Friday May 8th 2026
Paul McLennan and Kate Campbell new SNP MSP's for East Lothian Coastal and Lammermuirs and Edinburgh East Musselburgh and Tranent
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
Former East Lothian MSP Paul McLennan won a newly created seat in the county for the SNP by just 418 votes in a knife edge battle with Labour.
The former Scottish Government Minister for Housing paid tribute to his fellow candidates in the new East Lothian Coastal and Lammermuirs ward, in particular Marting Whitfield, from Scottish Labour.
Mr McLennan’s final vote count was 11,677 with Mr Whitfield running behind him on 11, 259 as they led a two horse race to win support in the newly formed constituency.
The Scottish Conservatives candidate Miles Briggs came in third with 4,719 only marginally ahead of Reform UK’s candidate Nigel Douglas with Tim McKay for the Lib Dems taking 2,802 votes and independent candidate Morgwn Carter winning 597.
SNP candidate Paul McLennan served as the former seat’s MSP for five years and is a former East Lothian councillors.
Mr McLennan said: “We knew it was going to be tight, the polls told us that and we have worked really hard to get this over the line.
“I am so proud to be representing East Lothian again.”
Mr McLennan has been an outspoken opponent of controversial plans to introduce parking charges in town centres across East Lothian and said it was an issue raised time and again when talking to people in the streets.
“The cost of living came up quite a lot on doorstep along with the NHS and car parking was raised as well.”
The new constituency was created by the Boundaries Commission after East Lothian became too big with some communities moved out into neighbouring seats.
While it is difficult to compare the results from the new seat to the former East Lothian constituency because of the changes it is worth noting that at the last Holyrood election in 2021 Paul McLennan won with a narrow lead of 17,968 constituency votes (39.2%) with Martin Whitfield a close second with 16,789 votes (36.7%).
Conservative candidate Craig Hoy came in third with 9, 470 votes (20.2%) with Euan Davidson for the Lib Dems winning just 1, 566 votes (3.4%).
At that same election Reform received just 77 regional votes.
Tweet Share on Facebook
