The 2019 British general election, part 3-Scotland and Wales
Within the British general election of 2019, the developments in Scotland in particular were in stark contrast to England and Wales.
The Conservatives not only failed to gain any seats in Scotland but also lost seven of their 13 seats to the Scottish National Party (SNP). The five Conservative MPs defeated in Scotland were Colin Clark, Luke Graham, Kirstene Hair, Stephen Kerr, and Paul Masterson, in the seats of Gordon, Ochil & South Perthshire, Angus, Stirling, and East Renfrewshire respectively. The SNP also gained Aberdeen South and Ayr, Carrick & Cumnock from the Conservatives where those seats' incumbents retired (in Ross Thomson's case this was due to an allegation of groping from now ex-MP Paul Sweeney). Pete Wishart, who held on by only 21 votes over the Conservatives in Perth & North Perthshire in 2017, managed a 7% swing in his favour. However, in the strongly unionist Scottish Borders and in rural Aberdeenshire, the least pro-Remain part of Scotland, saw the Conservatives hold on and there was even a deviant 0.5% swing to the Conservatives in Alex Salmond's old seat of Banff & Buchan, which had the highest Leave vote in Scotland in the 2016 EU referendum. The momentum built up under Ruth Davidson in 2017 was lost in 2019, and the Conservatives lost votes in most Scottish seats, with key exceptions being Argyll & Bute where the former Liberal Democrat MP, Alan Reid, was standing again (he fell back even further from 2017, polling just 14.2%; Argyll & Bute still saw a 2.9% swing to the SNP) and surprisingly Na h-Eileanan an Iar, the very first seat captured by the SNP (in 1970), which is also the only seat with a significant number of Scottish Gaelic speakers. The SNP won 48 seats in total, just 8 lower than their record high of 56 in 2015, and Nicola Sturgeon is more determined than ever to see Scottish independence occur, especially with Brexit now inevitable (every single council area in Scotland voted Remain). The only seat to see a decrease in the SNP vote was Kirkcaldy & Cowndenbeath but this was because their candidate, Neal Hanvey, had been suspended during the campaign over allegations of anti-Semitism; Mr Hanvey still defeated Labour's Lesley Laird in Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath on a 1.5% swing.
Labour had an even worse night in Scotland, losing all of their seats except for Edinburgh South, which was also their only seat left in Scotland in 2015, and they were pushed into third place by the Conservatives in several seats (including Aberdeen North where the Conservative candidate had been suspended) even though the Conservatives lost votes in those seats as well. It must be noted that most Labour candidates did not experience particularly large swings to the SNP (Edinburgh South's was only 5.1%) but then again they had already lost so many votes to the SNP in 2015, and clearly Labour will never again be a significant force in Scotland; they have been displaced by the SNP.
The Liberal Democrats managed the only gain from the SNP in this election via North East Fife, where Wendy Chamberlain defeated Stephen Gethins on a 1.5% swing by squeezing the Conservative vote; the Conservatives lost more votes here than in any other Scottish constituency and it was also Labour's worst result in Britain. Furthermore Mr Gethins was very lucky to hold on in 2017, doing so by just 2 votes. They also managed a 0.6% swing against the SNP in Edinburgh West although this was mainly due to tactical voting from parties opposing Scottish independence (Edinburgh West is the wealthiest seat in Scotland). Scotland also saw Jo Swinson herself lose East Dunbartonshire to the SNP, arguably the most surprising election result this election, meaning that like Labour the Liberal Democrats are now scrabbling about to find a new leader amongst their MPs. Despite this infamous loss of East Dunbartonshire the Liberal Democrats increased their vote share in the majority of Scottish seats and saved their deposits in most of the seats they did not win, having saved only 12 and 13 deposits in Scotland in 2015 and 2017.
