Banff and Buchan

[Robert Waller]

2011 Census

Owner-occupied 67.6% 296/650
Private rented 8.6% 622/650
Social rented 21.9% 170/650
White 99.0% 9/650
Black 0.2% 570/650
Asian 0.6% 616/650
Managerial & professional 22.8%
Routine & Semi-routine 35.9%
Employed lower supervisory and technical 11.4% 1/650
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 6.7% 10/650
Mining and quarrying 5.7% 5/650
Degree level 18.6% 556/650
No qualifications 31.3% 69/650
Students 5.6% 576/650
Age 65+ 17.7% 252/650



General Election 2019: Banff and Buchan

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

Conservative David Duguid 21,182 50.1 +2.1
SNP Paul Robertson 17,064 40.4 +1.3
Liberal Democrats Alison Smith 2,280 5.4 +1.9
Labour Brian Balcombe 1,734 4.1 −5.4

C Majority 4,118 9.7 +0.8

2019 electorate 66,655

Turnout 42,356 63.4 +0.8

Conservative hold
Swing 0.4 SNP to C

[Robert Waller]

This constituency is tucked into the north eastern shoulder of Scotland, in a way that suggests it is one of those that one would not pass through on the way to anywhere else, like Hull in England. In fact it has a lively and competitive history, with striking successes for both the Scottish Nationalists and the Conservatives, and some surprisingly gritty features in addition to its long coastline and strong agricultural heritage. It is not exactly a quiet backwater in either social or political terms.

The Banff and Buchan division was created in 1983 from two previous constituencies, each with a distinguished and electorally interesting background. Banffshire had existed as a seat since 1708, as it was a historic ‘shire’, but by then its electorate was far too small to sustain Westminster representation on its own, being a mere 32,768 in 1979. Only a small proportion, around 21%, of the Banffshire constituency’s voters, were included in the new seat, these living in the area around the town of Banff itself, such as the small towns of Aberchirder, Macduff and Portsoy, none of them with a population greater than 4,000. The bulk of the electorate came from Buchan, named after an earldom and one of the original provinces of Alba, which before 1983 formed nearly 80% of the parliamentary constituency of East Aberdeenshire. Buchan included some larger communities: Fraserburgh (population over 13,000) and Peterhead (over 18,000) on the coast, and Turriff (6,000) inland in the Deveron Valley.

Both donor seats were ‘early adopters’ as far as SNP parliamentary triumphs were concerned, having been gained in February 1974 when the Nationalists advanced from their previous high of two MPs to seven, though both had been regained by the Tories when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979. East Aberdeenshire had also been the base of the colourful Conservative Bob Boothby between 1924 and 1958. Banff & Buchan has maintained this tradition of a dance between the SNP and the Conservatives, who have rather monopolised the ‘unionist’ support here, though it is the Nationalists who have held the upper hand for a longer spell. Albert McQuarrie (C, East Aberdeenshire since 1979) did win the seat on its first contest in 1983, but lost it to Alex Salmond in 1987. Salmond became leader of the SNP in 1990 and remained so until 2000, then again from 2004. In 2010 he stood down from Westminster to focus on the Scottish Parliament, but Eilidh Whiteford took over for the Nationalists in 2010 and increased her majority to over 14,000 in 2015. It therefore came as a surprise to some when she lost to the Conservatives in 2017, when their share rose by over 19% and David Duguid was elected. He did even better in 2019, an exception to the general decline of the Conservative party in SNP facing contests, and increased his majority to over 4,000.

Looking at the electoral patterns within Banff & Buchan, the evidence from the most recent Aberdeenshire council elections (May 2022) is complicated by the presence of strong Independent candidates in several wards, such as Banff & District, Fraserburgh & District and Peterhead North & Rattray. However, the SNP and Conservative strengths on STV first preferences were well matched in most of the wards. The Tories were clearly ahead in Troup ward, by 50% to 37% in one of the few contests where no Independent stood. Troup covers the coast and hinterland between Banff town and Fraserburgh, including the small town of Macduff, the fishing/tourist villages of Gardenstown, Rosehearty and Pennan (one of the locations for the attractive community in the film Local Hero), and the planned estate community of New Aberdour a little inland. The Tories were also in the lead in 2022 in Turriff & District and Central Buchan, a large inland mainly agricultural ward with no towns, stretching west to the Hill of Corsegight, south to Easterton of Auchleuchries, and east to the Moss of Savock and the Moss of Auchlee. Though lagging behind Independents if they are added together in Fraserburgh & District ward, it was the Conservative candidate who was top of the poll there, while the SNP polled only 20%, their lowest anywhere in the constituency in 2022.

