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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
National
Neil Pooran

These are the seats to watch in Edinburgh and the Lothians at the 2019 general election

There's less than a week left before the country goes to the polls in the 2019 general election.

Several seats around Edinburgh, the Lothians and Fife will be key battlegrounds for parties in the run-up to the vote.

Below, we take a look at some of the constituencies which may change hands or have interesting results.

The SNP will be looking to repeat their landslide wins from 2015, with Labour and the Lib Dems aiming to hold on or expand gains from 2017.

While the Conservatives don't currently hold any seats in the region, they increased their share of the vote in several areas in 2017.

We'll be bringing you more election news from Edinburgh in the run-up to the vote.

Midlothian

Labour's Danielle Rowley won this seat from the SNP in 2017 by less than 1000 votes. A swing of around 2% of the vote could see it change hands.

The SNP hold the two Scottish Parliament constituencies which make up Midlothian in the Scottish Parliament.

It will be a close contest between the two parties, though the Conservatives also increased their vote from 2015.

Owen Thomson will be trying to regain the seat for the SNP.

Edinburgh South

Scottish Labour's Ian Murray has one of the largest majorities in the country. This means he's likely to hold on to his seat, but it will be interesting to see if his majority goes up or down.

The constituency includes affluent areas like Morningside as well as districts to the south with lower average incomes.

Between 2015 and 2017 Murray was Labour's only MP north of the border. If he loses his seat it will likely be in the context of a wipeout for Scottish Labour.

Edinburgh West

Christine Jardine will be looking to hold on to the seat for the Lib Dems (Wikimedia)

This constituency will see a tightly-fought battle between the Liberal Democrats and the SNP.

Christine Jardine won the seat for the Lib Dems in 2017. She has a majority of around 3000 votes meaning it's a fairly close race by UK standards.

However many Scottish seats saw MPs elected on smaller majorities in 2017, which some have attributed to tactical voting.

Edinburgh West includes parts of the city such as Cramond, Corstorphine and South Queensferry.

Michelle Thomson was elected as an SNP MP in 2015 but later became an independent. Sarah Masson is running for the party this time.

Edinburgh South West

Joanna Cherry hopes to hold on to the seat (Jonathan Brady/PA Wire)

The SNP's Joanna Cherry currently holds this seat. She's had a high profile recently with the court case around Brexit, which will stand her in good stead in Remain-voting Edinburgh.

However the Conservatives came a close second to the SNP in 2017. Miles Briggs will be running for the Tories this time.

A swing of around 2% would see the seat change hands.

Fife North East

It's closer to Dundee than Edinburgh, but Fife North East has the closest race anywhere in the UK.

The seat, which includes the town of St Andrews, was won by the SNP's Stephen Gethins with a majority of just two votes.

The Scottish Lib Dems have a new candidate for the area, Wendy Chamberlain, who will be desperate to edge their tally up up a bit higher this time.

Mr Gethins is running for re-election after first winning the seat in 2015.

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