Boundaries
The Dumfries and Galloway constituency was created by the Fifth Review of the Boundary Commission for Scotland, and covers part of the Dumfries and Galloway council area. The rest of the council area is covered by the Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale constituency, which also covers part of the Scottish Borders council area and part of the South Lanarkshire council area.
2005–2024: Under the Fifth Review, the boundaries were defined in accordance with the ward structure in place on 30 November 2004. Further to reviews of local government ward boundaries which came into effect in 2007 and 2017, but did not affect the parliamentary boundaries, the constituency comprised the following wards or part wards of the Dumfries and Galloway Council: Stranraer and the Rhins, Abbey, Castle Douglas and Crocketford, Dee and Glenkens, Lochar (most), Mid Galloway and Wigtown West, Mid and Upper Nithsdale (small part), Nith (most), and North West Dumfries.
2024–present: Further to the 2023 review of Westminster constituencies which came into effect for the 2024 general election, the constituency was subject to minor boundary changes, with the whole of the Nith ward now included, offset by the loss of a further part of the Lochar ward. [1] [2]
Constituency profile
Located in the southwest of Scotland, this is a large and rural seat with significant farming and forestry sectors, including the Galloway Forest Park. Dumfries is an economic hub for south Scotland and is also Dumfries and Galloway's largest town. The seat also contains many other small towns and villages such as Castle Douglas, Dalbeattie, Auchincairn, Kirkcudbright, Gatehouse of Fleet, Creetown, Glenluce, and Stranraer. Stranraer, which is the area's second-largest town, was formerly a port town where ferries to Northern Ireland departed from, but they have since moved to Cairnryan, six miles north of Stranraer.
Political history
The seat has had a mixed electoral history. In 2005, the Labour Party won the seat and held it again in 2010, but lost the seat to the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2015. The SNP held the seat from 2015 until 2017 before losing the seat to the Conservative Party in the 2017 general election, who held it in 2019 and 2024.
Dumfries and Galloway's predecessor seats, Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (1983–2005) and Galloway (1918–83), had been represented by Conservative MPs in all but two parliaments since 1931. Galloway and Upper Nithsdale was won by the Scottish National Party in 1997 [3] but became the only Scottish seat to return a Conservative MP at the 2001 general election. [3]
Boundary changes for the 2005 election saw the new seat have a very slim Labour majority over the Conservatives, and the SNP were in close third place. Russell Brown was the Labour candidate, who had been the MP for the neighbouring seat of Dumfriesshire since 1997, and Peter Duncan, the sitting MP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, stood as the Conservative candidate. Although the seat was the Conservatives' second target seat across Britain, [4] Labour increased its vote share and Russell Brown was elected as the constituency's MP. [5]
In 2010, Duncan attempted once again to become Dumfries and Galloway's MP. However the election produced a swing against the Conservatives in the seat, and it was held by Labour's Russell Brown with a majority of 7,449 votes. [6] The SNP's share of the vote in the constituency collapsed at the 2005 general election, and remained static in 2010. In 2015, the seat was won by the SNP's Richard Arkless with a 6,514 vote majority. The Conservative share of the vote stayed similar to the 2010 election, whereas Labour polled third, receiving 24.7% of the vote compared to 45.9% in 2010. [7] [6] In 2017, Alister Jack gained the seat for the Conservatives, [8] making him one of a dozen new Scottish Conservative MPs. [9] Jack held the seat in 2019 with a reduced majority despite increasing his vote share.
Jack stood down for the 2024 election [10] and fellow Conservative John Cooper was elected with a further reduced majority of 930 votes (2.1%) over the SNP. Both these parties vote share fell considerably, with Labour coming just a further 1.8% behind in third place, having increased it's vote share to 25.7% from 9.2% in 2019.
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