{"id":217657,"date":"2025-06-27T04:13:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T04:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217657\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T04:13:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T04:13:12","slug":"lib-dems-eye-control-of-edinburgh-council-after-by-election-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217657\/","title":{"rendered":"Lib Dems eye control of Edinburgh council after by-election victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Liberal Democrats have swept to victory in the Fountainbridge\/Craiglockhart by-election, further weakening Labour\u2019s<\/a> position running the council.<\/p>\n

Newly elected councillor<\/a> Kevin Joseph McKay said he would strive to \u201cMake Edinburgh great again\u201d, and would look to focus on roads, pavements and active travel at the city chambers.<\/p>\n

And following the result, which came after a close race with the Labour and Green candidates, the council’s Lib Dem leader said an attempt at taking control of the council is not out of the question.<\/p>\n

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Their victory gives the party 14 councillors – more than the 11 of the Labour minority administration but still behind the SNP who have 17 councillors.<\/p>\n

Asked by reporters, group leader Ed Thornley said: \u201cWe had a conversation after the [last by-election]. We will do the same this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result marks a resounding boost for the Liberal Democrats in the ward, with the party only capturing 7.1% of the vote in the 2022 council election, and not winning a seat.<\/p>\n

Following the result Mr McKay said: \u201cI am feeling happy. And I want to get started.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a long time in the community council, and I\u2019ve been frustrated by some things that happened in the community council.\u201d<\/p>\n

The by-election was called after the sudden death of Labour councillor Val Walker in April.<\/p>\n

Party sources across the council almost unanimously said the result would be hard to predict between the five parties currently in the chambers.<\/p>\n

Cllr McKay, now a pensioner, was formerly a scientist working in water treatment, and has lived in Edinburgh for the past 11 years.<\/p>\n

Born in Dunfermline, he says he moved around during his youth, and spent time in New Zealand during his professional life.<\/p>\n

He called Val Walker a friend, and said they knew each other through their time in the community council.<\/p>\n

Cllr McKay was elected after 13 rounds, with Labour candidate Catriona Munro being the last competitor to be eliminated.<\/p>\n

He was second in the first preference votes, standing 24 behind Ms Munro and 136 ahead of the Greens\u2019 Q Manivannan.<\/p>\n

Shortly before the win was announced, Liberal Democrat councillors and supporters started screaming and hugging each other in the council canteen.<\/p>\n

A few metres away and a few minutes later, council chief executive and returning officer Paul Lawrence announced Mr McKay as the winner of the by-election.<\/p>\n

FINAL TURNOUT:<\/b> 33.1% (6264 of 18945 registered electors in ward)<\/p>\n

FINAL FIRST PREFERENCE VOTES:<\/b><\/p>\n

Bonnie Prince Bob – Independent: 36<\/p>\n

Derrick Emms – Independent: 9<\/p>\n

Lukasz Furmaniak – Scottish Libertarian Party: 25<\/p>\n

Mark Hooley – Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party: 857<\/p>\n

Richard Crewe Lucas – Scottish Family Party – 857<\/p>\n

Q Manivannan – Scottish Green Party – 1133<\/p>\n

Kevin Joseph McKay – Scottish Liberal Democrats: 1269<\/p>\n

Catriona Munro – Scottish Labour Party: 1293<\/p>\n

Gary Neill – Reform UK: 489<\/p>\n

Mark Rowbotham – Independent: 25<\/p>\n

Murray Visentin – SNP: 905<\/p>\n

Steve Christopher West – Independent: 39<\/p>\n

Mark Wilkinson – Independent: 111<\/p>\n

Join <\/b>Edinburgh Live’s Whatsapp Community her<\/b><\/a>e and get the latest news sent straight to your messages.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Liberal Democrats have swept to victory in the Fountainbridge\/Craiglockhart by-election, further weakening Labour\u2019s position running the council.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,11518,712,16,15,41029],"class_list":{"0":"post-217657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liberal-democrats","12":"tag-scotland","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-val-walker"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114753386159408997","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}