Background
It was quite the busy day for by-elections on the 26th of September, with a double bill of double bills. Coincidentally, both were effectively one urban, one rural ward within their respective councils. Last but not least, we’re onto Inverness Central in Highland. Labour Councillor Bet McAllister’s resignation triggered this one.
Although Labour aren’t very strong in Highland overall, this is a ward where they did pretty well in 2022. In my preview, I wondered how much of the Labour vote was party and how much had been for McAllister, given her and her family’s history in the ward. If it was very personal, then even with Labour doing well at the moment it might not have been enough. If it was quite party, they’d be in with a decent shout. The answer unknown, I viewed this as a complete tossup between them and the SNP.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
🔴Labour: Michael Gregson
Change vs 2022 (notional): Labour Gain from SNP
Change vs vacating: Labour Hold
Turnout: 20.3% (-18.6)
Electorate: 8520
Valid: 1717 (99.1%)
Spoiled: 15 (0.9%)
Quota: 859
2 Continuing Councillors:
SNP: Michael CameronSNP: Kate MacLean
Candidates
🟢Green: Andrew Barnett
🔴Labour: Michael Gregson
🟠Lib Dem: Chris Lewcock
🟡SNP: Martin MacGregor
🔵Conservative: Donald MacKenzie
🟣Reform UK: Iain Richmond
First Preferences
Note: Non-returning candidates won 7.9% of the vote in 2022, split 4.3% for Independent Andrew Barnett, 1.4% TUSC, 1.4% Family Party and 0.8% Independent Luigi MacKinnon.
First Preference History
Whatever the answer to the personal versus party vote question was, Labour did well here, but not well enough to overtake the SNP in first preferences. Even so, this was their best result in the ward yet. In comparison it was a completely middling one for the SNP, though in absolute terms this was their least-bad loss of share across the day’s by-elections. As I correctly figured in my preview the Lib Dems were in a position to gain votes here, hitting a high mark for the ward, but not anywhere near to winning. They may have won the MP, but not on the basis of votes from Inverness Central.
This was the best result of the four elections for the Greens by both share and change in share, placing them ahead of the Conservatives for the first time in this ward. That means they’ve beaten every other party except the SNP at least once, so maybe if something absolutely wild happens in 2027 they can complete the set? (This is called a joke, for any particularly dull folk out there.) One interesting point of note is that their share falls below the combined share for them plus Barnett as an Independent in 2022. That shouldn’t really be a surprise though because as much as people may deny it, often voting “Independent” is as much a partisan vote as a direct party one is, so a lot of those voters may not follow an Independent into a party.
For the Conservatives, this was their worst result since before their big revival, making them four for four on vote share plunges across these by-elections. Finally in last place are Reform UK, with a share that’s not to be sniffed at, but their worst relative performance of this by-election batch – they beat at least one other party in every other vote.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
Given the clear majority of the vote lying on the Pro-Union side of the scale, you might have assumed that this would be an easy win for Labour after transfers. Not quite so! In fact, they continued to trail the SNP until the Lib Dems were eliminated, at which point they squeaked into the winning position by just 16 votes, or around 1%. Just a slight difference in transfer flows would instead have seen the SNP win, as I’ll get onto shortly…
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
Another one with such low turnout that it’s box merger central, so it’s quite hard to get too much of a read on what went on here. Working with those mergers though, the SNP and Lib Dems had their bases of support in Merkinch, whereas the Greens and Reform UK it was in Dalneigh, Glebe and the western Haugh area. That leaves Labour and the Conservatives excelling in the eastern portion of Haugh plus a strip in between Merkinch and Dalneigh; indeed, Labour support was so strong in this pile they had a pretty wide lead over the SNP.
Second Preferences
Turning to the transfer patterns, absolutely everything here is as you’d expect in an urban ward. There’s a mutual SNP to Green flow. The same is true for Labour and the Lib Dems, with the Conservatives also going orange with their second preferences. Finally, Reform UK voters were most likely to opt for the Conservatives.
Underlying this though, as in most if not all by-elections at the moment, is a weakening of the SNP-Green flows relative to past performance. To say there has been bad blood between the parties over the past few months would be an understatement, and that’s trickling through to their voters as well. Whereas in some places Green to SNP has fallen harder than the reverse, the opposite is true here. SNP to Green is down about 8%, versus a reduction of 6.3% in the other direction. Added to that, the Green to Labour flow was 11.3% higher.
Remember, Labour only won this by-election by 16 votes. The Greens got 158 first preferences. You don’t need to be an arithmetical wizard to pretty quickly work out what that means. If you are a bit of a wizard like me, then you can work out that if Green to SNP preferences had moved in 2022’s pattern, the SNP would have won the by-election by 12 votes. Still absolute skin of their teeth stuff, but it’d have been a win. Instead, Labour held on – and, per my analysis of Perth City North, that’s actually democratically a bit fairer than a single party having complete control.
Nonetheless, that’s bruising for the SNP, and directly attributable to losing support amongst Green voters. Of course, with a mutual reduction in preferencing, this could hurt the Greens in the future too. As I’ve written previously though, the Greens aren’t in contention in as many places as the SNP are, so the latter have more to lose. In addition, that’s a few years down the line: this is right now, and it’s probably cost the SNP a seat. None of this is to say anything for or against the SNP’s decision making on the Green front, simply to observe that it’s having an impact. Your mileage will vary as to whether you think that’s worthwhile or not.
We may only have three months left of 2024, but I’ve still got an absolutely staggering 22 further by-elections on my upcoming list. The first of these are coming up just this coming week on the 3rd of October in the form of another double bill. This one is in Dundee, with what should be an easy Labour win in Lochee and a harder fought one in Strathmartine that’ll make the difference between the SNP continuing their majority administration or slipping into minority, and thus risking losing control.
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