Burnham isn’t the only show in town.

By Peter White – Associate Director

While much of the UK’s national coverage has focused, and will continue to laser in on, Burnham’s by-election in Makerfield, two by-elections took place in Scotland yesterday that deserve more than a cursory glance.

The campaign in Aberdeen South, the seat vacated by former Westminster SNP spokesperson Stephen Flynn (now Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism & Transport at Holyrood), was dominated by the increasingly fractious debate over energy, and a fundamental narrative that the new MP, Douglas Lumsden, led with.

Aberdeen is known as the oil & gas capital of Europe and the home of Labour’s much-vaunted (and widely criticised) publicly-owned energy company, GB Energy. Formerly a hub of industry and wealth, communities in Aberdeen have been feeling the brunt of the ‘just transition’ to green energy.

It is against this backdrop that the Scottish Conservatives won their first by-election victory in Scotland in over five decades, taking Aberdeen South from the SNP, a seat that has bounced between the two over the last 12 years. It was won by a comfortable margin, with the Tories taking nearly double the votes of the Scottish nationalists. When combined with the Reform vote, the right-leaning (and oil and gas supporting) parties won approximately 7,000 more votes than all the other parties combined.

However, the SNP did manage to hold Abroath & Broughty Ferry by 5,000 votes, increasing their vote share and denying their critics a chance to claim outright victory over Scotland’s governing party. That the SNP managed to do this despite the scandal surrounding the conviction of its former CEO in recent weeks is an achievement.

However, it is the result in Aberdeen South that will dominate commentary in Scotland this weekend. While Westminster lurches towards another leadership contest, political leadership in Scotland remains stable. John Swinney, Minister for Energy Stephen Gethins and SNP strategists will however be anxiously considering how to respond to yesterday’s verdict in Aberdeen. The party has tried to straddle the fence on its energy policy, moving from a presumption against licensing new offshore fossil fuel development to caveating that new projects need to take into account the importance of energy security.

This clearly didn’t go far enough for Aberdonians, but the further Swinney moves in this direction, the more likely he is to upset the SNP’s traditional base, as well as the Scottish Greens, who the SNP will rely on to pass controversial legislation in Parliament as a minority government.

In addition, the result shows that the Conservatives are not to be discounted as a political force in Scotland, an assumption many may have made after their worst-ever Holyrood result just six weeks ago. When campaigning on local issues that overshadow the constitutional question and their own record on a UK-wide level, the Tories can credibly appeal to an electorate and industry lobby that has long-been used to a multi-party system locally.

Energy will monopolise First Ministers Questions next week, it will be prioritised by SNP Ministers and advisers as they plan over summer recess, and it will likely dominate the policy and legislative agenda in Holyrood from September. With change in Westminster likely, the dynamic between a new PM and John Swinney, particularly around SNP manifesto commitments like the call for energy policy to be fully devolved, will be critically important.

While Westminster swirls, Scotland’s energy will remain at the centre of Scotland’s political debate. Industry has an opportunity to capitalise on the relative certainty of this backdrop at Holyrood to influence the policy detail that will face huge scrutiny in the months ahead.

Download our ‘Inside Holyrood’ report here to get the full insight into to the people, power structures and relationships shaping policy and decision-making across the Scottish Government and Parliament.