Victory! A look back at some key Scottish by-elections

Willie Rennie and Ming Campbell celebrate the LibDem triumph at the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election (Image: Gordon Terris)THE Liberal Democrats' Willie Rennie pulled off a sensational by-election victory when he overturned an 11,562 Labour majority to take Dunfermline and West Fife. A swing of 16% gave him a majority of 1,800. The by-election had been caused by the death of the Labour MP, Rachel Squire.

Said the Glasgow Herald: "The result was a shock defeat for Labour in Gordon Brown's back yard, and a major embarrassment for the chancellor, after a campaign in which he had taken a leading role.

"It was the first time Labour had lost a Westminster by-election in Scotland since the SNP took Govan in 1988, and the first time Labour had lost to the Liberals in a Scottish Westminster by-election since 1945 ... Willie Rennie, the LibDem candidate, won by hammering home the message that Labour had taken the area for granted and it was time for a change".

Roseanna Cunningham, Perth and Kinross, May 1995

Roseanna Cunningham, pictured after retaining the Perth and Kinross seat at the 1997 general election (Image: Alan Richardson, Dundee)

Cunningham had come very close to unseating the maverick Conservative MP, Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, at the 1992 general election, reducing his majority to 2,094. When a by-election was called for May 1995 after Fairbairn's death, Cunningham was selected to stand again for the SNP.

Nationwide, the Tories had been in power since 1979, under, first, Margaret Thatcher, and then John Major, and were looking increasingly tarnished, thanks partly to Black Wednesday, the poll tax, the closure of Ravenscraig, and sleaze scandals. Recent years had also seen a renewed determination for Scotland to have a greater say in the running of its own affairs.

The by-election in this staunchly Tory Scottish seat attracted considerable media interest. Cunningham was labelled 'Republican Rose' by the Tories for her anti-monarchical sympathies, but she and the SNP workers delivered a skilful and energetic campaign to win 40.4% of the vote on a swing of 11.6%. The following morning, an exuberant Cunningham declared at a press conference that by her victory "interest in Scotland has been reawakened right across the world".

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The Glasgow Herald said: “The SNP was content to treat the result as a strengthening of its claim to be Scotland's second party. This, of course, is not to say that Ms Cunningham's victory is insignificant, more that it was very much expected rather than simply hoped for”.

The Tories’ defeat was a harbinger of things to come; two years later, they would be wiped off the electoral map in Scotland as Tony Blair swept to power. In 1997 Cunningham became the SNP's first MP to hold a by-election gain at a General Election.

Jim Sillars, Glasgow Govan, November 1988

Jim Sillars celebrates his by-election triumph (Image: Frank Bradford)God, but we’ve waited a long time for this”, said the victorious SNP candidate, Jim Sillars, after he had turned a 19,000 Labour majority into a 3,500 SNP majority.

Sillars had previously been Labour MP for South Ayrshire between 1970 and 1979. Disillusioned by a lack of progress on devolution, he had left to form the short-lived Scottish Labour Party (SLP) in 1976 before joining the SNP in 1980, eventually rising to become the party's deputy leader.

As the SNP celebrated their Govan victory, Labour leader Neil Kinnock ordered an urgent inquiry into the result, saying: “It was clearly a protest vote by the people against Govan against Mrs Thatcher, her government and her pernicious poll tax. But it was a seat that should have been held by Labour”.

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In an article for The National in 2008, Sillars reflected on the nationalists’ determination to persuade Govan voters of the need for constitutional change in the face of industrial devastation, the poll tax, and Labour’s own vulnerabilities. “There is a direct line", he said, "between what happened in Govan, the creation of the Holyrood Parliament, the 2014 gain of 46%, and the continued drive for independence. It was Scotland that won in Govan, not just the SNP.”

Govan was also, of course, where Margo MacDonald, who later became Sillars’s wife, achieved an epic by-election win in 1973.

Roy Jenkins, Glasgow Hillhead, March 1982
Roy Jenkins on the campaign trail in Hillhead (Image: Newsquest)

"Jenkins breaks the mould", ran the Glasgow Herald splash headline on the morning of Friday, March 26, after Roy Jenkins achieved a highly-publicised by-election victory for the SDP-Liberal Alliance. It came a year to the day from the birth of the SDP, a breakaway party launched by four prominent Labour figures - Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, the so-called 'Gang of Four'.

He finished ahead of the Conservatives' Gerry Malone and Labour's David Wiseman; George Leslie, the SNP candidate, picked up 3,416 votes but lost his deposit.

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Jenkins became the 29th SDP member of Parliament, and his Hillhead achievement meant that the new party had scored three out of four election victories since its birth. He translated a Tory majority in the seat of 2,002 to an Alliance majority of 2,038. "In doing this", the Herald reported, "the former deputy leader of the Labour Party, who will be returning to the Commons after an absence of six years, shrugged aside accusations of carpet-bagging in Scotland".

The Liberal leader, David Steel, said: "Roy Jenkins's decision to go to Hillhead was courageous and his campaign tenacious. His return to Parliament is very well deserved. No seat in the country is now safe from the challenge of the Alliance".

Donald Dewar, Garscadden, April 1978

Donald Dewar and Labour workers mark the victory at Garscadden in 1978 (Image: Newsquest)

Dewar's return to Parliament - he had been the MP for Aberdeen South from 1966 until 1970 - came as Jim Callaghan's Labour government was seeking to get the Scotland Bill through Parliament. It received Royal Assent on July 31, paving the way for a referendum on a Scottish Assembly, on March 1, 1979.

The by-election was caused by the death of MP William Small, and Dewar held the seat with a comfortable 4,552 majority, ahead of the SNP's Keith Bovey. The nationalists had had high hopes of winning.

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The Glasgow Herald said that Dewar's victory represented a "turning point in Scottish politics. Unquestionably it was the most serious blow suffered by the SNP since its breakthrough 11 years ago in Hamilton [when Winnie Ewing had sensationally won].

"Indeed, the experience of the SNP throughout those 11 years has been one of virtually uninterrupted progress. Garscadden has brought this to a sudden end and the size of the Labour majority points to a firm rejection by the electorate of the SNP policies of separation".

As James Mitchell puts it in his book, Strategies for Self-Government: "Devolution died in the 1974-79 Parliament on the day Donald Dewar, one of Labour's most consistent and sincere home rulers, entered Parliament as Labour MP for Garscadden. Labour was no longer frightened of the SNP and its anti-devolutionist wing gained strength commensurate with the SNP's loss of influence".

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For good measure Labour won two other by-elections in Scotland that year: George Robertson defeated Margo MacDonald in Hamilton in May, with a majority of 6,492, while in October John Home Robertson had a decisive victory in the race to succeed John Mackintosh as MP for Berwick and East Lothian.