by Colin Fox
The SNP and Labour won the Edinburgh City Council by-election double header in Leith yesterday as widely anticipated. The largely unwanted contest had been precipitated by the resignation of two sitting councillors [one SNP, one Green] for career reasons. The SNP councillor Deidre Brock became the Edinburgh North and Leith MP in May and the Green councillor Maggie Chapman had moved to Dundee. The turnout at 25.1% reflected the politically flat nature of the contest.
As no particular local or national issue was dominant the vote was largely dictated by national political loyalties and existing bases of support in the area. The SNP consequently surpassed the first preferences quota easily in keeping with their national poll standing at the moment. Labour, although well behind, managed to get it’s much older demographic out to vote and nominally gained this seat from the Greens as expected. The Greens themselves will be disappointed to have lost one of their Council seats but won an impressive number of votes nonetheless running Labour close. The SSP came in 6th with 2% of the final vote behind the Tories and Liberal Democrats again much as we expected at this stage.
All in all this was an unremarkable contest that made no real impact on the community.
Nonetheless from the SSP’s point of view it represented good experience for the small but energetic team of people involved in Leith. Our candidate Natalie Reid won widespread praise from all the other parties for the way she equipped and presented herself in this her debut as an SSP candidate. She was up to every challenge put in front of her, worked hard, spoke well and was always eager to learn. She was the undoubted star of this election campaign.
Colin Fox is the national co-spokesperson of the SSP.