The Scottish Greens, for the first time since 1997, failed to save a single deposit even in Glasgow North, Edinburgh North & Leith, or Edinburgh East, where they saved deposits in 2015. In Glasgow North this was because their leader, Patrick Harvie, was not standing again and the loss of his personal vote was apparent. Also, an SNP revival was bound to blunt the Scottish Green vote, particularly since like all Green Parties in the UK the SNP are committed to nuclear disarmament, although they will never be as strong on environmental issues as the Scottish Greens. The Brexit Party only fielded candidates in half the Scottish constituencies and all lost their deposits, even in Orkney & Shetland which is the only Scottish seat where UKIP have ever saved their deposit, and they made no real impact on the result. The few independent and minor party candidates in Scotland almost always polled less than 500 votes each.
It was a very different story in Wales, where the Conservatives won their highest ever number of Welsh seats, namely 14. They captured Wrexham, which had never before been Conservative and which was the only Welsh seat to see a pro-Conservative swing in 2017, and also the Vale of Clwyd, Clwyd South, Delyn, Bridgend, and Ynys Mon which had been targeted by Plaid Cymru under the "Unite to Remain" banner, even though Virginia Crosbie only stood at the last minute after former Brecon & Radnorshire MP Chris Davies (who pleaded guilty to false accounting in 2019, was recalled by his constituents, and lost the subsequent by-election) withdrew. Four of these gains were in Denbighshire and Flintshire, comprising the old Welsh county of Clwyd. Labour only held onto Alyn & Deeside, their safest seat in Flintshire, by 213 votes. The increasing popularity of Flintshire and to a lesser extent Denbighshire with average-income commuters to Cheshire and Merseyside, which accounts for its low Welsh-speaking population, is the primary cause of the concentration of Conservative gains in Wales there. The swing to the Conservatives in Wales was not nearly as high as in the old northern heartlands (the highest pro-Conservative swing, 6.9%, was in Bridgend which had previously only elected a Conservative MP in 1983) but it was sufficient. The Conservatives also recaptured their by-election loss of Brecon & Radnorshire and tightened their hold in Montgomeryshire (Sir Faldwyn) even though Glyn Davies, who had been a local farmer there before gaining the seat in 2010, was retiring. That said, the Conservatives failed to win Gower which they had won in 2015 by 27 votes and Cardiff North actually swung to Labour by 2.6%.
Labour's hold of the marginal seat of Cardiff North, the wealthiest seat in Wales, was their only good moment in Wales this election. Every other seat in Wales swung against Labour, and for the first time in Carmarthen East & Dinefwr they finished third. They also did not increase their vote share in any Welsh constituency, a clear sign that Labour's traditional vote is also fading away, even in Gwent and Glamorgan. Their worst vote share decrease was in one of their safest seats, Neath, where the Labour vote dropped by 13.4%.
Plaid Cymru had high expectations in this election under their new leader, Adam Price. However, they only held the 4 seats they had in 2017 and finished a close third in Ynys Mon even though its Labour MP, Albert Owen, was retiring, and incumbency matters more in Ynys Mon than any other constituency. Their vote share fell more often than it rose, and "Unite to Remain" efforts in constituencies which Plaid Cymru had not previously won before failed, although they did increase their vote share by 2.5% in Pontypridd even when former Liberal Democrat candidate Mike Powell polled as many as 1,792 votes (4.6%). The only seats where they saved deposits in 2019 having lost them in the same seats in 2017 were Gower, Swansea East and Wrexham, their vote collapsed in Blaenau Gwent and fell sharply in Rhondda, and they came close to losing Carmarthen East & Dinefwr to the Conservatives for the very first time; Mr Price represented this seat from 2001 to 2010 and this is the closest the Conservatives have ever come to winning this part of Carmarthenshire (Caerfyrddin). However, Ben Lake did achieve a majority of 6,329 in Ceredigion, having surprisingly won it by 104 votes in 2017, and Hywel Williams managed 4.6% swing against Labour in Arfon; Liz Saville-Roberts increased the Plaid Cymru vote by 3.2% in Dwyfor Meirionydd despite former Llais Gwynedd councillor Louise Hughes standing for the Brexit Party there.
