SP26: Ballot Box Battlegrounds Bonus Round 1 (Near Marginals + Mid and Fife Region)

I promise we aren’t just going back up the five next most marginal constituencies – that would be dull! – but the new version of Edinburgh Central is indeed next on the numerical list. It’s an absolute corker of a contest though, and the words “new version” are absolutely key. This is not, despite the pretty shoddily misleading claims of incumbent MSP Angus Robertson, the same constituency as in 2021. Having ditched right-leaning areas to the north and west of the city centre, replacing them with left-leaning portions to the south, it is not a contest between the SNP and Conservatives.

Instead, it’s the second easiest gain anywhere in the country for Labour. The fact the SNP have a notional majority of 10.5% and that’s the second closest Labour are to gaining a seat from them speaks to the mountain the latter have to climb nationwide. There’s more than just the threat of Labour winning it, which has somewhat receded since their polling re-collapsed. Instead, there’s another party in the mix, and this is almost certainly why Robertson is misrepresenting the constituency as at risk from falling to the Scary Tory Boogeyman at an election where that party is dying on its arse: the Greens.

Forget the 2021 constituency share for the Greens which is distorted by, one, the genuine tactical pressure of that election and two, the lack of a Green constituency candidate in the bits that came from Edinburgh Southern. Look at that list vote: the Greens in second place, just 5% behind the SNP. This is the strongest Green seat that has ever existed on that basis, and indeed in the 2022 local elections, the Greens won the most votes across this area at roughly 26% to the SNP’s 23% and Labour’s 21%.

At the time of writing, my model thinks the Greens will win this. So too do Devolved Elections and Mark McGeoghegan. Although I’ve repeatedly stated I’m not sure the Greens have the ground campaign to actually win, I’ve also heard on the grapevine (via Labour, not the Greens!) that canvassing returns are pretty Green favourable. If Robertson’s canvassers are finding similar, no wonder he’s trying dishonest scare tactics, because your average SNP voter in central Edinburgh is going to be pretty Green friendly.

The 2022 local result however is instructive of what I would expect a possible Green victory to look like here. This isn’t going to be a Gorton and Denton-ian sweep to a 40%+ mega victory: instead, as befits Edinburgh’s status as Scotland’s most diverse voting area, a roughly 30% win against a split field. If former Green Co-Leader (and Minister) Lorna Slater does pull this off, it’ll be the first constituency win in the Scottish Greens’ history, and a poke in the eye for dodgy bar chart campaigns. If Robertson does lose here, he also almost certainly leaves Holyrood, as he’s fourth on the Lothian list behind a candidate without a constituency.