The 2021 Airdrie and Shotts by-election was held in the UK parliament constituency of Airdrie and Shotts following the resignation of the sitting member (MP), Neil Gray, to run for the corresponding seat (which he subsequently won) in the

2021 Scottish Parliament election The 2021 Scottish Parliament election took place on 6 May 2021, under the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998. All 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament were elected in the sixth election since the parliament was re-established in 1999. The ele ...

. This was necessitated by

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

(SNP) rules banning its members from sitting as an MSP and an MP at the same time. It took place on 13 May 2021, a week after the Scottish Parliament elections, to reduce

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

transmission risk. The by-election was the second to the 58th Parliament elected in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

. This by-election ended a long lull between House of Commons by-elections in Scotland, with the last one having been held in Inverclyde in 2011. This was the first by-election to a Westminster constituency in which the SNP was the defending party.

Anum Qaisar Anum Qaisar, previously Anum Qaisar-Javed (born 11 September 1992) is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Airdrie and Shotts since 2021. Early life Qaisar was born to a Scottish Pakista ...

held the seat for the SNP with a decreased majority but an increased share of the vote.

Background

Airdrie and Shotts is a generally working-class, urban seat, and contains the towns of Airdrie,

Calderbank Calderbank is a village outside the town of Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It lies west of the M73 motorway, M73, on the west bank of the North Calder Water. The village lies east of Glasgow city centre and ar ...

Chapelhall Chapelhall (from the Gaelic Seipeal Allt - Chapel by a burn) is a village outside the town of Airdrie in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. With house building, the distinction between Airdrie and Chapelhall is being eroded. Established as a small min ...

, Glenmavis and

Shotts Shotts is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is located almost halfway between Glasgow () and Edinburgh (). The village has a population of about 8,840. A local story has Shotts being named after the legendary giant highwayman Bertram de ...

. Previous MPs for the seat include the former

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

cabinet ministers

Helen Liddell Helen Lawrie Liddell, Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke PC (' Reilly; born 6 December 1950) is a British politician and life peer who served as Secretary of State for Scotland from 2001 to 2003 and British High Commissioner to Australia from 2005 to ...

and John Reid, both of whom now sit in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

. Neil Gray was elected as the

(SNP) MP for Airdrie and Shotts at the

2015 United Kingdom general election The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first and only general election held at the end of a Parliament under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Loca ...

, and was re-elected in both

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

and

. In November 2020, Gray announced that he would be resigning as an MP in order to try and win a seat in the Holyrood constituency of the same name at the

. On 23 March 2021, he made his final speech in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

, and was appointed

Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead The office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead functions as a procedural device to allow a member of Parliament (MP) to resign from the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. As members of the House of Commons are forbidden ...

a day later.

Candidates

Jonathan Stanley had already been announced as the Scottish Unionist Party candidate for a potential Airdrie and Shotts by-election in September 2020. On 18 March 2021, Anum Qaisar was selected as the SNP's candidate for the by-election. She was a Labour Party member until at least 2014, and was the general secretary of Muslim Friends of Labour. She had previously worked as a caseworker to an SNP MSP and as a parliamentary researcher to an SNP MP. At the time of declaring her candidacy she was a modern studies teacher. On 25 March 2021, the councillor Kenneth Stevenson was selected by

Scottish Labour Scottish Labour ( gd, Pàrtaidh Làbarach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Labour Pairty; officially the Scottish Labour Party) is a social democratic political party in Scotland. It is an autonomous section of the UK Labour Party. From their peak of ...

to contend the by-election. He beat a former MP for the constituency and the chief executive of Scotland in Union,

Pamela Nash Pamela Nash (born 24 June 1984) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Airdrie and Shotts between 2010 and 2015. She is currently the Chief Executive of Scotland in Union, a campaign group launched ...

. The

Scottish Liberal Democrat The Scottish Liberal Democrats ( gd, Pàrtaidh Libearal Deamocratach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Leeberal Democrats) is a liberal, federalist political party in Scotland, a part of the United Kingdom Liberal Democrats. The party currently holds 4 o ...

candidate was Stephen Arrundale, the party's treasurer. He had previously stood as a candidate for

Midlothian Midlothian (; gd, Meadhan Lodainn) is a historic county, registration county, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh, ...

in the 2019 General Election.

Result

2019 result

Gray won the seat with an increased majority at the 2019 election.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Airdrie and Shotts by-election, 2021 2021 elections in the United Kingdom 2021 in Scotland 2020s elections in Scotland Airdrie, North Lanarkshire By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Scottish constituencies 2021 Airdrie 2021 Airdrie Shotts