The Liberal Democrats made no real recovery in Wales and lost Brecon & Radnorshire back to the Conservatives, and Montgomeryshire slipped further out of their grasp. Mark Williams finished a poor third in Ceredigion, his vote being largely absorbed by Plaid Cymru. Unite to Remain failed badly for them in Cardiff Central; their vote share increased to only 15.4% and they still finished third even though this was an ideal seat for moderate Labour voters to switch to the Liberal Democrats in the absence of Green and Plaid Cymru candidates.
Outside the Vale of Glamorgan where Wales Green Party leader Anthony Slaughter polled 5.9% as part of the Unite to Remain alliance, the Green Party failed to save any deposits in Wales although they did beat Plaid Cymru in Monmouth, which also has the fewest Welsh speakers in Wales. Surprisingly, Amelia Womack, the Green Party Deputy Leader, only managed 2.1% of the vote in Newport West where just 8 months earlier in the Newport West by-election she achieved the best ever Green result in Newport West (3.9%). There were however 8 more Green candidates in Wales in 2019 than in 2017, and the Green vote share did improve in all constituencies in Wales where it stood despite Plaid Cymru's ability to absorb "soft Green" voters except in Gwent and most of Cardiff. The Brexit Party did surprisingly well in Wales, achieving second place in Blaenau Gwent and surprisingly managing to save their deposit in Ceredigion (5.1%) where UKIP in 2017 only polled 1.5%, although west Gwent had the strongest Brexit vote in Wales. Of the independents and minor party candidates, only David Hughes, an independent in Merthyr Tydfil, saved his deposit with 5.8% of the vote; the Cynon Valley Party lost their deposit but made a considerable dent in the Plaid Cymru vote (the Plaid Cymru vote decreased by 5.3% in Cynon Valley and the Cynon Valley Party polled 4.4%).
Coming up in part 4 of this analysis-Northern Ireland.
The Conservatives not only failed to gain any seats in Scotland but also lost seven of their 13 seats to the Scottish National Party (SNP). The five Conservative MPs defeated in Scotland were Colin Clark, Luke Graham, Kirstene Hair, Stephen Kerr, and Paul Masterson, in the seats of Gordon, Ochil & South Perthshire, Angus, Stirling, and East Renfrewshire respectively. The SNP also gained Aberdeen South and Ayr, Carrick & Cumnock from the Conservatives where those seats' incumbents retired (in Ross Thomson's case this was due to an allegation of groping from now ex-MP Paul Sweeney). Pete Wishart, who held on by only 21 votes over the Conservatives in Perth & North Perthshire in 2017, managed a 7% swing in his favour. However, in the strongly unionist Scottish Borders and in rural Aberdeenshire, the least pro-Remain part of Scotland, saw the Conservatives hold on and there was even a deviant 0.5% swing to the Conservatives in Alex Salmond's old seat of Banff & Buchan, which had the highest Leave vote in Scotland in the 2016 EU referendum. The momentum built up under Ruth Davidson in 2017 was lost in 2019, and the Conservatives lost votes in most Scottish seats, with key exceptions being Argyll & Bute where the former Liberal Democrat MP, Alan Reid, was standing again (he fell back even further from 2017, polling just 14.2%; Argyll & Bute still saw a 2.9% swing to the SNP) and surprisingly Na h-Eileanan an Iar, the very first seat captured by the SNP (in 1970), which is also the only seat with a significant number of Scottish Gaelic speakers. The SNP won 48 seats in total, just 8 lower than their record high of 56 in 2015, and Nicola Sturgeon is more determined than ever to see Scottish independence occur, especially with Brexit now inevitable (every single council area in Scotland voted Remain). The only seat to see a decrease in the SNP vote was Kirkcaldy & Cowndenbeath but this was because their candidate, Neal Hanvey, had been suspended during the campaign over allegations of anti-Semitism; Mr Hanvey still defeated Labour's Lesley Laird in Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath on a 1.5% swing.
