Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch played a “critical” role in the party’s victory in the Aberdeen South by-election, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay has said. The Conservatives won the Westminster seat from the SNP in emphatic fashion, with Douglas Lumsden elected as the new MP after securing 14,308 votes, a majority of more than 6,000 over the SNP candidate. It was the party’s first by-election victory in Scotland since 1967.
Referendum on oil and gas
Mr Findlay said people in the seat had recognised the vote was “effectively a referendum on oil and gas”, and the victory came after a “huge team effort” from the party. He told the BBC’s The Sunday Show: “The people of Aberdeen knew this was effectively a referendum on oil and gas. Kemi Badenoch and I are crystal clear. We wanted to give the people of Aberdeen the choice to say No to the net zero madness of Labour and the SNP.”
“We want an affordable transition, but it cannot come at the cost of thousands of jobs and destroying an entire industry, and that’s why people came out with record numbers to vote for our candidate, Douglas Lumsden, an oil and gas champion, who will go down to Westminster and take that message directly to Keir Starmer or whoever might be in Downing Street next,” he added.
Badenoch’s critical role
Mrs Badenoch made several campaign visits to the area ahead of the by-election, and Mr Findlay hailed her role in securing victory. “She played a critical part,” he said. “It was a huge team effort after the Scottish election ended, we didn’t stop.”
Mr Findlay said the Tories support the transition towards renewables but “you cannot turn off the taps overnight”. He said: “We recognise that the net zero agenda is absolutely critical. We need to move towards a future of renewables, but it makes absolutely no sense that we’re importing dirtier and more expensive oil and gas from other countries in today’s volatile world, especially when we’ve got this fantastic natural resource on our doorstep.”
SNP vote collapse
The by-election saw the SNP’s vote collapse from 15,213 in the 2024 general election to 8,258 on Thursday, with the Tories winning comfortably. SNP MP Kirsty Blackman claimed the result was a “one off”, adding: “Hats off to the Conservatives. They did a good campaign, and they did talk about oil and gas, and it is incredibly important to this local area that the Labour Government changes their mind and changes their policies around oil and gas.”
“The position that we’ve (the SNP) had, and the position that we continue to have, is that oil and gas is important. It’s going to be there a long time into the future, but renewables are also important, which is a part of the puzzle that the Conservatives are not picking up right now. We need all of it, we want all of it to ensure that those high-quality jobs remain in Scotland, and this is the key thing that I’ve been raising in Parliament over and over again, is that Labour are on the wrong track and need to put jobs first,” Ms Blackman said.
Ms Blackman also said she does not think former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell’s guilty plea to embezzling from the party made much difference to voters. He pleaded guilty last month to embezzling more than £400,000 from the SNP over 12 years and is due to be sentenced this coming week. Ms Blackman said: “I think it had less of an impact on the doors genuinely than the oil and gas stuff.”
Labour response
Scottish Labour energy spokesman Daniel Johnson said: “Scottish Labour has been clear that oil and gas must remain part of our energy mix for decades to come, and all existing licences should be honoured, but we also need to deliver the jobs of the future. The SNP is all over the place on energy and the Tories let the number of jobs on the North Sea fall by a third. Only Scottish Labour is committed to supporting energy jobs across the board – continuing oil and gas, investing in renewables and lifting the ban on clean nuclear power.”