On the other hand, the Nationalists did lead in Banff & District and in Peterhead South & Cruden, the nearest ward in the direction of Aberdeen, with their largest share of 46.5%. They beat the Tories in the other Peterhead ward too, though both were behind the Independents’ total. Looking back at historic local results though it s clear that personal factors play a strong part, and both Conservatives and Nationalists have on occasion done very well in both the two largest towns, Peterhead and Fraserburgh, for example.

The demographic statistics from the 2011 census for the seat as a whole may surprise (this is the latest available census, unlike south of the border, because the Scottish Census was delayed for a year to 2022 because if the pandemic). Overall this is a rather working class constituency. The proportion in routine and semi-routine occupations far exceeded that in professional and managerial jobs, and was actually among the 100 highest in the United Kingdom – as was the percentage of those with no educational qualifications and of full time students. It might be posited that this is due to the fact that both Peterhead and Fraserburgh, despite still being major fishing ports, have down market characteristics including an unenviable reputation for drug trafficking and use, especially in Fraserburgh, that has not entirely gone away.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-45945184
(2018)
www.aberdeenlive.news/news/aberdeen-news/fraserburgh-grandmother-who-couldnt-deal-7391291
(2022)
Yet although the small area census details do indeed reveal high proportions in Fraserburgh and Peterhead in the DE social grades, for example, the pattern of around one third of adult residents having no educational qualifications applies to rural wards like Turriff District and Central Buchan as well. Neither Fraserburgh nor Peterhead looks uniformly or particularly grim, especially compared with many industrial Scottish towns, though they can be bleak in the frequent grey, wet and windy weather of the north east coast, and there are down-market housing areas, for example around the (currently struggling) football club in Peterhead. The proportion in AB professional and managerial grades was less than 10% in Fraserburgh and Peterhead North - but scarcely higher in Troup, and only around 15% in Central Buchan and Turriff. Despite these socio-economic characteristics, the Labour party is very weak throughout Banff & Buchan. They lost their deposit in December 2019 and have never finished in the top two in the seat.

There is likely to be another tense and tight two way fight in this area at the next Westminster election. The Conservatives, buoyed by the last two general election results in Banff & Buchan, will hope for another above national average performance the SNP, however, did hold onto the similar Holyrood constituency of Banffshire & Buchan Coast with a majority of 772 despite a strong Tory advance in May 2021. Matters will be clouded too by significant boundary changes. The names of Banffshire (after many centuries) and Buchan (after 40 years) are scheduled to disappear. Nearly 70% of the current Westminster seat is to become the majority of a new Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, along with just under a third of the Moray seat, in the shape of Keith and Cullen, Buckie, and Fochabers Lhanbrude wards. Transferred out, to the new Aberdeenshire Central (mainly the present Gordon) will be Turriff and District and Central Buchan.

The result will be a rather extraordinary looking new constituency, that nevertheless has some logic: a long strip of coastal territory that takes a right angle near Fraserburgh and turn southwards
www.bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk/sites/default/files/revised_constituency_maps/Aberdeenshire_north_and_moray_east.pdf
Banff & Buchan has a fairly regular shape, but a huge bite is taken out of it as the inland wards are moved to join Gordon. However ‘coastal’ constituencies do unite the tourist and maritime interests, and there are precedents, for example Suffolk Coastal in England. The arrival of Keith and Buckie, although they have been located within Moray council since 1975, also recreates more of historic Banffshire – indeed Buckie, not Banff, was the largest town in that traditional county. It is Moray, though, that gets recognised in the name of the seat.

As for the likely political makeup of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, the latter section will merely contribute to the well balanced Conservative-SNP battle. In the Moray council elections of May 2022, those two parties were almost neck and neck in first preferences in both Fochabers Lhanbryde and Keith & Cullen (where they were separated by 0.18%), while in Buckie there was actually no contest as Conservative, Liberal Democrat and SNP candidates were returned unopposed. In 2017 the SNP had been 10% ahead of the Tories in Buckie. Overall Moray constituency was a narrow Conservative hold, by 513 votes, in December 2019.

