{"id":218173,"date":"2025-06-27T08:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T08:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/218173\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T08:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T08:44:10","slug":"scottish-labour-lose-edinburgh-by-election-to-libdems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/218173\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Labour lose Edinburgh by-election to LibDems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  The Fountainbridge\/Craiglockhart by-election took place on Thursday, and saw LibDem candidate Kevin McKay elected as the new councillor, narrowly beating Labour and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/topics\/scottish-greens\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scottish Greens<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The LibDems now have 14 councillors in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/local-news\/edinburgh-news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Edinburgh<\/a>, while the Labour minority administration has 11. However, this is still behind the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/news\/25059069.news-interviews-updates-snp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SNP<\/a>, who have 17 councillors.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <strong>READ MORE:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/news\/25271102.labour-partially-u-turn-benefits-cuts-bid-win-rebel-mps\/?rel=cl_lsa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Labour partially U-turn on benefits cuts in bid to win over rebel MPs<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The by-election was called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/news\/25099384.tribute-paid-labour-councillors-sudden-unexpected-death\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">following the death of Labour councillor<\/a> Val Walker in April.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  In the last council election in 2022, the LibDems only won 7.1% of the vote in the ward, the local democracy service reports.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  McKay was elected as the new councillor after 13 rounds, and came second in first preference votes.\n<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>\n    The count is underway at Waverley Court for the Fountainbridge\/Craiglockhart by-election! \ud83d\uddf3\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/SVezsCWCH1\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/SVezsCWCH1<\/a>\n  <\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The City of Edinburgh Council (@Edinburgh_CC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Edinburgh_CC\/status\/1938343959748661611?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">June 26, 2025<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\n  The final turnout was 33.1%, or 6264 of 18,495 voters.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The first preference votes\u00a0are as follows:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bonnie Prince Bob (Independent): 36\n  <\/li>\n<li>Derrick Emms (Independent): 9\n  <\/li>\n<li>Lukasz Furmaniak (Scottish Libertarian Party): 25\n  <\/li>\n<li>Mark Hooley (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party): 857\n  <\/li>\n<li>Richard Crewe Lucas (Scottish Family Party): 857\n  <\/li>\n<li>Q Manivannan (Scottish Green Party): 1133\n  <\/li>\n<li>Kevin Joseph McKay (Scottish Liberal Democrats): 1269\n  <\/li>\n<li>Catriona Munro (Scottish Labour Party): 1293\n  <\/li>\n<li>Gary Neill (Reform UK): 489\n  <\/li>\n<li>Mark Rowbotham (Independent): 25\n  <\/li>\n<li>Murray Visentin (SNP): 905\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n  Commenting,\u00a0Paul Lawrence, returning officer for Edinburgh, said: \u201cThanks to everyone who took part in this by-election. I would like to welcome Kevin as a new councillor, and I look forward to working with him. Kevin will now have a key role in representing his constituents on matters affecting the ward and the wider city.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cMy thanks also go to our elections team and other council colleagues who have been working hard to deliver this by-election smoothly and securely.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fountainbridge\/Craiglockhart by-election took place on Thursday, and saw LibDem candidate Kevin McKay elected as the new councillor,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-218173","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-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114754451109910174","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218173","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=218173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}