The Road to 65, Part II - 8/4/21
Battleground seat profiles: Moray and Banffshire
Here’s something to chew on. At the 2016 Holyrood election, the SNP won 46.5% of the popular vote, with which it managed to hold a lead of 23 points over the Tories in Banffshire & Buchan Coast and 9 points in Moray, but lose Eastwood by 4.5 points. Three years later at the 2019 General Election, the SNP won exactly 45% of the vote, with which it managed to win the latter’s coterminous constituency of East Renfrewshire with a margin of nearly 10 points, but lost the former equivalent constituency of Banff & Buchan by 10 points, and lost Moray by a single point. What this neatly demonstrates is that under the hood of fairly steady nationwide support for the SNP, drastic shifts have been taking place within the geographic coalition of the party. Its fortunes have blossomed in affluent suburban and strongly “Remain” voting areas, while falling back significantly in rural and/or coastal Eurosceptic regions. For that reason, universal swing is unlikely to give a very accurate picture of how these two types of constituencies will vote in May. The two foremost constituencies which are held by the SNP at Holyrood but by the Tories at Westminster are therefore the prime targets for this realignment to snap into place. That said, after taking a number of factors into consideration, I have reason to believe that both seats will stay with the SNP - albeit with significantly narrower margins than what an ordinary seat calculator would imply.
Firstly, there’s Moray. The boundaries between the two seats are for the most part identical, with the only major settlement excluded from the Scottish seat being Buckie. On that basis, it is more or less fair to treat the two seats as largely coterminous and meriting comparison. This seat voted 50-50 during the Brexit referendum, and voted 45-44 for the Tories at the last general election. Richard Lochhead is, however, defending a deeply-entrenched 15 years of incumbency and name recognition, which ought to work well in his favour, all things considered. Douglas Ross’ refusal to run for the seat at Holyrood may also diminish the his standing and that of his party with his constituents. As the 2016 swings indicate, the SNP-Tory realignment in Moray had already been well underway after 2016, even if it took the EU referendum and following 2017 GE to cement them in place. This is probably going to temper any further Tory swings in this area. Not to mention the fact that Labour still have a bit of room to fall in this seat, the swing from which most would go the SNP’s way. Combine that with a favourable national environment (see the Electoral Calculus projection above) and it ought to be one that the SNP hold *relatively* comfortably.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Banffshire & Buchan Coast. The Tories won this seat by 9 points in 2017, and extended their lead to 10 points in 2019 - making it the only seat in Scotland to swing against the SNP that year. It holds the distinction of being the country’s most Eurosceptic constituency, having voted to leave the EU by a margin of 54-46. The realignment in 2017 was swift and brutal, overturning Eilidh Whiteford’s majority of over 14,000. As one can see above, the realignment had also already begun at a Holyrood level, albeit from a far, far higher starting point. That much of that margin still held at 2016 ought to give *some* level of padding to the SNP’s hopes in this seat. Unfortunately, the SNP won’t be benefitting from any kind of incumbency advantage in this seat as longstanding MSP Stewart Stevenson is retiring - in his stead will be councillor Karen Adam. Adam is an outstanding candidate and the constituency would be lucky to have her, but her stellar record of social progressivism and steadfast allyship with marginalised groups may be weaponised against her by the Tories and turn off some of the most socially conservative ancestral nationalists who have been voting Tory in this seat the last couple of years - in other words, the same demographic that Alex Salmond’s Alba party is gunning for. However, there are three major factors which I believe will come to the SNP’s rescue in this constituency. Firstly, the party’s total hegemony among Remain voters (61%) is buoyed by a very respectable 32% with Leave voters - most estimates put the number of 2016 Holyrood SNP supporters who voted for Brexit at around 36-38%. Naturally, there has been some slippage (and a further unhelpful consolidation of other Leavers behind the Tories) but it’s a high enough share of the original that ought to make the party just about competitive, before factoring in how the other half of the EU realignment with Remainers will bolster the party’s support even further.
Secondly, there is the fact that Brexit seems to have largely been a disaster for many of Britain’s localised fishing industries. Fishing is, obviously, what drove the massive Leave vote in this constituency, and its further swing in 2019 may well have been a cry of “Get Brexit Done” by the region’s staunch leavers. However, there’s good reason to believe that a lot of them may vote against the Tories in protest at the carelessness with which their interests have been ridden roughshod over - which realistically leaves the SNP as their only option to hurt the government. Finally, the national environment (refer to Electoral Calculus projection above) would point to the seat’s Tory margin being significantly narrower now than it would have been at the last election. A slew of polls out this week show the SNP on 49-53% of the constituency ballot, well above what it scored in 2016 - if it holds till election day (admittedly a big “if”), then the SNP’s support in this constituency ought to hold up just about well enough.
What about the Alba factor? Alex Salmond represented this constituency at Westminster for longer than any other MP, and his roots in the region go deep. It is well established by now that Alba is trying to pick up Eurosceptic and small-c conservative votes, which ought to make this seat ground zero for its success. I personally believe that Salmond will win his seat in the North East even if Alba bombs in every other electoral region, and ancestral nationalists in communities like this one will be a large part of the reason why. It’s faintly possibly that Salmond may turn out Yes-leavers who stopped voting after 2016, if he did so it would likely add some extremely marginal positive coattail effects for the SNP on the constituency ballot - although it is equally possible that many voters in this seat will vote Alba on the list, and Tory on the ballot.
Next week, it’s off to the suburbs…