SNP candidate Tom Wills came closer to victory in Shetland than he managed in a by-election there two years ago, but it just was not enough.
The LibDems held the seat with a greatly reduced majority of 806 votes for Beatrice Wishart on a 66% turnout – representing a swing to the SNP of 18.8%.
Wills, a marine engineer on a tidal energy project on Shetland, polled 4997 votes – up from his 3822 in the 2019 by-election – but said he had felt hampered by the restrictions applied to canvassing because of the pandemic. He told Shetland News: “I am disappointed, but the result is also a huge achievement.
“I don’t think I could have given it much more under the circumstances. We only had the last 10 days of actually getting out, knock on doors and speak to folk.
“It has been a strange campaign. It is only then that you get a proper view of what people are thinking and it became clear that we had a lot of support, was supporting us for the first time, but it wasn’t quite enough.”
Labour and the Tories both improved their performance, and anti-same-sex marriage candidate Peter Tait polled 116 votes, ahead of Brian Nugent (Restore Scotland), who won 90 votes.
Wishart said she had unfinished business following her first term and, speaking from the podium, added: “The pandemic has devastated so many people’s lives, so my message of putting recovery first resonated with voters along with the key themes of action, and improvement on the issues that people told me matters most to them.
“Mental health services, education, transport and broadband, and there’s so much more. I want to focus on making a difference to people’s lives.”
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