Alienation and anger shown towards main parties in Glasgow by elections
Matt Dobson Scottish TUSC Glasgow North East Agent
Two Glasgow City Council by elections took place on 20th March. The SNP won both, including regaining the seat in the North East ward they lost to Labour in November 2024.
However, neither of these by elections showed momentum for the SNP. Rather that their vote, having fallen for a period, has stabilised while support for Labour continues to collapse.
Mass alienation towards the main parties is shown by the dire turnout in both wards. The vast majority are not voting. In North East, the 12.4% turnout last winter went up to 13.6% with less than 2,000 people voting. In Southside Central turnout was slightly better at 18%.
Scottish TUSC activists campaigning in the North East ward witnessed palpable rage towards Labour throughout this campaign. Most of the postal votes, and therefore the majority of votes as a whole, were in before Reeves and Kendall announced their vicious welfare cuts, otherwise their vote would have been even worse. These cuts are fully supported of course by the Scottish leadership.
Working-class people across the ward were already angry enough about energy bills, food inflation and cuts raining down from Starmer’s government. In November Labour’s vote fell by 15% and in this contest, they lost another 5%. The SNP vote having dropped by 8% in November increased slightly by 2%.
This shows the rage at Labour is not reflected in the SNP being seen as an alternative. They, with their recent cuts budget in Glasgow City Council, also are met with disillusionment. The SNP chose a different candidate, a well-known local community worker, and still were not able to tangibly increase their support. This was even though their election leaflets attacked Starmer’s policies and promoted independence, support for which is increasing in the polls.
In Southside Central the vote for the SNP and Labour both fell compared to the last national council election contest in 2022, albeit in significantly smaller amounts than in North East.
In North East right populist Reform UK ran a major campaign. Since the last by election, an ex-Tory councillor, bringing along with him numbers of activists from the Glasgow Conservatives, have joined Reform. They ran a large-scale campaign in the ward including with advertising billboards. This contrasted with Southside Central where they stood a paper candidate, who gained 6% of the vote.
In November, Reform polled 18% in North East. This time, and with a different candidate, Reform attempted to engage in a populist, anti-establishment campaign with working class people. They said they were opposed to the SNP’s cuts and council tax rises during the campaign. They also whipped up racist division around the issue of an empty care home in the ward, claiming falsely it would be turned into asylum seekers accommodation.
As in November, Reform UK were seen as a way to hit back at the political establishment – particularly Labour and the SNP. The vast majority expressed their disgust by simply refusing to vote. The Tory vote in the ward dropped yet again.
The breakdown of the votes, including the 2nd and 3rd vote preferences, will reveal more about the nature of Reform’s support in North East. Nationally, polling shows the majority of their vote coming from ex Tory and Labour voters with a smaller section coming from those who previously voted SNP.
In Southside Central, votes increased more for the Scottish Greens, the Scottish Socialist Party and the Lib Dems than Reform. The Scottish Greens came third in Southside Central, with 23% of the 1st preference vote. In North East, Scottish TUSC with 2.6% in 1st preferences and 6% in second, polled close to the Tories and the Greens and beat UKIP and the Lib Dems.
Why is this? Because the polarisation and alienation currently in society is expressed in a different way from different social layers. Both Glasgow wards have large areas of deprivation. But there are major social differences. Southside Central in 2017, when the boundaries were last drawn, had 5,000 more people living in it, than North East.
Housing and rental prices in the South of Glasgow are soaring. There is some gentrification, a growing student and young population and the ward has a longstanding large Muslim population alongside other migrant communities.
In North East the population is older, declining in number and less mixed. In North East, housing associations dominate and there is less home ownership. Private landlords are a major feature in the Southside.
Cuts, housing, energy bills and transport would have been shared major issues in both wards. However, it’s clear the Greens and the SSP would have benefited from featuring Israel’s onslaught on Gaza prominently in their leaflets in Southside Central.
Both will have also benefited from support from youth angry about high private sector rents as well. Nevertheless, it was a welcome outcome that the SSP candidate, who won 7.2% of the vote, outpolled Reform UK in Southside Central.
These by elections confirm again our long-standing position that it’s not enough to oppose Reform’s racism – socialists must stand against them.
Scottish TUSC stood Anne McAllister a local Easterhouse campaigner and Socialist Party Scotland member, as we did in November. Our vote, compared to November, fell slightly, but once again we beat parties with a higher national media profile.
Our material focused on nationalisation of energy, no cuts/ needs council budgets, a mass council house building programme and opposition to racism through a united working-class struggle for jobs, homes and services for all.
We were able to point to Anne and our record in defending welfare and claimants, something Reform UK will be unable to do – given their cruel position of being even more vicious in advocating cuts than Labour. Which will be a bitter pill to swallow once it becomes clear to those who currently vote for them.
We also raised prominently the need for a new party of the working class based on the trade unions. We had support from a wide layer of trade unionists in the city who donated and leafleted for the campaign. We will continue campaigning in North East and all working-class class areas. It was positive that a socialist candidate stood in the other by election, unlike in Winter 2024, when there was no socialist candidate in the other three council wards.
We were prepared to stand aside in Southside Central, where we had discussed standing, for the SSP. We have called consistently over the last few months for the trade unions to call a conference to discuss and organise a widespread socialist challenge in both the regional lists and constituencies for the Holyrood election in 2026.
Glasgow City Unison recently passed a motion in support of this initiative. The Scottish TUSC steering committee will be writing to left organisations and prominent activists to make concrete proposals on this soon. We will continue to constructively engage in the discussions around the various left initiatives which are considering standing in elections.
While noting the SSP’s recent public announcement that they will stand in every regional list in 2026, we appeal to them to constructively discuss cooperation and a united socialist challenge for next year’s Holyrood election.
