Why the two Scottish by-elections are the SNP's to lose
You might not have noticed given the coverage of the upcoming Makerfield by-election, but there are two Scottish by-elections happening next week as well
All eyes are on Makerfield this week to see if Andy Burnham can make his glorious return to Westminster and challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the throne.
Yet there are actually two other by-elections happening north of the Border on Thursday too - the Aberdeen South and the Arbroath and Broughty Ferry by-elections.
These two Scottish by-elections have become pushed to the side as our collective conscience focuses on Makerfield, but for the Scottish parties it is all to play for.
On paper, these two seats are the SNP’s to lose. These were two of only nine seats the nationalists managed to cling on to in a disastrous general election in 2024.
Even within these two by-elections Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (triggered by Stephen Gethins jumping from Westminster to Holyrood) is getting sidelined. That is because it is in peak SNP territory with no other party able to make much headway against the nationalists.
Which is why we turn our attention to Aberdeen South, following Stephen Flynn moving to Holyrood and taking up a top-level cabinet job.
The Scottish Conservatives have successfully managed to turn this into a referendum on North Sea oil and gas, a comfortable topic for them.
They are pretty confident their candidate Douglas Lumsden, who was announced as the candidate before the ink had dried on his Holyrood victory, can snatch this seat off of the SNP.
The main reason for this is how close the Conservatives came to winning the equivalent Holyrood seat last month (Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine) - they were only 1,200 votes away from denying Mr Flynn his victory.
They believe an extra push, plenty of visits from UK leader Kemi Badenoch and the fall-out from the Peter Murrell scandal will serve them well here.
The Conservatives also won this seat back in 2017, although the party’s support locally and nationally was much higher a decade ago.
There is a note of caution here, however. The boundaries between the Holyrood and Westminster seats are slightly different. The Westminster seat does not cover North Kincardine, a more Conservative-leaning area, and instead takes in parts of central Aberdeen, which is much more SNP friendly.
On top of this the Conservatives actually came third in this seat in 2024 behind Scottish Labour, although their vote does appear to have collapsed and are not even being discussed in this by-election race.
So what about the rising threat of Reform UK? Will their popularity take away right-wing votes from the Conservatives?
Inevitably yes, but there are two reasons why they might fail to seriously challenge the Conservatives here.
Firstly, even within the oil and gas industry there is an acknowledgement that Reform UK’s “drill baby drill” stance is not the answer to their woes.
Secondly, Reform UK will be throwing all of its resources into challenging the Makerfield by-election in England. Winning there is a much better story for them in their journey to being the next UK Government.
So then we turn to the fall-out from the Murrell scandal. What effect will it have on the SNP’s vote share here?
There is the looming threat that SNP voters will simply not bother going out to the polls to voice their dissatisfaction with internal party workings. This is a complete unknown quantity in this by-election that no-one seems able to predict.
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.