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Elections 2021: Starmer facing Labour backlash after Tories’ historic win in Hartlepool – live


Scotland’s political parties are reporting extremely high turnouts across the country, with many polling stations showing record voting levels matching or exceeding the turnout in the 2014 independence referendum.

One Labour source said the numbers were “stonkingly high” across the country. A Scottish National party source added: “We’re getting reports of high turnout, but it’s not uniform across the country.”

There had been widespread anxieties the Covid crisis and public weariness could suppress numbers. Holyrood turnouts have been historically weaker than UK general election turnouts: in 2016 it was 55.6% and in 2011, the year Alex Salmond and the SNP won Holyrood’s first and so far only overall majority, 50.6%.

Anecdotal reports of unexpectedly high turnouts included one polling place in Gourock, a relatively well-off coastal town in Inverclyde, where the turnout hit 92%, including postal ballots.

In Edinburgh Central, which the Tory leader Ruth Davidson unexpectedly won in 2016, turnout rates overtook the 2016 total by early evening. The SNP is expected to win there. In Anniesland, Glasgow, a place with historically low turnouts, the rate hit 70%. Postal vote returns in Edinburgh overall were at 89%, said another source.

With no seats yet declared and constituency counting still at an early stage, these sources believe most incumbent MSPs and parties are likely to hold their seats. Labour is expected to comfortably hold Edinburgh Southern; the Lib Dems are expected to hold North East Fife and Labour may well hold East Lothian, against the national trend.

Nicola Sturgeon’s vote in Glasgow Southside is also reportedly very strong, defying local fears it may fall given the challenge from Anas Sarwar, the locally-raised Scottish Labour leader, whose father Mohammad Sarwar was Labour MP for a contiguous Westminster seat from 1997. There has been a “substantial turnout” there.

These data follow a record number of people registering for this year’s Holyrood election and making postal vote applications. The Electoral Commission said 1,010,638 people took postal ballots this year (nearly 24% of the electorate), and 4,280,785 people registered to vote overall, only 3,153 fewer than record numbers in the 2014 independence referendum.



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