THE SNP’s good run of parliamentary wins in the north of Edinburgh and Leith finally came to an end at the 2024 General Election when Deidre Brock lost her Westminster seat to Labour.
But until that point, the SNP had been defying political gravity in a quite remarkable way. It’s known that in most of the country, their support generally correlates closely with the pro-independence vote, and at the 2014 referendum, the Westminster constituency of Edinburgh North and Leith actually voted against independence by the heavy margin of 60% to 40% – well above the national average.
As Ben Macpherson prepares to attempt to defend the Holyrood equivalent of that seat for the SNP, it might therefore be seen as no bad thing for him that the boundary review has shunted the constituency significantly eastwards, necessitating a name-change to Edinburgh North Eastern and Leith.
READ MORE: Reform MSP hopeful in charity watchdog probe over shuttered museum
Roughly one-third of the population of the new version of the constituency have been transferred from Edinburgh Eastern, and much of the new territory also overlaps with the old Westminster seat of Edinburgh East, which was the only part of the city that produced a Yes vote share in 2014 in excess of the national average of 45%.
As ever though, the devil is in the detail, and some of the individual suburbs that have been introduced into the constituency – for example, the leafy Willowbrae and the historic conservation village of Duddingston – do not look like obvious hotbeds of support for independence.
What may work in the SNP’s favour is that 72% of the population of the Craigentinny and Duddingston local government ward, which is now fully part of the new seat, were born in Scotland, and only 10% were born in England.
That offsets some of a disadvantage the party faces elsewhere in the constituency, and indeed one that is generic to much of Edinburgh, which is that the economic and cultural pull of the capital has created complex electorates in which Scottish national identity is weaker.
In the Leith Walk ward, part of which is remaining within the constituency and part of which is being removed, just over half of residents were born outside Scotland, and a mere 41% self-report having an exclusively Scottish national identity – a figure that is far below the national average. As many as 17% of the ward’s residents were born in England, and it’s known that English-born voters in particular are disproportionately less likely to vote SNP or to favour independence.
It’s unsurprising, then, that the SNP have fared a touch better in local elections in the Craigentinny and Duddingston ward than they have in Leith Walk, or than in the Inverleith ward which has been completely removed from the constituency.
In 2022, the two SNP candidates in Craigentinny and Duddingston took a very healthy 37% of the vote, putting them 16 points clear of Labour, who were the second-most popular party. By contrast, in Inverleith the SNP took only 20% of the vote and were left trailing the first-placed LibDems by 14 points.
Estimates of how the 2021 result would have looked in Edinburgh North Eastern and Leith confirm that the boundary revision has worked in the SNP’s favour. Macpherson would have taken just over 50% of the vote, compared to the 47.9% he actually took in the old seat of Edinburgh Northern and Leith. His margin of victory over Labour would also have improved a smidgeon to around 25.5 points.
That essentially means Labour would have to draw level with the SNP nationwide to gain the seat on a uniform swing in May, which looks extraordinarily unlikely.
Any possibility of Reform UK running the SNP close should be precluded by the fact that Edinburgh North and Leith was the seventh-most pro-European constituency in the entire United Kingdom at the 2016 EU referendum, with only 22% voting Leave.
The equivalent figure in Edinburgh East was just 28%. That leaves the Greens as the only realistic wildcard, due to their reasonably good vote shares on the list in past Holyrood elections. A realistic goal for the Greens’ new candidate, the feminist campaigner and author Kate Nevens, may be to build on that result and perhaps pip Labour for second place.