Labour have won the Ward 2 Broxburn, Uphall and Winchburgh by election today. Not untypical for a by election the turnout is down from 42.2% in May 2022 to 27.2% yesterday Dec 1st.
Tory vote has collapsed so it’s likely they’d have lost their existing seat on the West Lothian Council if it had been their seat in the by-election.
SNP and Greens need to be careful of complacence as both have dropped vote share, while Labour retained their seat with an increased % of the vote, likely from a mix of Tories and SNP.
The only Independence supporting party to increase their vote share is Alba Party, albeit by small gain but moves Broxburn, Uphall and Winchburgh from #63 to #45 in Alba’s May 2022 candidate results list.
We also can’t assume all the Labour vote are not pro-independence, given figures summarised by The Ferret in 2020 to be on average from polls at 32% of Labour’s own membership as pro-Independence, with more at least neutral on the constitution.
This all highlights the complexity of the SNP leadership’s announced ‘plebiscite’ elections and why very careful thought is needed to fully understand HOW this approach will work.
Interestingly, unlike May 21, two independent candidates stood on Dec 1st and swept up almost 9% of the vote which shows that there are definitely electoral opportunities beyond party politics in local elections, especially in 4 member wards.
