STRINGING the words "Glenrothes" and "by-election" together is still enough to bring SNP members out in a cold sweat, after Labour's unexpected victory in the town's 2008 parliamentary by-election drained the independence movement of all momentum for at least two years.
But if there were any fears that history might repeat itself in Thursday's local council by-election in the Glenrothes Central and Thornton ward, they were quickly dispelled. The SNP stormed to what is probably their most impressive by-election win since the General Election last July.
Because Scotland's last full set of local elections took place in May 2022, when Nicola Sturgeon was still at the peak of her powers, it's become routine for by-elections to see the SNP lose some ground to Labour, even where they win the seat.
But in Glenrothes the SNP's vote share barely dipped at all, while their lead over Labour significantly increased from 21 percentage points to 26. If that swing is extrapolated to the whole of Scotland, it would leave the SNP with a commanding 18-point nationwide lead over Labour. That's even better than most opinion polls have been showing, although admittedly it falls slightly short of the mammoth 20-point Holyrood constituency lead reported in the recent Find Out Now poll for The National.
It may be that the SNP have moved into a new phase. In by-elections during the second half of last year, the best they could do was demonstrate that they were clawing their way back into contention after their landmark defeat at the hands of Labour in the General Election. But now they seem to have unambiguously re-established themselves as the leading force in Scottish politics – not because they are setting the heather alight with their own national vote share (even in the Find Out Now poll it was only in the mid-30s) but because the non-SNP vote is heavily split and there is no longer any clear challenger.
Due to unforced errors such as Liz Kendall's devastating welfare cuts, Labour have totally disqualified themselves as a left-of-centre "change" option. Progressive voters that last year were unhappy enough with the SNP Government at Holyrood to be turning to Labour as the most realistic alternative are now far angrier with the Labour Government in London, and are paradoxically turning straight back to the SNP in their pursuit of change.
Meanwhile, Labour are also losing votes on their social conservative flank to Reform UK. What will perhaps satisfy the SNP most of all about the Glenrothes result is that they were left practically untouched by a substantial Reform breakthrough, while Labour suffered a damaging six-point drop in support. It does seem that the SNP and Reform fish for support in very different waters, and that if the Reform bandwagon keeps rolling, it's bound to indirectly benefit the SNP by harming both Labour and the Tories.
That said, one of the intriguing subplots of the by-election was that in the Brexit referendum of 2016, Glenrothes was a unique example of a locality in central Scotland where support for Leave was estimated to have almost hit 50%. It was perhaps reasonable to assume, then, that Reform would do even better in Glenrothes than in other recent Scottish by-elections, but that didn't really materialise. Their 18% vote share would have been regarded as a sensation only a few months ago, but in fact it's broadly in line with their showing in many other by-elections, and falls short of their most spectacular results, such as 26% in Fraserburgh and District last November. And although Mid-Fife has consistently been an area of disproportionate strength for the SNP over the last two decades, it's still startling to see SNP support hold steady at just under 50% in a Glenrothes ward where there must be an unusually high number of Brexit supporters.
Perhaps the only frustration for the SNP is that the next UK General Election may still be more than four years away, because it's in a First Past The Post Westminster vote that they would claim the biggest dividends from their current lead. But even in a Holyrood election, a significant "winner's bonus" can be squeezed out on the constituency ballot if the second-placed party is far enough behind. John Swinney must privately be more optimistic about next year's Scottish Parliament election than at any point in his leadership so far.
