Election 2019: how marginal is your constituency over Brexit? 7

Election 2019: how marginal is your constituency over Brexit?

With the general election less than a month away, Brexit is inevitably a central part of the campaign.

Each main party in Scotland has a slightly different policy for the UK’s exit from the EU.

Ferret Fact Service | Scotlands impartial fact check project

Ferret Fact Service decided to take a look at the state of play on Brexit in each Scottish constituency. We mapped the 2017 result and the nearest challenger in each constituency.

Interactive map: Find out the current Brexit position in your constituency

 

 

What are the party positions?

The only major party in Scotland which is backing Brexit under the current terms of Boris Johnson’s deal is the Conservatives, recently boosted by Nigel Farage’s decision to stand aside in constituencies where the Tories are incumbent.

Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems have differing policies on what should happen regarding the vote.

The SNP is a Remain party, which wants a second referendum on the issue. However, the party is only standing in Scotland so cannot win the election overall. The party’s leader Nicola Sturgeon has suggesting the SNP could support a minority Labour government on an “issue by issue” basis, if a second independence referendum was allowed.

The Labour Party in Scotland has backed Remain, while UK party policy is to negotiate a different Brexit deal and then call referendum to decide whether the public prefers a Brexit deal or remaining in the EU.

The Lib Dems also support Remain, and agreed at its party conference to support the cancellation of Brexit without a referendum, should it win the election. If the party do not win, it will support a second referendum.

There are a number of significant Brexit marginals in Scottish constituencies, with the closest votes between the SNP and Tories. There is one very close three-way marginal, Lanark and Hamilton East, between the two parties and Labour.

We have not included smaller parties who did not gain any seats or runner up places in 2017. The Brexit Party is also not included as consistent polling suggests they are unlikely to gain seats in Scotland.

Brexit marginal seats

Scottish seats won by less than 5% of the vote where the parties in first and second place in 2017 hold markedly different Brexit views. Estimated referendum results taken from Chris Hanretty’s research.

Perth and North Perthshire: Pete Wishart was re-elected for the SNP in this marginal constituency in 2017, but only held off the Conservative candidate by 21 votes. The third placed Labour candidate polled more than 15,000 fewer votes than Wishart.

Estimated Remain vs Leave vote (%): 60/40

Stirling: Stephen Kerr won this seat from the SNP in the 2017 election for the Conservatives. His lead over the second-placed SNP is 148 seats. Labour placed a distant third more than 8000 votes behind.

Estimated Remain vs Leave vote (%): 68/32

Lanark and Hamilton East: This is the country’s narrowest three-way marginal. In 2017, Angela Crawley held this seat for the SNP by a small margin. The Conservative candidate was only 266 votes behind, while Labour were beaten by just 360 votes.

Estimated Remain vs Leave vote (%): 65/35

Edinburgh South West: Joanna Cherry has been one of the most high-profile Remain MPs, but is defending the seat in Edinburgh with a slim majority of 1097 votes over the Conservatives.

Estimated Remain vs Leave vote (%): 72/28

Argyll and Bute: Brendan O’Hara held this seat in 2017 for the SNP, but the Conservatives took just 1328 fewer votes two years ago.

Estimated Remain vs Leave vote (%): 61/39

Central Ayrshire: The SNP held this seat in 2017 with Phillipa Whitford. The Conservatives are 1267 votes behind in this marginal seat.

Estimated Remain vs Leave vote (%): 57/43

 

 

 

 

Photo thanks to iStock/bmlpictures

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