As the two wards transferred out are among the more Conservative parts of the Banff & Buchan seat, it is probable that there will be a considerably lower Tory notional majority in advance of the debut of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East in general elections, probably in late 2024. There will most likely be another hard struggle between Nationalist and Tories in the new coastal constituency - a battle in Buckie, a fight in Fraserburgh, a head to head in Peterhead. Indeed, dare one say: “lay on, Macduff”?


One more to cross off the list of John Chanin

[batman]

Robert! Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979! Although this seat was formed in 1983, which is perhaps what you mean.........

[Robert Waller]

Jan 29, 2023 16:39:49 GMT batman said:

Robert! Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979! Although this seat was formed in 1983, which is perhaps what you mean.........

Thanks, although I do remember when she took office, it was a mistake - I did mean 1979, corrected above now. I got in a tangle trying to convey that the two donor seats to Banff and Buchan were both C up to 1983, having been gained in 1979 when she came to power.

[Clark]

Peterhead (Peterheid locally) and Fraserburgh (The Broch locally) used to be monolothic for the SNP back in Salmond's day.

Even for an Aberdonian, it can be tricky understanding people from these places such is their local dialect!  But they are in general great, friendly people in my experiences.

[batman]

It would be interesting to have some sort of poll or discussion as to which parliamentary constituency, with linear predecessors, has seen the greatest long-term Labour under-performance. This one might be quite high up the list. Labour has never been anywhere near here, whereas in comparison they were fairly close to winning Moray in 2001 (some think that there was a good vote for Labour in RAF Kinloss in opposition to the SNP's unilateralism, whether that is true or not is hard to say, I've always been a little sceptical about that)

[Clark]

Jan 31, 2023 16:29:11 GMT batman said:

It would be interesting to have some sort of poll or discussion as to which parliamentary constituency, with linear predecessors, has seen the greatest long-term Labour under-performance. This one might be quite high up the list. Labour has never been anywhere near here, whereas in comparison they were fairly close to winning Moray in 2001 (some think that there was a good vote for Labour in RAF Kinloss in opposition to the SNP's unilateralism, whether that is true or not is hard to say, I've always been a little sceptical about that)

Very decent Labour vote in Elgin back then.  Not sure about now though

[batman]

yes Elgin was definitely Labour's strongest area in Moray at that time.

[stb12]

Believed to be the only Scottish constituency that voted as a majority in favour of Brexit

[bjornhattan]

Jan 31, 2023 18:50:08 GMT stb12 said:

Believed to be the only Scottish constituency that voted as a majority in favour of Brexit

I've seen some estimates put Leave narrowly ahead in Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross - though I'm not convinced because you'd need the rest of Highland to vote nearly 60% Remain for that. I'd defer to someone with more local knowledge, but I'm struggling to see where that vote would have come from.

Angus might have also been quite close - Angus council was 55-45 but judging by demographics Monifieth & Sidlaw and Carnoustie & District will have been the two strongest wards for Remain in the council. They won't be big enough to completely eliminate the Remain lead in the rest of the council, but I'd be surprised if Leave didn't win c. 48% in Angus constituency (and a reasonably clear majority in Arbroath).

[stb12]

Jan 31, 2023 19:11:37 GMT bjornhattan said:

Jan 31, 2023 18:50:08 GMT stb12 said:

Believed to be the only Scottish constituency that voted as a majority in favour of Brexit

I've seen some estimates put Leave narrowly ahead in Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross - though I'm not convinced because you'd need the rest of Highland to vote nearly 60% Remain for that. I'd defer to someone with more local knowledge, but I'm struggling to see where that vote would have come from.

Angus might have also been quite close - Angus council was 55-45 but judging by demographics Monifieth & Sidlaw and Carnoustie & District will have been the two strongest wards for Remain in the council. They won't be big enough to completely eliminate the Remain lead in the rest of the council, but I'd be surprised if Leave didn't win c. 48% in Angus constituency (and a reasonably clear majority in Arbroath).

Moray only had Remain ahead by 0.2% and that is accurate for certain since the current constituency covers the entire council area and only that

[ntyuk1707]

At the 2016 UK EU membership referendum, Buchan and coastal Banffshire voted 61% in favour of leaving the European Union, bucking the national trend across Scotland in favour of remaining within the EU. There was a particularly strong Leave vote reported in the fishing towns of Fraserburgh and Peterhead, which had been strongly SNP areas since Alex Salmond won this seat for the SNP at the 1987 general election.

From 1987 up until 2010, this seat had returned Alex Salmond to the UK Parliament with increasingly strong majorities.

