Edinburgh South is a burgh constituency covering the upmarket neighbourhoods of Marchmont, Burntisfield, Morningside, Newington and Merchiston on the southern outskirts of Edinburgh City Centre down to the suburbs of Winton, Fairmilehead and Mortonhall and ex-council estates of Gilcolmston and Burdiehouse verging onto the Edinburgh City Bypass in the very south of the city.
The constituency first emerged as a safe Unionist seat at the 1918 general election, and stuck with the Conservative & Unionists until the election of Labour's Nigel Griffiths at the 1987 general election, from which point onwards the seat was represented by Labour MPs. In 2001, the Liberal Democrats overtook the Conservatives as the primary challengers to Labour here, and they were able to win the overlapping Edinburgh South seat in the Scottish Parliament at the 2003 and 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections, before the SNP narrowly surpassed both Labour and the Liberal Democrats to win the Scottish Parliamentary seat in 2011, with Labour's Daniel Johnson then going on to regain the seat for Labour at the 2016 Scottish election and retain the constituency with an increased majority in 2021.
In UK Parliamentary elections, Edinburgh South returned Labour's only Scottish Member of Parliament at both the 2015 and 2019 general elections, and it was the safest seat in Scotland at the 2017 general election, with Labour's Ian Murray winning the seat with a majority of 15,514 votes in that election, the largest majority ever recorded here. It is also one of only three Westminster seats in Scotland which has never been represented by an SNP MP.
In broad terms, Edinburgh South can be understood as a highly affluent area which is on the whole quite strongly opposed to Scottish independence. Arguably, it was the 2010 general election that determined this seat's fate as a safely Labour constituency in a sea of SNP yellow, as Labour's Ian Murray won the seat by just 316 votes ahead of the Liberal Democrats, placing Mr Murray as the best-placed candidate to prevent the SNP from gaining the seat in 2015 when the SNP won seats right across Scotland at the expense of Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the aftermath of the Scottish independence referendum. But despite being a relative stronghold for Labour in recent years, at the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary election it was the Conservatives who topped the poll here on the regional list vote, and the Conservatives also polled ahead of Labour and the SNP here at the 2017 City of Edinburgh Council elections, underlining the very tactical nature of voting in this constituency.
Morningside ward, located in the north-west of the constituency, incorporates the attractive Georgian sandstone tenements and townhouses of Burntisfield, Marchmont, Merchiston, Morningside and Greenhill, in addition to the large detached bungalows and manors of the Braids and Greenbank further south. There are mansions throughout this ward, including in parts of Morningside, Greenhill, Greenbank and the Braids, with a higher proportion of younger residents and students in northern areas towards the city centre, and more elderly residents further south. Morningside has become a popular area for Edinburgh's aspirational middle-class, and it is one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in the city with several upmarket cafés and restaurants lining Morningside Road. The demographic profile of the ward is mapped out in the ward's electoral geography, with a stronger vote for the Scottish Greens in northern parts of the ward contrasting a higher vote for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in southern segments, and Labour coming marginally ahead overall at last year's council elections. The split last year was 23% Labour, 21% Liberal Democrat, 21% Green, 18% Conservative and 16% SNP, with the ward having an estimated 69% No, 31% Yes vote at the 2014 independence referendum, ranging from a 62% No vote in Marchmont on the outskirts of the City Centre to an 81% No vote in the Braids. Northern Bruntsfield was the best part of the ward for the Yes campaign at 55% No to 45% Yes, however this polling district is part of the Edinburgh South West constituency.
Moving south of Greenbank and the Braids is the detached bungalows of Buckstone, Fairmilehead and Winton. This area was previously a safely Conservative part of the city, with the overlapping Colinton & Fairmilehead ward having voted 52% Conservative at the 2012 council elections and 50% Conservative in 2017, however Labour's advance here at Westminster as the main Unionist party in opposition to the SNP has contributed to this area dramatically turning its support away from the Conservatives and over towards Labour, with Buckstone having voted 50% Labour, 20% Conservative and just 14% SNP at last year's council elections and Fairmilehead & Winton having voted 38% Labour, 34% Conservative, 12% Lib Dem and 10% SNP. The Conservatives drastic fall-from-grace in these leafy suburbs in the very southern edge of the city echoes the changes felt across the constituency over the last 10 years as an increasingly strong seat for the Labour Party. This part of the constituency also returned one of Edinburgh's most empathetic results against Scottish independence at the 2014 independence referendum, with an estimated 81% No vote.
The Morningside ward alongside Fairmilehead, Buckstone and Winton form part of the EH10 postal area, which is Scotland's most expensive postal sector in which the vast majority of areas rank among the 10% least deprived in the country.
