Background
On the busiest single day for by-elections since I started Ballot Box Scotland, we had a whopping five votes on Thursday last week. I’ve been a little slower pulling the full analysis together for these than I usually am. That’s partly due to when data was made available, but even if it had been available earlier, I was so busy painting and moving things to my new home over the weekend I just didn’t have capacity.
Anyway, in Inverclyde West (what should really be called Gourock), Labour’s Martin McCluskey had become the MP for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West, thus triggering a by-election. Previewing this, I’d noted the history of very strong Independents here, which muddies the predictive waters. However, based on transfers Labour would have beaten the SNP in a head-to-head. Given the overall shift in Scottish politics since 2022, that’s enough of a lead I thought this was a cut and dried Labour win.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
🔴Labour: Ian Hellyer
Change vs 2022 (notional, excluding Independent): Labour Hold
Change vs vacating: Labour Hold
Turnout: 31.4% (-23.4)
Electorate: 8775
Valid: 2739 (99.3%)
Spoiled: 19 (0.7%)
Quota: 1370
2 Continuing Councillors:
⚪Independent: Lynne Quinn
🟡SNP: Sandra Reynolds
Candidates
🟣Reform UK: John Burleigh
🔴Labour: Ian Hellyer
🟡SNP: Robert Kirkpatrick
⚫Alba: Christopher McEleney
🔵Conservative: Ted Runciman
First Preferences
Note: Independent Lynn Quinn won 30.2%, Independent William Wilson 1.4% and the Lib Dems 3.6% in 2022)
First Preference History
Sure enough, Labour did indeed take the lead here, and given the balance of transfers available that guaranteed their ultimate victory. Perhaps surprisingly though, they were only a hair ahead of the SNP. Everyone gains on paper due to the lack of Independents, giving them their best results thus far. However when you consider where those Independent candidates’ preferences went in 2022, the reality is probably more like the top three not quite living up to what they’d have got on a purely party ballot back then.
For Labour and the Conservatives, that’s obviously partly down to the presence of Reform UK, who take a bigger share than the same candidate won for the Lib Dems at the full election. For the SNP, it’s obviously Alba that were eating into their vote. Indeed, this is the best share Alba have won at any by-election thus far, which they should certainly be credited for. At the risk of provoking their ire though, this doesn’t do anything to dissuade me from my “only standing in very carefully selected wards they’ll do the best in, whilst avoiding much worse results from standing more widely” theory.
This is still only a third of the way to a quota, so wouldn’t be anywhere near sufficient for a councillor at a full election, which would instead split one apiece to Labour, SNP and Conservatives. You’d also want to do much better than this in a hotspot if you wanted to get anywhere near the 5-6% for an MSP regionally at Holyrood.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
As stated earlier, the final outcome here was a foregone conclusion. With more than twice as many Pro-Union party votes to transfer as Pro-Independence, obviously Labour were going to win. Really interestingly though, this was a swing to the SNP relative to a 2022 head-to-head between those parties. That speaks to the difficulties Scottish Labour are now facing, early in their UK Government, that recently saw the worst Holyrood poll in nearly two years.
When you consider a surprisingly poor result for them in Elgin City South, we are getting plenty of evidence that there’s a real wobble at the moment. I would still very strongly advise people not to get carried away with suggesting this is somehow the end of the Scottish Labour revival: it’s 18 months until the next Holyrood election, and people react very differently mid-term (even early in the term) than they do at election time.
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
Fittingly given the near-tie in first preferences between the top two, the map of district leads splits half-and-half as well. Labour led in Gourock town centre (also their best district overall), Cardwell Bay and Levan, whilst the SNP were out in front in Coppermine (their top result) and the two districts covering Trumpethill. Very satisfyingly, there was no overlap in peak performances for the other parties: the Conservatives in Levan, Alba in Trumpethill and Reform UK in Cardwell Bay.
Second Preferences
Second preferences show some stark differences between the big and small parties. For the big parties, some very indecisive pools. Labour voters were most likely to go for the SNP, but only a little bit more than the Conservatives. The SNP meanwhile were most likely to opt for Alba, but again not all that much more than they went for Labour. Lastly, the Conservative voter base favoured Reform UK over Labour by the tiniest smidge.
Meanwhile, the two small parties were much more decisive. Alba overwhelmingly preferred the SNP, and whilst Reform UK had a much bigger Only Preference pool than is usual for a smaller party, those that did pick a second choice went enormously for the Conservatives.
It’s only slightly less busy for by-elections the week after this set, with another four up: two in East Ayrshire (Doon Valley and Kilmarnock West and Crosshouse), one in West Lothian (Whitburn and Blackburn) and, probably the most interesting of the bunch, Edinburgh (Colinton and Fairmilehead). Due to unavoidable work commitments I won’t be able to cover any of these until Friday evening, though if any of them are overnight counts I might just be able to squeak the headline results from those out.
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