But when Alex Salmond stood down in 2010, the SNP's Eilidh Whiteford won the seat with a much reduced majority, with an 11% swing to the Conservatives. The seat then swung back to Ms Whiteford in the SNP's 2015 landslide election with a 10% swing from the Conservatives.

While the seat had generally been dominated by the SNP before Brexit, some rural inland areas did return a notable Conservative vote.

Since Brexit, the voting dynamic of the seat has transformed, with the Conservatives wracking up a strong vote in the former SNP stronghold of Fraserburgh and holding respectable levels of support in most rural parts of the constituency while cutting the SNP close enough in Peterhead to be competitive in the seat as a whole.


The Conservative David Daguid managed to win the seat on 20% swing from the SNP in the 2017 general election with an 8% majority, which he increased in 2019, being the only Conservative MP to do so in the whole of Scotland.

Brexit has played a big role in Mr Daguid's electoral success here, as unlike heavily remain areas like Aberdeen South and East Renfrewshire, this seat stuck with the Conservatives through their Brexit push in 2019.

In the absence of this push, the Tory vote here dropped relative to 2019 more so than many other parts of Scotland in the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary election, allowing the SNP's Karen Adam to squeak to victory on less favourable boundaries with a 2% majority ahead of the Conservatives.

While being highly pro-Brexit, this seat also contains some of Aberdeenshire's most pro-independence areas, including an estimated marginal Yes-vote in Peterhead and slim No votes in Banff & District (53% No) and Fraserburgh (54% No), with an approximate 60% No vote in the two inland wards.

Overall, the seat is estimated to have voted 54% No in 2014, slightly lower than the national average.

This is a key battleground area for the Conservatives and the SNP. Boundary changes will improve the SNP's changes here by removing two more Conservative-leaning wards into the newly formulated Aberdeenshire Central constituency, and bringing in more SNP-voting parts of Moray Council including Buckie and Keith & Cullen into the new constituency, which is slightly more pro-independence than the existing seat (estimated 53% No vote in 2014).

[ntyuk1707]

Jan 31, 2023 19:11:37 GMT bjornhattan said:

Jan 31, 2023 18:50:08 GMT stb12 said:

Believed to be the only Scottish constituency that voted as a majority in favour of Brexit

I've seen some estimates put Leave narrowly ahead in Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross - though I'm not convinced because you'd need the rest of Highland to vote nearly 60% Remain for that. I'd defer to someone with more local knowledge, but I'm struggling to see where that vote would have come from.

Angus might have also been quite close - Angus council was 55-45 but judging by demographics Monifieth & Sidlaw and Carnoustie & District will have been the two strongest wards for Remain in the council. They won't be big enough to completely eliminate the Remain lead in the rest of the council, but I'd be surprised if Leave didn't win c. 48% in Angus constituency (and a reasonably clear majority in Arbroath).

Wick, Invergordon, Dorness, Alness and North West Sutherland would be demographically more predisposed towards voting Leave than elsewhere in the Highlands, so I think a narrow Remain vote in Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross is an not unreasonable estimate.

[rcronald]

Apr 1, 2023 0:03:28 GMT ntyuk1707 said:

At the 2016 UK EU membership referendum, Buchan and coastal Banffshire voted 61% in favour of leaving the European Union, bucking the national trend across Scotland in favour of remaining within the EU. There was a particularly strong Leave vote reported in the fishing towns of Fraserburgh and Peterhead, which had been strongly SNP areas since Alex Salmond won this seat for the SNP at the 1987 general election.

From 1987 up until 2010, this seat had returned Alex Salmond to the UK Parliament with increasingly strong majorities.

But when Alex Salmond stood down in 2010, the SNP's Eilidh Whiteford won the seat with a much reduced majority, with an 11% swing to the Conservatives. The seat then swung back to Ms Whiteford in the SNP's 2015 landslide election with a 10% swing from the Conservatives.

While the seat had generally been dominated by the SNP before Brexit, some rural inland areas did return a notable Conservative vote.

Since Brexit, the voting dynamic of the seat has transformed, with the Conservatives wracking up a strong vote in the former SNP stronghold of Fraserburgh and holding respectable levels of support in most rural parts of the constituency while cutting the SNP close enough in Peterhead to be competitive in the seat as a whole.


The Conservative David Daguid managed to win the seat on 20% swing from the SNP in the 2017 general election with an 8% majority, which he increased in 2019, being the only Conservative MP to do so in the whole of Scotland.

