How Canavan’s feud with Labour turned safe seat into a marginal

WITH political insiders already discussing the possibility of a by-election in the wake of Eric Joyce’s arrest, the focus could return to the Falkirk constituency he has held for more than 11 years. This would not be the first time it has been witness to controversy.

Mr Joyce’s election in December 2000 came after the resignation of Dennis Canavan, who had won the seat in 1997 with a massive 13,783 majority.

The popular local MP then declared he wanted to stand as an MSP in the first Holyrood election in 1999, only to be omitted from the officially approved list of candidates.

That decision came after his long-running feud with Tony Blair over Labour policies on issues such as tuition fees. Mr Canavan was furious, saying he had the backing of 95 per cent of local members who wanted him to be the Labour candidate.

The stand-off led to Mr Canavan standing as an independent against the official Labour candidate – a move that earned him automatic expulsion from the party.

In May 1999, Mr Canavan won his seat at Holyrood. He remained in post at Westminster for a year to avoid what he claimed would be “a puppet candidate” being dropped into the seat. Finally, in October 2000, he announced his intention to resign from the Commons after failing to patch up his dispute with the party.

Following a tense by-election campaign, Labour’s share of the vote slumped, with Labour candidate Mr Joyce defeating the SNP’s David Kerr by only 700 votes.

By 2005, however, the seat had returned to its former status as a safe Labour one, with Mr Joyce winning more than 50 per cent of the vote, compared with 21 per cent for the SNP. Similarly, in 2010, Mr Joyce won 45 per cent of the vote to the SNP’s 30 per cent.

But the memories of the 2000 by-election will leave Labour Party figures in no doubt that another by-election would not be welcome, despite Mr Joyce’s current fall from grace.