THE date of the by-election in Stephen Flynn’s former Westminster seat has been confirmed.
Voters in Aberdeen South will go to the polls to elect a new MP on Thursday, June 18, Aberdeen City Council said.
The dates for two other upcoming Westminster by-elections have not yet been confirmed, but they are likely to be held on the same date.
Voters in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry will elect an MP to replace Stephen Gethins – who like Flynn also resigned from Westminster after being elected to the Scottish Parliament earlier this month.
And secondly, voters in Makerfield will also go to the polls to replace former Labour minister Josh Simons, who stepped down in order to give Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham a route into the House of Commons.
In Aberdeen South, Flynn won the seat in 2024 with 32.8% of the vote. Labour came second on 24.7%, the Tories in third on 24.4%, and Reform UK fourth on 6.9%.
In Makerfield, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK are considered the main challenger to Labour, given the party’s success in the area in the 2026 English local elections.
The Conservatives’ Edward Leigh, Westminster's longest-serving MP, has said his party should decline to stand in Makerfield in order to give Reform UK a better chance, and in return Reform UK should stand down in Aberdeen South.
However, Reform UK have already announced that Jo Hart will be standing for them in Flynn’s former seat.
She told the Press and Journal: “I think there’s going to be a lot of interest in this seat and thankfully we’ve got a lot of really good campaigners that have been a massive help in the Scottish elections.
“Now we can really focus on this constituency for this by-election.”
A Tory source further dismissed the idea of not standing in Makerfield, telling The Times: “Why would we stand aside? We would be conceding that we don't have any ability [to] win?
“It's absurd. We are standing a candidate in every by-election, as we always do.”
The SNP have not yet announced their candidate for Aberdeen South.
Labour announced that Burnham would be their candidate in Makerfield on Tuesday afternoon.
On Monday, before Burnham was named, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said of the Labour candidate: “Whoever they are I am going to support them 100%.”
“I want every member, everyone in our movement to support them. A Labour candidate to beat Reform. That is the fight that we are in,” he added.
If Burnham wins, he is expected to launch a leadership challenge against Starmer, who has been facing calls to resign over his handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal and earlier in May oversaw historic election losses for Labour.
For the first time ever, the party lost control of the devolved Welsh parliament to the pro-independence Plaid Cymru, and in Scotland they returned a record-low number of MSPs.
Starmer is said to be privately considering whether he will defend his leadership if a contest were launched, despite having publicly vowed to stand against any challengers.
Earlier on Monday, one of his most loyal Cabinet allies, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, insisted he would fight on without setting out a timetable for his departure.
