[SCOT goes POP!] Big win for the SNP in Perth City North by-election

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Big win for the SNP in Perth City North by-election

There was a by-election double-header in Perth & Kinross yesterday, and as is often the case in the wacky world of STV by-elections, things are not quite as they seem.  The Perth City North result is being billed as an SNP gain from Labour, but in fact it's a ward where the SNP were defending a huge lead and their vote share dropped.  The Strathallan result is being billed as a Liberal Democrat gain from the Conservatives, and indeed there was a Conservative lead in the ward last time around - but on first preferences there was this time too.  The Lib Dems only won on transfers.

Perth City North by-election first preference votes (26th September 2024):

SNP 44.7% (-10.5)
Labour 15.3% (-0.1)
Conservatives 14.4% (-5.1)
Reform UK 10.2% (n/a)
Alba 6.5% (+4.3)
Liberal Democrats 4.6% (+0.4)
Greens 4.2% (+0.8)

Strathallan by-election first preference votes (26th September 2024):

Conservatives 32.1% (-14.6)

Liberal Democrats 30.0% (+18.6)

SNP 17.4% (-17.5)

Labour 11.2% (n/a)

Reform UK 6.0% (n/a)

Greens 3.3% (-3.7)

Within minutes of the Perth City North result being announced, there was synchronised tweeting about it from John Swinney, Pete Wishart and Jim Fairlie, and in spite of the 10 point drop in the SNP vote, it's probably fair to say this is a solid result for the SNP.  They didn't win a single local by-election anywhere in Scotland in the whole time Humza Yousaf was leader, so to win even the safest of wards by such a big margin must be regarded as pretty satisfying.  Although Labour's vote in the ward has only declined very slightly, they're effectively stuck where they were in 2022 - when nationally they were in a distant second place and only just barely ahead of the third-placed Tories.  You'd expect better from a party that won the general election in Scotland less than three months ago, and it bears out the message of recent opinion polls that Labour are suffering from Keir Starmer's unforced errors.

That said, Labour's result in Strathallan is actually OK in a ward that has been poor for them in the past - they didn't bother standing in 2022, but in 2017 they took only 5% of the vote, while in 2012 they took 10%.  The SNP's showing in Strathallan is disappointing, there's no getting away from that, and it's hard to escape the impression that there must have been some kind of direct movement from the SNP to the Lib Dems, who did have a genuinely impressive result in spite of not quite topping the poll on first preferences.

If there's a common thread to the two by-elections, it's the strong showing from Reform UK, and that does look like an increasing problem as Holyrood 2026 comes into view.  Unless Reform UK's Scotland-wide vote drifts downwards to 5% or below, they may win enough list seats to make it very hard for the pro-independence majority at Holyrood to be maintained, even if the SNP stay in first place.

If I was being Machiavellian, I'd say what is required is a pro-independence party on the radical right to take on Reform UK on their own terms.  That won't happen, of course, so perhaps some shameless left-wing economic populism is the order of the day to try to win back the disaffected voters drifting to Reform.

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Source: Big win for the SNP in Perth City North by-election