Lothian – 2016 Results and 2021 Candidates

Confusingly, the Lothian region doesn’t actually cover all of the historic area of the same name. Although it incorporates the entirety of both West Lothian and the city of Edinburgh, it’s missing large parts of the others. Most of Midlothian makes it in, with just the southern portion around Penicuik and Gorebridge absent. The vast majority of East Lothian lies outside the region, with only Musselburgh included. The original 1999 version included even less of East Lothian as Wallyford and the east of Musselburgh weren’t in it, but it did have more Midlothian thanks to Gorebridge.

That precise division gives the region an interesting split between the historic mining communities of West and Midlothian, versus the relatively but of course not universally more affluent capital in Edinburgh. Whereas the former followed the same trend as other central belt areas like Lanarkshire and south Fife by becoming heavily Labour through the 20th century, some Edinburgh seats maintained Conservative MPs right up until their famous wipeout in 1997. 

At that election, they were replaced by the Lib Dems as Labour’s main competition in the city, whilst the SNP were the leading opponents but didn’t break through in West Lothian. As ever with First Past the Post however, the substantial political diversity in the region wasn’t expressed in its MPs.

8 Labour (all Constituency)
3 SNP (all Regional)
2 Conservative (all Regional)
2 Liberal Democrat (1 Constituency, 1 Regional)
1 Green (Regional)

6 Labour (all Constituency)
2 SNP (all Regional)
2 Conservative (1 Constituency, 1 Regional)
2 Green (all Regional)
2 Liberal Democrat (all Constituency)
1 Independent (Margo MacDonald, Regional)
1 SSP (Regional)

5 SNP (3 Regional, 2 Constituency)
5 Labour (4 Constituency, 1 Regional)
2 Conservative (1 Constituency, 1 Regional)
2 Liberal Democrat (1 Constituency, 1 Regional)
1 Green (Regional)
1 Independent (Margo MacDonald, Regional)

8 SNP (all Constituency)
4 Labour (3 Regional, 1 Constituency)
2 Conservative (all Regional)
1 Green (Regional)
1 Independent (Margo MacDonald, Regional)

6 SNP (all Constituency)
4 Conservative (3 Regional, 1 Constituency)
3 Labour (2 Regional, 1 Constituency)
2 Green (all Regional)
1 Liberal Democrat (Constituency)

(Note: This section is based on the national polling averages as of the 1st of April.)

The two constituencies to watch this time are Edinburgh Central and Edinburgh Southern. It really rankled the SNP to lose a constituency to the Conservative leader, as demonstrated by the out-sized attention both the party and the media have been giving to the SNP selection there. Davidson isn’t standing again this time, which may help boost the SNP’s chances. Meanwhile in Edinburgh Southern, polling doesn’t bode well for Labour’s chances – but it wouldn’t have done so in 2016 either, and this may be the constituency they are most likely to hold onto.

Given the imperfect nature of proportionality via AMS and the possibility for parties to win “too many” constituencies and throw it off, that may be the biggest contributor to changes in the list seats. The Greens only won their second seat very narrowly last time, and would have missed out on it had any of the three non-SNP constituencies went another way. They’ll need to grow their vote substantially to secure that seat.

If the SNP were to win back either or both of those constituencies, then in addition to the Greens, both Labour and the Conservatives could see one of their regional MSPs in the firing line. Overall, Lothian in 2021 is very likely to come out as a strong argument for moving away from AMS as it currently works to a more properly proportional system.