Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, 2006
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The Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, in Dunfermline and West Fife, Scotland, was held on 9 February 2006 as the sitting Labour MP Rachel Squire had died on 6 January. The by-election was the first seat to change hands in the 2005 Parliament when Willie Rennie won the seat for the Liberal Democrats, a gain from Labour, by 1,800 votes. The BBC reported a swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats of 16.24%.
It was the first time Labour had lost a seat at a Westminster by-election in Scotland since the Scottish National Party won the Glasgow Govan by-election in 1988, and the first time Labour has ever lost to the Liberal Democrats, or their predecessors the Liberal Party, in a Scottish Westminster by-election. The by-election took place in the middle of a leadership election in the Liberal Democrats and the party was perceived in the media to be declining in the polls as a result of negative publicity surrounding the resignation of former leader Charles Kennedy and revelations about the private lives of Mark Oaten and Simon Hughes.
The constituency of Dunfermline and West Fife was first created for the United Kingdom Parliament at the 2005 general election and saw a comfortable Labour win at that election. It was the second Westminster by-election in a Scottish constituency since the 2005 general election. In the Livingston by-election, 2005, Labour retained the seat with the Scottish National Party second but 2,680 votes behind. The Livingston constituency lies just across the Firth of Forth from the Dunfermline and West Fife constituency.
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