Background
Following hot on the heels of a Stirling by-election last week, we went a little bit further along in the same Holyrood region for Fife’s Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss Villages by-election. Unfortunately this was the third vote this term to arise from a Labour councillor being convicted on sex offences in relation to minors, in this case David Graham. He’d been a councillor since 2012, and remained formally Labour affiliated until he was convicted.
My preview noted how close 2022 had been between the SNP and Labour and therefore viewed this as a tossup. However, I also said I expected a very strong Reform showing and that could be a real spanner in the works for Labour. Another ingredient in my predictive pot was the potential for the circumstances to go against Labour. Although the previous two sex offence disqualifications for formerly-Labour councillors nonetheless saw them win the following by-election, those were before their re-collapse.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
🟡SNP: Anne Marie Caldwell
Change vs 2022 (notional): SNP Hold
Change vs vacating: SNP Gain from Labour
Turnout: 27.3% (-11.5)
Electorate: 13830
Valid: 3743 (99.2%)
Spoiled: 31 (0.8%)
Quota: 1872
3 Continuing Councillors:
🟡SNP: Ken Caldwell
🟡SNP: John O’Brien
🔴Labour: Thomas Adams
Candidates
🟤Sovereignty: Kieran Anderson
🟡SNP: Anne Marie Caldwell
🟣Reform UK: Mark Davies
🔴Labour: Donna Donnelly
🔵Conservative: Brian Mills
🟠Lib Dem: Jill Reilly
⚫Alba: Christine Watson
First Preferences
Swing vs 2022
Note: the Greens won 2.2% in 2022.
First Preference History
I’d say that was a pretty solid prediction all said: certainly, it’s a relative blowout for the SNP versus Labour as they won just over twice as many votes, rather than a close call, but why wasn’t it a close call? Because Reform did indeed do extremely well. Overall, this was a pretty mild decrease in the SNP vote by recent standards, whilst Reform didn’t simply place second but actually recorded the strongest share they (or before them UKIP) have ever achieved in Scotland.
By contrast, Labour’s vote was cut in half, giving them easily their worst share yet in this ward. I think it’s pretty reasonable, on reflection, to view this as arising from it being their councillor who was disqualified. I kind of touched upon this odd situation in my preview piece, but unlike the other two circumstances, Labour didn’t actually completely cut ties with Graham after he was charged, and he continued to be listed as a Labour member by the council. Indeed, one councillor contacted me to state that the relevant council official confirmed to them that Labour had not notified them of any changes in their numbers, hence he remained designated as such even if “somewhat detached” until his conviction. A truly bizarre circumstance, and one I might advise parties avoid in future.
Moving down ballot nobody else really registered, though the returning Lib Dems and Alba did show marginal increases in their vote. In Alba’s case this remains very low, at a time the SNP are doing less well in general, and speaks to a continued lack of any real future. That then makes it all the more concerning for the Conservatives that they fell behind them: although not quite their worst tally in this ward, it’s pretty grim, and if they can’t even beat a party that has no future, it speaks to danger in their own. Indeed, they barely beat fringe outfit Sovereignty, a dire outcome for a party that was in charge of the UK Government 18 months ago.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
SNP vs Labour recalculation
SNP/Labour Swing vs 2022
The fact that Reform are effectively incapable of winning by-elections in urban Scotland at their current level of support is evidenced here both by the relative dearth of transfers (gaining 146 vs the SNP’s 306, on top of the SNP’s 514 vote starting lead) and the fact that the SNP hit quota against them. However, this is still only the second time (after Clydebank Waterfront) that Reform have placed second in an otherwise SNP vs Labour ward, which is remarkable progress. It also means that at a full election no transfers would be necessary: this would simply give 2 SNP councillors and one each for Reform and Labour.
If you instead run it as an SNP vs Labour contest, as I’ve shown above as well for useful context, Labour pick up 223 transfers and keep the SNP just below quota, which would have led to the mathematically meaningless final elimination of Labour before the machine actually handed the victory to the SNP. Still, that’s relatively few transfers for Labour as well, leaves them further adrift than Reform were, and it gives them a massive decrease in two party preferred terms compared to 2022.
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
With the Labour collapse and the SNP so far ahead of Reform, the entire map ends up tinted SNP yellow. Their best share ends up in what Google Maps assures me is the Crossroads are of Methil, which is also where micro party Sovereignty peaked. Best bits for the other parties were East Wemyss for Reform, the merger of Coaltown of Wemyss and West Wemyss for all of the Lib Dems, Alba and Conservatives, and the northern parts of Buckhaven for Labour, around Muiredge and the local hospital.
Second Preferences
Second preferences are a little odd, partly due to the absence of the Greens, and partly due to the nature of the by-election. Even by the standards of recent by-elections preference flows are pretty fractured, but they boil down to the SNP being the plurality next choice for every other group of voters bar the Conservatives, who themselves were most likely to go for Reform next. In all cases except Alba, no next preference was more common than a party choice though, and with the SNP to Alba flow being about half the proportion of the reverse, there’s still not a lot going for the Independence hardliners.
It’s a couple of weeks to go until our next by-election, and it’s the first non-Highland rural (for a given value of rural, that is) council by-election this year, for Stranraer and the Rhins in Dumfries and Galloway. That was going to have a very different flavour to the largely urban votes we’ve had thus far regardless, but it also holds the prospect of rapidly displacing this as Reform’s best-yet Scottish result. For the first time I’ve actually put Reform as one of the contenders to win the by-election, which if it happened would be the first time a far right party has elected anything bar an MEP in Scotland.
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