In the north-east of the constituency and mirroring the Morningside area are the communities of Scinnes, Newington, Nether Liberton, Blackford, Mayfield and the Grange within the Newington & Southside ward, nearing Edinburgh City Centre. The constituency boundary here cuts out areas of deprivation and student living in the northern and eastern segments of the ward which are covered by Edinburgh East, with the communities covered within Edinburgh South having a similar demographic profile to the Morningside area, with high rates of affluence and a mixture of fashionable apartments, Georgian tenements, spacious townhouses and manors, with some mansions in the Grange area. At the 2022 local election, polling districts within this area had Labour in first place, with a near five-way split in support between the Labour Party, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, SNP and Scottish Greens. The Southside & Newington ward as a whole returned an approximate 67% No vote to independence at the 2014 referendum, with the parts of the ward within Edinburgh South having a more substantial 72% vote against independence.
The final ward in Edinburgh South is Liberton & Gilmerton, which stretches from the suburban bungalows and semi-detached houses of Liberton and the moderately deprived ex-council estate of the Inch in the north of the ward bordering Nether Liberton, down to the highly deprived Moredun, Gilmerton, Burdiehouse and Gracemount estates in the south, as well as substantial newbuild developments on the periphery of these estates and out towards the city bypass, and the suburbs of Mortonhall and Alnwickhill in the south-west. This ward feels a bit cut off from the rest of the seat, being separated from Greenbank and the Braids by the Braid Hills, from Fairmilehead by fertile farmlands just north of the city bypass, and from Newington by the Braid Burn. The ward's social profile too is very different from the rest of the seat, being a mixture of affluent suburbs and deprived ex-council estates, with a growing population from new build development, and this has also resulted in a more mixed political profile, with Labour topping the poll in suburban areas and the SNP being the largest party in more deprived areas of the ward at last year's council elections. Across the ward, Labour narrowly beat the SNP into first place last year with 33% of the vote to the SNP's 31%, and the Conservatives in third-place on 18% of the vote. Broadly speaking, Labour's vote share remained reasonably consistent throughout the ward, with the SNP performing stronger in ex-council estates like Moredun (38% vote share), the Inch (35% vote share), Gilmerton (34% vote share) and Burdiehouse (34% vote share), and performing poorly in affluent areas including Liberton (19% vote share) and Alnwick (21% vote share). At the 2014 independence referendum, the ward returned an estimated 58% No vote to independence, ranging quite substantially from a 70% No vote in Liberton to a 51% No vote in Moredun.
Overall, Edinburgh South can be understood as an affluent constituency whose politics has become increasingly defined by its opposition towards the SNP, and this has culminated in the area becoming Labour's only safe and reliable seat in the whole of Scotland. Had Labour MP Ian Murray lost the seat in 2010 to the Liberal Democrats, the seat's politics today may have instead mirrored Edinburgh West, which shares very similar demographics to the Edinburgh South seat, but is a solid area for the Liberal Democrats instead of the Labour Party.
A large chunk of the Edinburgh South seat including Fairmilehead, Greenbank, the Braids and Morningside was contained within the old Edinburgh Pentlands seat which senior ex-Conservative MP Malcolm Rifkind had represented until 1997. At the 2001 UK general election, Mr Rifkind was almost re-elected to Westminster thanks to the voters of these communities, coming within 1,742 votes of Labour from winning the seat. And in the Scottish Parliament, these areas helped former Scottish Conservative leader David McLetchie win the seat in the 2003 and 2007 elections.
This underlines heterogenous nature of the Edinburgh South seat, where many of the communities which Mr Murray now relies on to be returned as an MP not long ago supported the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats, but these communities have ultimately turned to Labour as the best-placed party to stop the SNP here, helped by a changing demography towards young people studying around the City Centre and a growing aspirational middle-class.
Boundary changes here will slightly benefit the SNP by bringing in the more SNP-leaning polling district of Prestonfield east of Newington, which contains some areas of high deprivation relative to the rest of the constituency, but will not substantively change the nature of the seat.
While the seat contains some deprived council estates to the south-east, it is nonetheless the fifth least deprived seat in Scotland after West Aberdeenshire & Kincardine, Gordon, East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire.
Edinburgh South is the epitome of modern Scottish politics, where constitutional politics have come to play an increasingly dominant role in the shaping the electoral landscape into a two-party contest between Unionist Labour versus the pro-independence SNP. Given current polling figures, there is every possibility this will return to being Scotland's safest seat - perhaps aided by greater tactical voting as a result of Douglas Ross's recent call for Conservative voters to tactically support Labour in seats like this, and it is difficult to see a situation in which Labour come close to losing here.
2014 independence referendum result:NO: 38,298 (65.3%)
YES: 20,340 (34.7%)
2016 EU membership referendum result:
REMAIN: 37,069 (77.8%)
LEAVE: 10,549 (22.2%)
2017 general election result:
LAB: 26,269 (54.9%)
SNP: 10,755 (22.5%)
CON: 9,428 (19.7%)
LIB: 1,388 (2.9%)
2019 general election result:
LAB: 23,745 (47.7%)
SNP: 12,650 (25.4%)
CON: 8,161 (16.4%)
LIB: 3,819 (7.7%)
GRN: 1,357 (2.7%)