Labour had an even worse night in Scotland, losing all of their seats except for Edinburgh South, which was also their only seat left in Scotland in 2015, and they were pushed into third place by the Conservatives in several seats (including Aberdeen North where the Conservative candidate had been suspended) even though the Conservatives lost votes in those seats as well. It must be noted that most Labour candidates did not experience particularly large swings to the SNP (Edinburgh South's was only 5.1%) but then again they had already lost so many votes to the SNP in 2015, and clearly Labour will never again be a significant force in Scotland; they have been displaced by the SNP.
The Liberal Democrats managed the only gain from the SNP in this election via North East Fife, where Wendy Chamberlain defeated Stephen Gethins on a 1.5% swing by squeezing the Conservative vote; the Conservatives lost more votes here than in any other Scottish constituency and it was also Labour's worst result in Britain. Furthermore Mr Gethins was very lucky to hold on in 2017, doing so by just 2 votes. They also managed a 0.6% swing against the SNP in Edinburgh West although this was mainly due to tactical voting from parties opposing Scottish independence (Edinburgh West is the wealthiest seat in Scotland). Scotland also saw Jo Swinson herself lose East Dunbartonshire to the SNP, arguably the most surprising election result this election, meaning that like Labour the Liberal Democrats are now scrabbling about to find a new leader amongst their MPs. Despite this infamous loss of East Dunbartonshire the Liberal Democrats increased their vote share in the majority of Scottish seats and saved their deposits in most of the seats they did not win, having saved only 12 and 13 deposits in Scotland in 2015 and 2017.
The Scottish Greens, for the first time since 1997, failed to save a single deposit even in Glasgow North, Edinburgh North & Leith, or Edinburgh East, where they saved deposits in 2015. In Glasgow North this was because their leader, Patrick Harvie, was not standing again and the loss of his personal vote was apparent. Also, an SNP revival was bound to blunt the Scottish Green vote, particularly since like all Green Parties in the UK the SNP are committed to nuclear disarmament, although they will never be as strong on environmental issues as the Scottish Greens. The Brexit Party only fielded candidates in half the Scottish constituencies and all lost their deposits, even in Orkney & Shetland which is the only Scottish seat where UKIP have ever saved their deposit, and they made no real impact on the result. The few independent and minor party candidates in Scotland almost always polled less than 500 votes each.
It was a very different story in Wales, where the Conservatives won their highest ever number of Welsh seats, namely 14. They captured Wrexham, which had never before been Conservative and which was the only Welsh seat to see a pro-Conservative swing in 2017, and also the Vale of Clwyd, Clwyd South, Delyn, Bridgend, and Ynys Mon which had been targeted by Plaid Cymru under the "Unite to Remain" banner, even though Virginia Crosbie only stood at the last minute after former Brecon & Radnorshire MP Chris Davies (who pleaded guilty to false accounting in 2019, was recalled by his constituents, and lost the subsequent by-election) withdrew. Four of these gains were in Denbighshire and Flintshire, comprising the old Welsh county of Clwyd. Labour only held onto Alyn & Deeside, their safest seat in Flintshire, by 213 votes. The increasing popularity of Flintshire and to a lesser extent Denbighshire with average-income commuters to Cheshire and Merseyside, which accounts for its low Welsh-speaking population, is the primary cause of the concentration of Conservative gains in Wales there. The swing to the Conservatives in Wales was not nearly as high as in the old northern heartlands (the highest pro-Conservative swing, 6.9%, was in Bridgend which had previously only elected a Conservative MP in 1983) but it was sufficient. The Conservatives also recaptured their by-election loss of Brecon & Radnorshire and tightened their hold in Montgomeryshire (Sir Faldwyn) even though Glyn Davies, who had been a local farmer there before gaining the seat in 2010, was retiring. That said, the Conservatives failed to win Gower which they had won in 2015 by 27 votes and Cardiff North actually swung to Labour by 2.6%.
