Background
Scotland continues to host relatively few electoral contests, with four weeks between the last set and this trip to Fife’s Glenrothes Central and Thornton ward. Unfortunately this one came about following the death of SNP councillor Ross Vettraino, who had served on the council since 2007.
Given the ongoing re-collapse of Labour support and a near 12% advantage for the SNP here in 2022, my preview had this as likely to go the SNP’s way. That was a bit of bet-hedging though as whilst recent trends have been pretty clear, I wasn’t sure we were at a point I could confidently start declaring things guaranteed SNP wins again.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
🟡SNP: Lynda Holton
Change vs 2022 (notional): SNP Hold
Change vs vacating: SNP Hold
Turnout: 24.2% (-15.3)
Electorate: 12623
Valid: 3021 (99.0%)
Spoiled: 39 (1.0%)
Quota: 1511
2 Continuing Councillors:
Labour: Derek Noble
SNP: Daniel Wilson
Candidates
đź”´Labour: Maciej Dokurno
🟡SNP: Lynda Holton
🔵Conservative: Fiona Leslie
đźź Lib Dem: Ed Scotcher
🟣Reform UK: Ian Smith
First Preferences
Note: The Greens won 3.7%, Alba 2.2% and Family Party 1.5% here in 2022.
First Preference History
I maybe should have stuck my neck out on a guaranteed SNP victory, because they won really big here. They experienced only a very slight loss in vote share, remaining close to half of the overall vote. There’s a bi-directional caution on that front though. On the one hand, remember that around 6% of the 2022 vote went to other Pro-Independence parties not present here, so the SNP vote will have been harder hit had either or both stood. On the other, similarly remember that SNP voters have lower propensity to turn out in the first place, so that’ll have shaved a bit off their share. The two effects will probably largely counterbalance one another.
For Labour though this was a bruising result, dropping down to by far their worst share in the ward thus far. I had wondered privately if Reform could overtake them but instead they placed a very strong third. It may be that although the UK constituency this ward sits within was more strongly Reform voting than the national average, it was the Methil and Buckhaven end driving that.
Running a close contest in the last two spots were the Lib Dems and Conservatives. Despite this really not being a typically Lib Dem area, they didn’t just overtake the Conservatives but recorded their best result in the ward ever. That’ll be where a portion of the Labour vote went, and although remaining Lib Dem voters are on the high-turnout end, they may take it as a positive sign for potentially securing the votes for a second Mid & Fife regional MSP next year. For the Conservatives though, this is disastrous, a halving of their support and a further demonstration the party is being abandoned outside its strongholds.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
If the first preference result wasn’t bad enough for Labour, it got even worse for them after transfers. The SNP actually end up with a higher final stage share than in 2022, whilst Labour fall even harder with the loss of a quarter of their support. Even if we break with convention here and go back to 2022 and instead of running it “two-candidate”, we run it “two-party” with both SNP candidates kept in against one Labour (i.e. minimising losses from folk not transferring), the SNP are still up 0.6% and Labour down 9.5%.
Especially when we consider the complete absence of other Pro-Independence parties for the SNP to draw transfers from, this isn’t simply Labour failing to pick up votes from their constitutional compatriots. It’s some of those people actively choosing to preference the SNP ahead or instead of Labour. Lib Dem voters when forced into an SNP vs Lab head-to-head go 35.3% Labour to 24.6% SNP (the rest not transferring); ahead, but not enormously, amounting to just 22 votes. Reform UK voters actually split to the SNP’s advantage at 22.0% versus 17.9% Labour. Only the Conservatives at 31.9% to 9.2% significantly preferred Labour over the SNP.
Right now Labour appear to be floundering, having lost almost every bit of recovery they’ve made since 2021. At this point, let me once again express something that until a few months ago I couldn’t have imagined myself saying in this capacity: good.
Labour deserve to lose hard at the moment. They haven’t merely capitulated to but have actively embraced a hateful, bigoted campaign against trans people. As a gay man, part of the same LGBT community as trans people, I simply am not going to be silent on that. I highly doubt very many people in this by-election were motivated by this issue, but that doesn’t stop me from being glad a party that is being completely and utterly vile to my community, and indeed to some of my best friends, got thumped.
For the Labour folk tempted to cry their poor wee eyes about the mean, nasty homosexual abandoning neutrality to take a swipe at them, I have some advice. Instead of being pathetic and bleating about me turning on you, how about you do something about your party turning on a vulnerable minority and stripping their human rights and dignity from them? Politics is not, actually, a sport, and if your instinct is to back your team regardless of the evil they are enabling you should be utterly ashamed of yourself. You stop attacking trans people, and I’ll stop enjoying your every defeat and telling people not to vote for you.
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
Some beautiful polling district drawing from Fife Council in this ward, I have to say. Barring a sparsely populated rural chunk, these districts are of such an ample size that even with dire by-election turnout each has enough votes in it to be kept separate. Pity it wasn’t a more exciting by-election to be able to get such a neat and tidy breakdown from!
Such was the scale of the SNP’s victory that they very easily won in each polling district. Even where Labour are closest they’re still a solid 20% behind. SNP support peaked in the town centre where they had a substantial majority of all votes cast. Labour meanwhile had their strongest share in Woodside, both Reform UK and the Lib Dems in Thornton, and the Conservatives in Coaltown of Balgonie.
Second Preferences
With no other Pro-Independence parties on the ballot, SNP voters didn’t make huge use of their later preferences. Of those that did, they were most likely to go Labour. The other parties all pair up as you might expect: mutual flows between Labour and the Lib Dems, and also between the Conservatives and Reform UK. However in the latter case, Conservative outflows to the Lib Dems were precisely the same as to Reform, a lingering Conservative vote being dragged in two very different directions.
We’re going to have a somewhat similar by-election in West Dunbartonshire’s Clydebank Waterfront ward on the 15th of May. Just like this ward, that’s one where the SNP had a roughly 10%-ish lead over Labour, and where support for other parties is already quite low. It’s gone the opposite way in terms of candidates though, with a more varied field than last time. Regardless, you might reasonably expect that to go in a similar direction.
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