Scottish Labour win local by-election for Kirkintilloch East & North & Twechar on East Dunbartonshire council

The Scotsman

Scottish Labour win local by-election for Kirkintilloch East & North & Twechar on East Dunbartonshire council   Scottish Labour have won a local by-election in East Dunbartonshire after a collapse in the SNP vote. Aidan Marshall secured victory after his party’s vote held up compared to the local government elections three years ago.   The snap election was held after Lib Dem Susan Murray quit in the wake of becoming an MP last year. Local elections are held under proportional representation and Marshall was elected to serve Kirkintilloch East & North & Twechar after stage 8 of the vote.   He won the largest amount of first preferences - polling 1% more than in 2022 - while the SNP vote fell by 16%, according to the Ballot Box Scotland website. The Lib Dems came third on first preferences, Reform UK was fourth while the Tories were fifth. The turnout was 26.2%.   The results for the by-election for Ward 7, Kirkintilloch East & North & Twechar, 13 February 2025.   The Returning Officer is Ann Davie, Chief Executive of East Dunbartonshire Council.   The results of the Ward 7 Kirkintilloch East & North & Twechar by-election - declared by Returning Officer Ann Davie on 13 February 2025.   The results of the ward 7 by-election  The results of the ward 7 by-election  List of candidates and number of first preference votes  Candidate Party Number of first preference votes  Marthos Christoforou   Scottish Liberal Democrats   677   Eamonn Gallagher   Alba Party For Independence   63   Satbir Kaur Gill   Scottish Conservative and Unionist   131   Bruce Hampton   Reform UK   476   Aidan Marshall   Scottish Labour Party   958   Serina Marshall   Scottish National Party (SNP)   726   Alan McManus   Sovereignty   18   Elizabeth Rowan   Scottish Greens   128   Aidan Marshall, Scottish Labour Party, was elected at Stage 8.   Electorate, turnout and rejected papers  The electorate was 12,319   The turnout was 3,228 (26.2%)   There were 51 rejected ballot papers   The quota of votes for a candidate to be elected was 1,589

Transcript

00:00Yes, I'm our leader of the Scottish Labour Party and I'm here in Kirkintilloch to celebrate

00:03with our fantastic new local councillor, Aidan Marshall, who's just won the Kirkintilloch

00:08East and North and Twecker by-election where the SNP vote completely collapsed because

00:13people here are sending a clear message that they're sick of the SNP, that they've lost

00:17their way and they want a new direction for our country and that can only be delivered

00:21by Scottish Labour in May 2026.

00:23Look, of course we've got to have people from right across different demographics taking

00:27part in our politics and I'm really proud that we had a fantastic local young candidate,

00:31Aidan Marshall, who's obviously well known in his local community, really committed to

00:34his local community and will fight really hard for local people here every single day.

00:38What are your hopes for him?

00:40He's a young boy, he's got a bright future ahead of him, but right now he's going to

00:43get sworn into the council, get straight to work delivering for local people and using

00:48this as a platform for us to make sure we have success in the Scottish Parliament election

00:51next year.

00:52I'm Aidan Marshall, I'm the new Labour councillor here in Kirkintilloch North East and Twecker.

00:56I'm delighted, I'm delighted with the result, it's an honour and a privilege that the people

01:00of my community put their trust in me to work tirelessly for them for the next few years.

01:05So the by-election is here across Kirkintilloch and Twecker, great communities, Hillhead,

01:09Rosebank, Waterside, Westermains and I've got an of course in Twecker.

01:16It's an area where I've grew up, went to school, I've worked in for years, worked here on High

01:20Street for a good few years, so I know the local issues and I know the priorities of

01:25the people here and it's an honour to be given the opportunity to work hard for them.

01:30I hope to be accessible to the people here and as Labour councillors we always oppose

01:34cuts to local government from the SNP Scottish Government and hopefully we can invest our

01:41public services properly.

01:42Of course council by-elections turnout is always relatively low but we spoke to as many

01:46people as we could and I really, really enjoyed the campaign.

01:49We spoke to thousands of people and if you don't speak to people you don't know their

01:55so I'm glad we ran such a successful campaign.

01:57So people feel let down by years and years of local government cuts, public services

02:02aren't running as well as they should be, particularly here in terms of buses, our village

02:07communities have been let down with bus services and hopefully now that I've been placed here

02:13I can work constructively with colleagues from across the chamber and with our really

02:18great Labour team and our member of parliament now as well to try and secure the high quality

02:25public services that our communities deserve.

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