The Scottish Conservative victory in the Aberdeen South by-election wasn’t entirely unexpected. New MP Douglas Lumsden is a well-known local figure who ran a savvy campaign pledging to fight for an oil and gas industry abandoned by the SNP. He was always thought to be in with a shout.
The real surprise of the night was the scale of the SNP’s defeat. During the final days of campaigning, Tory sources were willing to admit they had a degree of optimism, but nothing more.
This might just have kicked off a long-anticipated civil war in the SNP
In the end, Lumsden – a former councillor and current member of the Scottish Parliament –took 50 per cent of the vote, beating the SNP’s Richard Thomson comfortably.
Before Lumsden had finished delivering his victory speech, credit for his 6,000 plus majority was claimed on behalf of Kemi Badenoch by Conservative party chairman Kevin Hollinrake who, appearing on the BBC with Laura Kuenssberg, said this remarkable result showed she was taking the party in a ‘new direction’.
‘Her favourability came up on the doorstep,’ said Hollinrake, adding ‘it’s not often Conservative leaders are very popular in Scotland.’
A win’s a win, of course and the leader of the opposition has every right to celebrate her party’s first by-election victory north of the border since 1967. But the idea the people of Aberdeen South were inspired to turn on the Scottish Nationalists because of Badenoch is nonsense. The Tories came fifth at last month’s Holyrood elections – a record low – and the national mood has not much changed.
Instead, the Conservative victory in Aberdeen South was built locally by Lumsden. Yes, Badenoch visited the constituency on a number of occasions during what was a very high-profile campaign in Scotland – if rather overshadowed in UK news terms by events in Makerfield – but it was Lumsden’s smart campaigning in a constituency with specific problems related to the near collapse in recent years of the oil and gas industry that gave him this win.
This isn’t the sign of a rebirth for the Tories in Scotland. It was a unique result in unique circumstances where tactical voting – support for Labour fell by 19 per cent while the Tory vote leapt by 25 – saw the nationalists defeated. I wish the Conservative party well repeating that across the UK.
But enough raining on the Tory parade – it’s the SNP which continues to find itself under a downpour. First Minister John Swinney will have been relieved that his party retained the Arbroath and Broughty Ferry constituency – also in play on Thursday – but the scale of his party’s defeat in Aberdeen South has left him weakened. And it might just have kicked off a long-anticipated civil war in the SNP.
Shortly after the result was announced on the early hours of Friday, the SNP’s cabinet secretary for the economy at Holyrood, Stephen Flynn, posted on X: ‘A tough night in Aberdeen that some will need to reflect on, quite heavily.’
It was Flynn who caused the by-election. He was the MP for Aberdeen South until he decided his country (or, depending on your stomach for that kind of thing, his ambitions) might be better served by his move to Holyrood.
Kate Higgins, a recently retired former special adviser to First Minister John Swinney, replied: ‘I do hope that “some” includes you [Stephen Flynn] – the by-election was, after all, caused by your choices.’ There is vanishingly little Nat-on-Nat action in Scottish politics so Flynn’s intervention is significant.
The result in Aberdeen South comes as Swinney continues to flounder in the wake of the guilty plea by former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell for embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.
Since Murrell – the estranged husband of former first minister Nicola Sturgeon – admitted his crimes on May 25, Swinney has resisted opposition demands for a full inquiry into how such crimes could have taken place within Scotland’s party of government. The First Minister would very much like this to be understood as a matter of personal grief.
Unfortunately for Swinney, voters show no sign of respecting his wishes. Scots are fully engaged with this bizarre story and views are strong. Fewer than a fifth of Scots believe Nicola Sturgeon when she insists she has no suspicions about her estranged husband’s actions and Swinney’s decision to stonewall an inquiry looks awful like one pal looking out for another.
As for Stephen Flynn, he has never made any secret of his ambitions to one day lead his party and country. It looks like he might have made his first move.
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