Yahoo News Inside Britain’s most marginal constituency, where the SNP hold a majority of two
There are several marginal constituencies across Britain that will face a tight race on General Election day – but none more so than North East Fife.
The constituency is the most marginal in the country, with an SNP majority of just two.
The party won the eastern Scotland seat in the 2017 snap election after three recounts due to close calls, before incumbent MP Stephen Gethins beat the Liberal Democrats by the tiny figure.
Mr Gethins, the SNP’s Europe spokesman, had taken the rural constituency in 2015 with a majority of more than 4,000 after it had previously been held by the former Lib Dem leader Menzies Campbell from 1987 to 2015.
Diverse seat
In 2019, the seat is being contested by four parties: the SNP’s Mr Gethins, the Lib Dems’ Wendy Chamberlain, the Conservatives’ Tony Miklinski, and Labour’s Wendy Haynes.
According to government figures, 83,320 people lived in the constituency in 2018, 70,436 of whom were of voting age.
It is a diverse constituency with both urban and highly rural areas, and was heavily Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
In the 2017 election it had a 71.3% turnout of registered voters, higher than the UK average of 68.8%.
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A different campaign
When asked about how it felt to face the slim majority on election night two years ago, Mr Gethins told PA: “It was fine. We’d had a baby that week so it wasn’t the biggest thing that happened to me that week, so it gives you a little bit of perspective.
“Standing for election is an incredibly important thing and it’s your job on the line, but when you’ve just had a new baby arrive as well, obviously that’s the most important thing to have happened and the election is the second-most important thing.”
The SNP candidate said his campaigning style had changed after the 2017 election, but not as a result of his slim victory.
Mr Gethins said: “You make a mistake by trying to fight the last election campaign. I think you should try and fight the current election campaign each time and a lot of things have happened over the last two years, things are dramatically different now than they were two years ago.
“It’s a different campaign. If every election campaign was just like the last one we wouldn’t get very far.”
Referendum issues
Both Mr Gethins and the Lib Dems’ Ms Chamberlain said Brexit and Scottish independence were the two biggest issues for voters.
Mr Gethins said: “Brexit is not some political debate that happens far away, it’s something that has a real impact on folks’ jobs here and also has an impact on the key industries around here as well.”
Ms Chamberlain, who was not her party’s 2017 candidate, said: “In some ways lots of things have changed, but in other ways nothing has really. In terms of in 2017, it was Theresa May looking for support for what she was trying to do with the Brexit strategy she had.
“In some ways this is another election about Brexit.
“Here in Scotland we are still dealing with what happened since the 2014 independence referendum as well, so in some ways the discussion points are the same as they were in 2017.”
