THE Scottish Liberal Democrats have won a resounding byelection victory in Edinburgh, threatening Labour’s fragile grip on power in the capital.
The victory for Fiona Bennett in the Corstorphine/Murrayfield ward means the LibDems now have 13 councillors to Labour’s 12.
Although the SNP are the biggest group on the authority, with 18 councillors, Labour has run a minority administration since last year’s elections.
Its demotion to third-largest party at the City Chambers puts that in doubt.
It is understood the LibDem group on the council will meet on Monday to discuss its next move.
The SNP came second in the byelection, and saw their vote fall by almost a third.
Comedian Elaine Miller, who ‘flashed’ a pubic wig at Holyrood in a protest against gender recognition reforms, came eighth of the nine candidates.
The LibDem win coincides with the party’s spring conference opening in Dundee today.
Leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “I am delighted to see Fiona Bennett storm to victory.
“Improving the lives of her community and the people around her is what Fiona is all about and she will now do that to great effect from the city chambers of our nation’s capital.
“Fiona ran a campaign forged in the finest traditions of our party and by so doing she, and her team, delivered the biggest local authority by-election victory in our history.
“There is a now a corner of West Edinburgh made solid gold by her success. It is represented at every level of democracy by our party and our party alone.
“By electing Scottish Liberal Democrat councillors we can improve communities and change lives. It’s in our DNA. And the engine rooms that we are establishing around the country will help to lift our vote at every parliamentary election as well.”
Councillor Bennett said: “I would like to thank everyone who voted for me and everyone who came out to campaign on my behalf.
“I am delighted to have won this election and now I will be getting to work to represent the people of Corstorphine/Murrayfield.
“Whether it’s fixing our broken roads and pavements, action on air pollution, measures to tackle flooding, or supporting local traders, there’s so much to do.”
🚨LIB DEMS WIN CORSTORPHINE/MURRAYFIELD🚨
— Scottish Lib Dems (@scotlibdems) March 10, 2023
Congratulations to our newest councillor, Fiona Bennett!
Winning the seat with 56% of the vote to the SNP's 13%. pic.twitter.com/m27184TDzx
The byelection was caused by the resignation of former SNP Lord Provost Frank Ross in December after his party refused to back financial support for local traders.
Despite being a single transferable vote byelection, Ms Bennett won without any need for transfers by taking 56 per cent of the first preferences.
It gives the Scottish LibDems 13 of the 63 seats on the council.
Until last month, Labour also had 13, running the city with Tory and LibDem support.
However on February 23, Sighthill/Gorgie councillor Ross McKenzie dramatically quit the party in the middle of a full council meeting, reducing Labour to 12.
The full result of yesterday’s Corstorphine/Murrayfield byelection was as follows:
Scottish Liberal Democrats 4,577 (56%)
SNP 1,086 (13.3%)
Conservative 788 (9.7%)
Labour 568 (7%)
Green 417 (5.1%)
Independent Elaine Miller 327 (4%)
Independent Pete Grigson 295 (3.6%)
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel