Labour has no candidates in third of Scottish Westminster seats

Sir Keir Starmer with Anas Sarwar. Image: PA.

Labour does not yet have a candidate in around a third of Scottish seats at Westminster – including in every constituency currently held by the Conservatives.

Polling indicates the next general election will see a tight race between Anas Sarwar’s party and the SNP.

Despite Labour opposing the nationalist’s plans to regard a majority of Scottish seats for the SNP as a mandate to begin independence negotiations, it currently has no candidate named in 18 of the 59 constituencies in Scotland.

Labour has confirmed it will stand a hopeful in every single seat.

But the SNP says the lack of announced candidates – particularly in seats held by the Conservatives – shows it is not up to kicking the Tories out of government.

‘An embarrassment for Labour’

SNP MP Chris Law said: “With labour having failed to select a candidate in around a third of seats across Scotland, it’s clear that the SNP are the only party that can win the seven Tory seats in Scotland.

“This is the latest embarrassment for the Labour Party in Scotland.

“Anas Sarwar can’t even pretend he is trying to get rid of the Tories when Labour has no candidates in any of the Tory held seats in Scotland

Chris Law, MP for Dundee West. Image: DC Thomson

“Voting SNP at the Westminster election is the only way to defeat Scottish Tory MPs and make Scotland’s voice heard at Westminster.”

The intervention hints at the emerging battlegrounds for the election, with Labour expected to take the fight to the SNP across central Scotland.

Meanwhile, several seats in the North East are predicted to be a contest largely between the SNP and the Tories.

The constituencies where no Labour candidate has yet been announced are:

Aberdeenshire North and Moray East
Angus and Perthshire Glens
Arbroath and Broughty Ferry
Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross
Dumfries and Galloway
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale
Dundee Central
Edinburgh West
Gordon and Buchan
Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire
Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey
North East Fife
Orkney and Shetland
Perth and Kinross-shire
Stirling and Strathallan
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine

Scottish Labour said: “We will field candidates in every seat across Scotland to take the fight to the Tories and the SNP, and deliver the change Scotland needs.”