Brexit has played a big role in Mr Daguid's electoral success here, as unlike heavily remain areas like Aberdeen South and East Renfrewshire, this seat stuck with the Conservatives through their Brexit push in 2019.

In the absence of this push, the Tory vote here collapsed more so than many other parts of Scotland in the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary election, allowing the SNP's Karen Adam to squeak to victory on less favourable boundaries with a 2% majority ahead of the Conservatives.

While being highly pro-Brexit, this seat also contains some of Aberdeenshire's most pro-independence areas, including an estimated marginal Yes-vote in Peterhead and slim No votes in Banff & District (53% No) and Fraserburgh (54% No), with an approximate 60% No vote in the two inland wards.

Overall, the seat is estimated to have voted 54% No in 2014, slightly lower than the national average.

This is a key battleground area for the Conservatives and the SNP. Boundary changes will improve the SNP's changes here by removing two more Conservative-leaning wards into the newly formulated Aberdeenshire Central constituency, and bringing in more SNP-voting parts of Moray Council including Buckie and Keith & Cullen into the new constituency, which is slightly more pro-independence than the existing seat (estimated 53% No vote in 2014).

Can you really call the 2021 results a Tory collapse? There was a 10% swing in favour of the conservatives 2021 (compared to 2016) and the party narrowly won the list vote after losing it by 22% in 2016.

[batman]

can we use the term swing properly please

[rcronald]

Apr 1, 2023 3:39:48 GMT rcronald said:

Apr 1, 2023 0:03:28 GMT ntyuk1707 said:

At the 2016 UK EU membership referendum, Buchan and coastal Banffshire voted 61% in favour of leaving the European Union, bucking the national trend across Scotland in favour of remaining within the EU. There was a particularly strong Leave vote reported in the fishing towns of Fraserburgh and Peterhead, which had been strongly SNP areas since Alex Salmond won this seat for the SNP at the 1987 general election.

From 1987 up until 2010, this seat had returned Alex Salmond to the UK Parliament with increasingly strong majorities.

But when Alex Salmond stood down in 2010, the SNP's Eilidh Whiteford won the seat with a much reduced majority, with an 11% swing to the Conservatives. The seat then swung back to Ms Whiteford in the SNP's 2015 landslide election with a 10% swing from the Conservatives.

While the seat had generally been dominated by the SNP before Brexit, some rural inland areas did return a notable Conservative vote.

Since Brexit, the voting dynamic of the seat has transformed, with the Conservatives wracking up a strong vote in the former SNP stronghold of Fraserburgh and holding respectable levels of support in most rural parts of the constituency while cutting the SNP close enough in Peterhead to be competitive in the seat as a whole.


The Conservative David Daguid managed to win the seat on 20% swing from the SNP in the 2017 general election with an 8% majority, which he increased in 2019, being the only Conservative MP to do so in the whole of Scotland.

Brexit has played a big role in Mr Daguid's electoral success here, as unlike heavily remain areas like Aberdeen South and East Renfrewshire, this seat stuck with the Conservatives through their Brexit push in 2019.

In the absence of this push, the Tory vote here collapsed more so than many other parts of Scotland in the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary election, allowing the SNP's Karen Adam to squeak to victory on less favourable boundaries with a 2% majority ahead of the Conservatives.

While being highly pro-Brexit, this seat also contains some of Aberdeenshire's most pro-independence areas, including an estimated marginal Yes-vote in Peterhead and slim No votes in Banff & District (53% No) and Fraserburgh (54% No), with an approximate 60% No vote in the two inland wards.

Overall, the seat is estimated to have voted 54% No in 2014, slightly lower than the national average.

This is a key battleground area for the Conservatives and the SNP. Boundary changes will improve the SNP's changes here by removing two more Conservative-leaning wards into the newly formulated Aberdeenshire Central constituency, and bringing in more SNP-voting parts of Moray Council including Buckie and Keith & Cullen into the new constituency, which is slightly more pro-independence than the existing seat (estimated 53% No vote in 2014).

Can you really call the 2021 results a Tory collapse? There was a 10% swing in favour of the conservatives 2021 (compared to 2016) and the party narrowly won the list vote after losing it by 22% in 2016.

