by the scale of Labour’s gains here, even allowing for the fact that a third of the vote was going spare versus 2022 for lack of Independents. For that same reason though, don’t get too carried away with this looking like their best share on the vote share history chart: it’s simply not comparable without Devlin on the ballot paper.
I’m genuinely unsure what the story behind Labour’s success here is. This isn’t in line with other recent by-elections, and what sparse polling we’ve had doesn’t point to this. It’s entirely possible this is a localised factor arising from candidate and campaign, rather than nationally reflective. At this point I know some tiresome bores will be leaping straight to “biased! You’re only saying that because you’re unhappy with the result!” No, I’m saying it because it’s sound analysis. It could also indicate Labour are back on the front foot – it’s just that’d be the more surprising explanation given recent evidence.
Anyway, moving down the ballot, the SNP should nonetheless be spooked by their relatively low share for the same reason as Labour shouldn’t get carried away with their high: if that’s the share without Devlin, imagine it with! By the same token, the Conservatives leave this by-election by far the biggest losers. Weak as Barrhead may be for them, to place behind the Greens and not even cross 5% is desperate stuff from them, and should set alarm bells ringing for their prospects across the urban central belt next year. For their part, although still a modest share, the Greens can be content with a decent uptick in what had been their worst ward locally in 2022.
Attempting to Abolish the Scottish Parliament via East Renfrewshire Council turned out not to be very appealing, as they failed to achieve even 1% of the vote.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
Given Labour’s stonking lead, transfer rounds were a formality that couldn’t change the outcome. They did still need every other candidate to drop out before officially reaching quota (still suffering from low transfer rates from Reform), but it was never in doubt. Note especially the swing in the two-candidate preferred though: whilst still very positive for Labour, their gained share is less than half what it was in first preferences. That emphasises how much they benefitted from Devlin not being on the ballot.
As a little aside, it’s not just transfers from Reform UK that are limited: transfers to them are extremely limited too. That won’t matter with these kinds of shares at a full election, where they’d easily win councillors across Scotland, but it’s a massive barrier to them winning single seat by-elections.
If we re-calculate results here for Labour vs Reform, Labour get 41% of the total number of transfers available versus 10.5% to Reform, leading to a 33.3% margin of victory. SNP vs Reform is 33.6% to 12.7%, for a 13.7% lead. Even Green vs Reform is 35.1% to 12.4%, which is so lopsided it puts the Greens just 0.5% and 27 votes behind, despite starting with a 17% and 771 vote deficit. They do beat the Conservatives and Abolish but that’s a function of nobody else liking those parties either (see the second preference chart further down).
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
Labour unsurprisingly led every district, given their share, but appear to have narrowly done best in the northwest of Barrhead. The SNP peaked in the southeast, as did the Greens, whilst for Reform it was the southwest of the town they polled most strongly. The Conservatives were strongest in the northeast of Barrhead plus Uplawmoor.
Second Preferences
Very little surprising to be found when we turn our attention to direct second preferences. Given the continued lack of Lib Dems, the SNP would be the most obvious place for Labour voters to turn to instead. The SNP and Greens had their pretty usual mutual preference flows, Reform voters were most likely to plump for the Conservatives, and the Conservatives for Labour.
Abolish had so few votes it’d hardly be worth pointing out where they went, were it not for the fact it’s actually quite funny that of their tiny pool of voters, more preferred Labour and the Greens to the two right-wing parties. By contrast, it was only those right-wing party voters who were meaningfully to give Abolish a second preference!
There are two by-elections coming up for Highland next month, both on the 25th of September. One of these will allow Caol and Mallaig ward to vote for the first time since *before* the 2022 election, as one of the three councillors who picked up an uncontested seat has stood down. Tain and Easter Ross meanwhile will be completing a set of by-elections, having lost all three of its 2022 councillors for one reason or another. As nominations for these closed after the Barrhead by-election count, previews are not yet available for them; I’ll come back and edit in when they are.
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