Background
As the end of the year continues to approach at a truly frightening pace, we’ve still got a few Scottish by-elections to get out of the way. For this week’s entry we were on a return trip to Stirling East, which had a by-election in December. This time around it was Conservative councillor Bryan Flannagan’s resignation that was the trigger. He’d been a councillor since 2017, but stood down to focus on his other work.
Given there had already been a by-election there in the past year, my preview didn’t require me to gaze too deeply into my crystal ball. If the SNP had won that by-election over Labour, and Labour were now in a worse state than they had been then, it was likely that this would be another SNP victory. I didn’t note it – which was an oversight on my part – but this was also worth watching to see the scale of further Reform growth over this year.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
1 Councillor Elected:
SNP: Josh Fyvie
Change vs 2024 (notional): SNP Hold
Change vs 2022 (notional): SNP Hold
Change vs vacating: SNP Gain from Conservative
Turnout: 26.0% (+4.2 / -19.5)
Electorate: 8662
Valid: 2222 (98.8%)
Spoiled: 28 (1.2%)
Quota: 1112
2 Continuing Councillors:SNP: Gerry McLaughlan
SNP: Willie Ferguson
Candidates
Conservative: James Corbett
Labour: Yvonne Dickson
Reform UK: William DochertySNP: Josh Fyvie
Lib Dem: William Galloway
Green: Marie Stadtler
First Preferences
Swing vs 2024 By-Election
Swing vs 2022
Note: an Independent won 5.6% in 2024 and 7.9% in 2022; the Family Party won 1.4% in 2022.
First Preference History
I’ll grant you that wasn’t the hardest prediction to make, but nonetheless, it was well made. With a slightly higher turnout than the fully-winter by-election last year, the SNP were able to grow their lead over Labour, although it’s still narrower than 2022. There is however a very neat mirroring in both measures, with the SNP and Labour shifts equal in magnitude but opposite directions.
The other story of this by-election however is how close the two major UK parties came to being displaced by challenger parties, albeit their challengers were sort of the wrong way about. As expected, Reform continued to improve on their performance at the Conservatives’ expense, further devouring their remaining vote. That left Reform just 13 votes shy of Labour, and with a decent Green uptick for a weak ward, put them just 6 votes behind the Conservatives. That also translates to a best-yet score for the Greens and worst-yet for the Conservatives in this ward.
If I were the Conservatives, I’d be worried about what that signals for next year: Green supporters are pretty much the least likely to turn out at by-elections, and also less likely to turn out for locals than parliamentary. That could suggest that the “real” Green share here is already ahead of them, and even more so for Holyrood. It’s only one ward, yes, but there have been a few behind-or-close-to for the Conservatives versus the Greens lately, and those have generally not been in strong Green areas. I’m not suggesting that points to the Greens beating the Conservatives nationally, but it could suggest that a complete withering across the urban Central Belt leaves them behind the Greens in several regions for the first time.
Last on the list, the Lib Dems also saw a further nudge upwards in their vote. Again, I reckon we can read a small amount into that for Holyrood: they’ll certainly be happy to be up at all, but if it’s only at this level in a weak area, when you consider similarly small upticks in other urban by-elections, we can possibly continue to write off the prospects of Lib Dem MSPs for Glasgow or Central and Lothians West.
Transfers
Two-Candidate Preferred
TCP swing vs 2024 By-Election
TCP swing vs 2022
Strictly speaking, transfers could have made the difference here. However, given we know that the SNP won from a narrower first preference position in December, their victory was effectively assured. Just like that previous by-election, Reform votes overwhelmingly didn’t transfer, and those that did were split almost evenly between the SNP and Labour. There was simply no way for Labour to close the gap. In fact the gap didn’t narrow at all over the count, as both parties attracted precisely 180 transfers each in total.
Here’s where this result is especially bad for Labour though: despite the fact they closed the gap slightly with the SNP on first preferences versus the full 2022 election, after transfers the SNP have actually marginally improved their position, whilst Labour’s has worsened. One silver lining for them though is that it remains the case that even if Reform had beaten them into the head-to-head, they’d not have come as close to beating the SNP, splitting instead 49.2% SNP and 28.8% Reform. Reform voters don’t transfer out, but non-Reform voters don’t transfer in either.
Regardless, it’s the SNP who won here, which has two notable local effects. Number one is that they now hold every single seat in the ward. I always point out that is a democratically poor outcome from what is meant to be a proportional voting system when it happens to any party, and I will do so again here. With three councillors, a party really should only have them all if it won more than 75% of support. This is only possible because by-elections effectively shift the goalposts away from proportionality, and is why we shouldn’t do by-elections under STV, except to replace Independents.
Number two is that it almost certainly spells the end for Labour’s nonsensical 4 councillor administration. That was reliant on the support of what were 8 Conservatives but now 7, for a total of 11 seats. The SNP now have 10, with a Green and an Independent adding up to 12. I had mentioned in my preview I wasn’t sure what the position of the formerly SNP Independent was, but it turns out he voted to replace the administration in June. As such I think we can take it as read that the next full council meeting will see the SNP come to power.
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
As turnout was higher for this by-election than last year’s, we’re actually able to get a neat breakdown of each individual district rather than them having to be paired off. The SNP once again had a lead in every district, whilst their best patch was Braehead. Labour also peaked there, whereas Reform, the Conservatives and Greens were all strongest in Broomridge. That left the Lib Dems alone in what is… maybe the northern part of Whins of Milton, or maybe western Bannockburn, seeing as the high school for the latter is in the area?
Second Preferences
Direct second preference flows show a mix of usual, emphatic preferences plus some more split tickets. The SNP and Greens have their standard mutual flow, reinforced somewhat compared to December due to the lack of an Independent option this time. It’s likewise all buddy-buddy on the right of the political spectrum, with both Reform and Conservative voters most likely to prefer the other, and again that’s a bit stronger than it was last year.
Labour voters were rather more split, with the SNP the most popular option but the Lib Dems not far behind. For the Lib Dems’ part, they were most likely to swing behind Labour but with the Greens a close second. In both cases that’s a reversal, as the party now the second most popular option had been narrowly the most at the previous by-election.
We’re straight onto another by-election next (or rather, this…) week, and not all that far down the road either. On Thursday we nip across to Fife where Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss Villages will be going to the polls to replace a former Labour councillor who was convicted on grooming charges. The SNP’s lead over Labour in that ward in 2022 is theoretically easily surmountable, but they haven’t done so that often lately, so it could go either way.
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