The current MSP seems like a bloody awful fit, I would be surprised if the Conservatives didn’t gain the seat in 2026

[ntyuk1707]

Apr 1, 2023 3:39:48 GMT rcronald said:

Apr 1, 2023 0:03:28 GMT ntyuk1707 said:

At the 2016 UK EU membership referendum, Buchan and coastal Banffshire voted 61% in favour of leaving the European Union, bucking the national trend across Scotland in favour of remaining within the EU. There was a particularly strong Leave vote reported in the fishing towns of Fraserburgh and Peterhead, which had been strongly SNP areas since Alex Salmond won this seat for the SNP at the 1987 general election.

From 1987 up until 2010, this seat had returned Alex Salmond to the UK Parliament with increasingly strong majorities.

But when Alex Salmond stood down in 2010, the SNP's Eilidh Whiteford won the seat with a much reduced majority, with an 11% swing to the Conservatives. The seat then swung back to Ms Whiteford in the SNP's 2015 landslide election with a 10% swing from the Conservatives.

While the seat had generally been dominated by the SNP before Brexit, some rural inland areas did return a notable Conservative vote.

Since Brexit, the voting dynamic of the seat has transformed, with the Conservatives wracking up a strong vote in the former SNP stronghold of Fraserburgh and holding respectable levels of support in most rural parts of the constituency while cutting the SNP close enough in Peterhead to be competitive in the seat as a whole.


The Conservative David Daguid managed to win the seat on 20% swing from the SNP in the 2017 general election with an 8% majority, which he increased in 2019, being the only Conservative MP to do so in the whole of Scotland.

Brexit has played a big role in Mr Daguid's electoral success here, as unlike heavily remain areas like Aberdeen South and East Renfrewshire, this seat stuck with the Conservatives through their Brexit push in 2019.

In the absence of this push, the Tory vote here collapsed more so than many other parts of Scotland in the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary election, allowing the SNP's Karen Adam to squeak to victory on less favourable boundaries with a 2% majority ahead of the Conservatives.

While being highly pro-Brexit, this seat also contains some of Aberdeenshire's most pro-independence areas, including an estimated marginal Yes-vote in Peterhead and slim No votes in Banff & District (53% No) and Fraserburgh (54% No), with an approximate 60% No vote in the two inland wards.

Overall, the seat is estimated to have voted 54% No in 2014, slightly lower than the national average.

This is a key battleground area for the Conservatives and the SNP. Boundary changes will improve the SNP's changes here by removing two more Conservative-leaning wards into the newly formulated Aberdeenshire Central constituency, and bringing in more SNP-voting parts of Moray Council including Buckie and Keith & Cullen into the new constituency, which is slightly more pro-independence than the existing seat (estimated 53% No vote in 2014).

Can you really call the 2021 results a Tory collapse? There was a 10% swing in favour of the conservatives 2021 (compared to 2016) and the party narrowly won the list vote after losing it by 22% in 2016.

True, "collapse" is a bit much, though relative to 2019 the Conservative vote dropped by 6%, twice as big a drop as the national average.

[rockefeller]

Apr 1, 2023 9:48:00 GMT ntyuk1707 said:

Apr 1, 2023 3:39:48 GMT rcronald said:

Can you really call the 2021 results a Tory collapse? There was a 10% swing in favour of the conservatives 2021 (compared to 2016) and the party narrowly won the list vote after losing it by 22% in 2016.

True, "collapse" is a bit much, though relative to 2019 the Conservative vote dropped by 6%, twice as big a drop as the national average.

Brexit no longer being as big of an issue?

[ntyuk1707]

Apr 1, 2023 11:25:28 GMT rockefeller said:

Apr 1, 2023 9:48:00 GMT ntyuk1707 said:

True, "collapse" is a bit much, though relative to 2019 the Conservative vote dropped by 6%, twice as big a drop as the national average.

Brexit no longer being as big of an issue?

Comparing the 2021 Scottish election to the 2019 UK general election, the Conservatives made notable recoveries in remain-leaning constituencies like Eastwood, Ayr, Edinburgh Pentlands, Aberdeen South & North Kincardine, Perthshire South & Kinross-shire, Aberdeenshire West and Stirling; whilst simultaneously seeing an above average drop in vote share in more leave-leaning constituencies like Angus South, Aberdeenshire East, Banffshire & Buchan Coast and Moray.

Brexit seems to be very much a double-edged sword for the Tories, benefiting them in the north-east of Scotland at the expense of some more urban/affluent constituencies where they traditionally do well, and as Brexit becomes less prominent this could spell trouble for the party in the north-east of Scotland.