General Election ’17: What if the Greens had stood?

LUKE CAMPBELL reckons we could have seen some different results had the Greens contested more seats in the recent general election …

In the 2017 snap General Election the Scottish Green Party fielded just three candidates – Lorna Slater contested Edinburgh North and Leith, Patrick Harvie (Co-convenor and List MSP for Glasgow Region) stood in Glasgow North, and Debra Pickering was the first ever Green candidate in Falkirk for a UK parliamentary election. 

Despite unprecedented success during the May 2017 Scottish Council elections with 19 Green Councillors elected (expanding into both Portobello & Craigmillar, and Craigentinny & Duddingston, among others); boasting six elected MSPs following the 2016 Scottish Parliament election; and having fielded candidates in 32 constituencies during the 2015 UK General Election, the Party cited limited financial resources as justification for contesting just three seats in the 2017 snap General Election. The decision over whether or not to field candidates was therefore left to local branches, with only three opting to commit to meeting the cost and time required for the campaign.

The move was met with public backlash from some would-be Green voters, and with criticism from within other parties, including a call for Patrick Harvie to be removed from the BBC Leaders’ Debate of Sunday 21st May (with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Labour’s Kezia Dugdale, Tory Leader Ruth Davidson, and Willie Rennie of the Liberal Democrats) by then-Scottish Tory candidate for Aberdeen South, Ross Thomson who suggested that “The Greens are pretty much admitting they aren’t a political party any more”. The Scottish Greens contested this, with Harvie denying that there was any effort to form a “progressive alliance” with the SNP.

In the 2015 General Election the 32 Scottish Green Party candidates received a combined total of 39,205 votes, 1.3% of the overall vote. In many constituencies, the party finished 5th though they finished 6th (behind UKIP who won 47,078 votes, contesting 41 seats) in terms of overall votes. However, 4th placed finishes were achieved in 11 constituencies: Dundee West, Edinburgh East, East North & Leith, Edinburgh South, Edinburgh South West, Glasgow Central, Glasgow North, Glasgow North East, Glasgow South, Midlothian, and Stirling.

Through their official website, the Scottish Green Party stated on 10th May that “In the same way that the Greens in England focused efforts on Brighton to elect Caroline Lucas to Westminster, we believe by targeting we can work towards Scotland electing its first Green MP.”

Yet, despite this focused campaigning effort, Harvie came 4th, equalling the Scottish Green party’s Glasgow North standing from the 2015 General Election. In 2015, Martin Bartos, received 2,284 votes (6.2%) with a turnout of 36,922 voters, whilst in 2017 Patrick Harvie increased the Green vote to 3,251 (9.7%) with a turnout of 33,473 voters, an increase of 42% in Green support from 2015. Arguably, some of Harvie’s success may be attributed to his high public visibility of Party Co-convenor.

Locally, in the 2015 General Election, 58,008 votes were cast in the Edinburgh North & Leith constituency. This figure fell to 56,552 votes in 2017, a drop of 0.5% (1456 fewer votes) in voter turnout – a figure far smaller than the Scotland-wide drop of almost 5% in turnout. It is worth emphasising that despite the slight drop in local voter turnout, the 2017 Edinburgh North & Leith figure is still the second highest ever recorded for the area – 47,356 in 2010, 42,640 in 2005, 33,234 in 2001, and 10,978 in 1997, though it should also be noted that the boundaries were revised in advance of the 2005 General Election.

Despite the Scottish Greens noting Edinburgh North & Leith as a “historically strong area for the party”, Sarah Beattie-Smith received 3,140 votes (5.4%) as the party’s candidate in the 2015 General Election, Lorna Slater accrued just 1,727 votes (3%) this time round, finishing fifth behind Deidre Brock (SNP), Gordon Munro (Labour), Iain McGill (Tories), and Martin Veart (Liberal Democrats). The Edinburgh North & Leith Scottish Green vote dropped by 1413 (45%), compared to a decrease of just 55 votes (2%) for the Lib Dems between 2015 and 2017.

By contrast, as outlined above, Harvie increased the Green vote in Glasgow North by 42%. The 2017 election saw the Scottish Greens contest Falkirk for the first time (winning 1.7% of the vote), so no direct comparison can be made to previous results.

Though the Scottish Green Party witnessed a decrease in support between 2015 and 2017 in Edinburgh North and Leith, and an increase in Glasgow North, it is important to consider the impact that the Party standing elsewhere may have had on the final results. Four Scottish constituencies witnessed margins of fewer than one hundred votes – North East Fife (a margin of 2 votes), Perth and North Perthshire (21 vote margin), Glasgow South West (60 vote margin), and Glasgow East (75 vote margin). Each of the these marginal seats saw the SNP re-elected.

For each of these results to change, just a small percentage of 2015 Scottish Green voters, who lacking a Green candidate in 2017 voted instead for the SNP, would have needed to repeat their 2015 Green vote for each of these four seats to change hands. North East Fife would have become Liberal Dem if potentially as few as three of 2015 Green voters (0.2%) had backed the party again in 2017 instead of the SNP, Perth and North Perthshire required as few as twenty-three voters (2%), whilst Glasgow South West and Glasgow East needed potentially just sixty-one voters (12%) and seventy-six voters (20%), respectively to trigger a different result. If this had happened, both Glasgow constituencies would have gone to Labour, whilst Perth and North Perthshire would have become Tory.

It’s therefore fair to conclude that, barring any electoral alliance with the SNP, and provided that the Scottish Green Party can muster together the financial resources, the Greens standing an increased number of candidates in the next General Election will mean that a significant number of seats may be too close to call.