Is North East Fife still up for grabs?

With less than 100 days until the general election that nobody can predict, people are starting to look locally to get some idea of the future of politics across the nation.

In many parts of the country big changes are expected to take place and this is particularly clear here in North East Fife, a traditionally safe Liberal Democrat seat that this year will see popular figure Menzies Campbell step down. This could potentially shift the vote significantly, especially following recent reports of the Liberal Democrat’s falling popularity and predictions that they could lose as many as 29 seats in May. Add to this the unstoppable rise of the SNP, last year’s European elections in Fife which saw the Tories soar ahead of the Lib Dems, and you see there is a pretty intense political fight ahead for this supposed “safe seat”.

Alongside the SNP’s predicted gain of over 40 seats this year, they saw a great result at the 2014 European Election in Fife, receiving the second highest amount of votes in total. This shows that despite the Labour strongholds in the area and the overall “No” vote in September, the SNP do have a chance of making gains here. But is North East Fife the place?

Conservative candidate for North East Fife, Huw Bell, thinks not. “We don’t have an exact figure for the referendum here but it was sort of mid 60% for no. I find that for a lot of people who used to vote for Menzies Campbell, the most important thing for them is the union; preserving the union, and not having an SNP MP. I think for me it’s going to be who has the most compelling pro unionist argument. And the name and the history of our party will help that.” But what chance do the Conservatives have of gaining North East Fife?

At the 2010 general election, the Conservatives received the second most amount of votes in North East Fife and additionally there was a 5% swing from the Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives. Despite this however a lot has changed in five years. The referendum has undoubtedly changed attitudes and got a lot more people engaged in politics. Previously North East Fife has seen a turnout of 63.6% at the general election – will the political interest generated throughout the referendum debate increase this number? And will that have a notable affect on the vote for any particular party?

Huw Bell believes that anything could happen in the next few months and will continue to work hard in the area. “I firmly believe I will be better to represent all of you and if you want to stop the SNP we are the party that is best placed to stop them. North East Fife is definitely still up for grabs. It’s definitely worth all my efforts.”