LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) – The Conservative Party won a local election in the oil town of Aberdeen on Friday, the first time the Scottish branch of the party has won a so-called by-election contest for a Westminster parliamentary seat for the first time in 50 years.
While the most consequential local election for decades took place south of the border, where Labour’s Andy Burnham cleared a path to ousting Prime Minister Keir Starmer by winning a parliamentary seat in northern England, the Scottish result was a fillip for the Conservative Party.
The Conservatives are Britain’s main opposition party but they placed fourth in the by-election Burnham won, registering only a tiny share of the vote.
Conservative Douglas Lumsden took Aberdeen South from the Scottish National Party, saying the result showed voters wanted to stop what he called “the destruction of the oil and gas industry”.
As fossil fuel prices have risen during the Iran war, the position of Britain’s Labour government, which is focused on growing the renewable energy industry while only allowing new oil and gas licences near existing fields, has stoked division.
In another Scottish by-election for a Westminster seat in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, about 70 miles north of Edinburgh, it was announced on Friday that Lara Bird had held the seat for the Scottish National Party.
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