WHILE the Liberal Democrats only secured four Scottish seats at Westminster, the party still increased its share of the vote in all but two Scottish seats.
The party, which has been criticised as having suffered a spectacular blow at the election, managed to appeal to voters who were not willing to vote for the SNP as they did not want independence.
This statistic, according to experts, could provide vital clues on how the party, and others, can campaign their way to success for the Holyrood elections in 2021.
It also shows that constitutional issues, rather than individual personalities or policies, did still play a part in this general election.
Dr Malcolm Harvey, of the University of Aberdeen, said: "The EU question did have some salience in several seats this time around.
"You see that in the rise of the vote share for the Liberal Democrats. Their vote share went up in 57 of the 59 seats. it only went down in Jo Swinson’s seat, which she lost, and in Orkney and Shetland.
"In every other seat their vote share went up. What that tells you, I think, is that those voters who were pro-union but were also pro-EU, they didn’t want their vote to be seen as a pro-independence vote so they transferred to the Liberal Democrats.
"Because they were pro-EU they didn’t want to go to the Conservatives either. It shows signs of recovery for them."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel