Sovereignty had an excellent candidate in Kieran Anderson. However it became clear pretty quickly that this by-election in Fife was going to be a two horse race between the SNP and Reform UK.
Feedback from the electorate was although they liked our principles they didn’t know enough about Sovereignty to give our candidate their no.1 vote on this occasion. The only consolation is the number of votes Kieran Anderson attained was only 19 less than Conservative party, 38 less than Alba and 54 less than the Lib Dems!
Results
Ann Marie Caldwell (SNP) – 1,594
Mark Davies (Reform UK) – 1,080
Donna Donnelly (Labour) – 778
Jill Reilly (Liberal Democrat) – 99
Christine Watson (Alba) – 83
Brian Mills (Conservative) – 64
Kieran Anderson (Sovereignty) – 45
The conclusion of Laurie Moffat, Sovereignty’s new secretary (front left in the photo above) was “The campaign wasn’t a success. It wasn’t a failure. It set the foundation.”
Laurie is pictured with Moira Brown (last year’s Deputy now a NEC open seat member) and Brian Nugent our enthusiastic new leader who says his legs will never recover from the ordeal of climbing so many stairs!
Former Labour party stronghold
The Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss Villages council ward has always been a Labour stronghold. The streets and wynds in Methil pay homage to the founder of the Labour Party, Keir Hardie. He would, however be turning in his grave at what has become of the Labour party. It bares no resemblance to its working class origins, and as a result, the Labour candidate really did not stand a chance in this by-election.
Sovereignty on the up
What we did achieve in this by-election was to put Sovereignty on the map. Much of the electorate we spoke to were impressed with our party principles listed on the leaflet and with our candidate, Kieran Anderson. Some stated they’ll be interested to see how the party develops.
The road ahead is to make sure that everyone in Scotland has heard of Sovereignty, and is talking about our policies which are sensible and original. One new policy, passed at congress, is to tax the finite amount of land given to Scotland, instead of heavily taxing producers’ earnings. This would encourage landowners to build on their land or sell it on, rather than tying it up and waiting for the price of land to rise.
Former Miner’s Welfare Institute, West Wemyss
A classic example is the former Belvedere Hotel in West Wemyss, which is still handsome, but has been vacant for 15-20 years. It was built in 1927 as the Miner’s Welfare Institute, and has now been lying vacant for so long that it is listed on the Buildings At Risk Register for Scotland. A simple land tax would require the landowner either to develop it, to earn money with the building, or sell it to someone who will do so.
Foot soldiers
We are grateful the helpwe received from our partners at Liberate Scotland.
Going into the Holyrood election we need many more members and foot soldiers on the ground to get our amazing party Sovereignty known throughout Scotland.
Make sure to get involved whenever we put a call out for help as leaflet/canvassing is:
- good exercise
- educational
- enjoyable
and you’ll get to know underrated towns and villages which are well worth a visit.
We can highly recommend visiting Buckhaven, Methil and East and West Wemyss. We were impressed with the civic buildings, stunning churches and a variety of interesting styles of housing. All three hostelries we collapsed into (to have a short break from leafleting) had a pool table and were very friendly and clean.