Labour's hold of the marginal seat of Cardiff North, the wealthiest seat in Wales, was their only good moment in Wales this election. Every other seat in Wales swung against Labour, and for the first time in Carmarthen East & Dinefwr they finished third. They also did not increase their vote share in any Welsh constituency, a clear sign that Labour's traditional vote is also fading away, even in Gwent and Glamorgan. Their worst vote share decrease was in one of their safest seats, Neath, where the Labour vote dropped by 13.4%.
Plaid Cymru had high expectations in this election under their new leader, Adam Price. However, they only held the 4 seats they had in 2017 and finished a close third in Ynys Mon even though its Labour MP, Albert Owen, was retiring, and incumbency matters more in Ynys Mon than any other constituency. Their vote share fell more often than it rose, and "Unite to Remain" efforts in constituencies which Plaid Cymru had not previously won before failed, although they did increase their vote share by 2.5% in Pontypridd even when former Liberal Democrat candidate Mike Powell polled as many as 1,792 votes (4.6%). The only seats where they saved deposits in 2019 having lost them in the same seats in 2017 were Gower, Swansea East and Wrexham, their vote collapsed in Blaenau Gwent and fell sharply in Rhondda, and they came close to losing Carmarthen East & Dinefwr to the Conservatives for the very first time; Mr Price represented this seat from 2001 to 2010 and this is the closest the Conservatives have ever come to winning this part of Carmarthenshire (Caerfyrddin). However, Ben Lake did achieve a majority of 6,329 in Ceredigion, having surprisingly won it by 104 votes in 2017, and Hywel Williams managed 4.6% swing against Labour in Arfon; Liz Saville-Roberts increased the Plaid Cymru vote by 3.2% in Dwyfor Meirionydd despite former Llais Gwynedd councillor Louise Hughes standing for the Brexit Party there.
The Liberal Democrats made no real recovery in Wales and lost Brecon & Radnorshire back to the Conservatives, and Montgomeryshire slipped further out of their grasp. Mark Williams finished a poor third in Ceredigion, his vote being largely absorbed by Plaid Cymru. Unite to Remain failed badly for them in Cardiff Central; their vote share increased to only 15.4% and they still finished third even though this was an ideal seat for moderate Labour voters to switch to the Liberal Democrats in the absence of Green and Plaid Cymru candidates.
Outside the Vale of Glamorgan where Wales Green Party leader Anthony Slaughter polled 5.9% as part of the Unite to Remain alliance, the Green Party failed to save any deposits in Wales although they did beat Plaid Cymru in Monmouth, which also has the fewest Welsh speakers in Wales. Surprisingly, Amelia Womack, the Green Party Deputy Leader, only managed 2.1% of the vote in Newport West where just 8 months earlier in the Newport West by-election she achieved the best ever Green result in Newport West (3.9%). There were however 8 more Green candidates in Wales in 2019 than in 2017, and the Green vote share did improve in all constituencies in Wales where it stood despite Plaid Cymru's ability to absorb "soft Green" voters except in Gwent and most of Cardiff. The Brexit Party did surprisingly well in Wales, achieving second place in Blaenau Gwent and surprisingly managing to save their deposit in Ceredigion (5.1%) where UKIP in 2017 only polled 1.5%, although west Gwent had the strongest Brexit vote in Wales. Of the independents and minor party candidates, only David Hughes, an independent in Merthyr Tydfil, saved his deposit with 5.8% of the vote; the Cynon Valley Party lost their deposit but made a considerable dent in the Plaid Cymru vote (the Plaid Cymru vote decreased by 5.3% in Cynon Valley and the Cynon Valley Party polled 4.4%).
Coming up in part 4 of this analysis-Northern Ireland.
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