General Election 2024 in East Lothian: What do I need to know?

This will be the first General Election since December 2019, when the Conservatives won a majority, while in East Lothian Kenny MacAskill won the seat for the SNP, unseating Labour incumbent Martin Whitfield.

In the coming weeks, we'll be bringing you detailed coverage of the election, including updates from the campaign trail, profiles of all the candidates, information on where and how you can vote, and more.

We're kicking things off today with this introduction to the election in East Lothian, including the new constituency boundaries, candidates announced so far and more.

Which constituency am I part of?

Up until this election, this has been a very simple question to answer if you live in East Lothian.

That's because the constituency was one of just a handful in Scotland whose boundaries exactly mirrored the county ones – so the county of East Lothian and the constituency of the same name had identical boundaries.

However, that is now a thing of the past, after the Boundary Commission for Scotland last year announced the country's new Westminster constituencies.

Rather bizarrely, that involved renaming the East Lothian constituency 'Lothian East' – no, we have no idea why either!

In addition, the majority of Musselburgh – the west of the town, much of the town centre, plus Inveresk – was moved out of the constituency and merged into Edinburgh East to form the new constituency of 'Edinburgh East and Musselburgh'.

A previous constituency called Edinburgh East and Musselburgh existed at Westminster between 1997 and 2005, while a constituency of the same name existed at Holyrood until 2011 – and was indeed served by current East Lothian MP Kenny MacAskill, who was its MSP between 2007 and 2011.

The map above shows the new Lothian East seat at Westminster, with the western half of Musselburgh 'removed'. Although just a very small part of the county, geographically, has been switched to the Edinburgh East constituency, the Boundary Commission for Scotland did not think keeping the historic East Lothian name for the seat was appropriate (image: Boundary Commission for Scotland).

The above map shows the boundaries of the new Edinburgh East and Musselburgh seat at Westminster, which includes a significant chunk of the Honest Toun, as well as Inveresk (image: Boundary Commission for Scotland).

In the map above, the vertical green line shows the new boundary between the new Edinburgh East and Musselburgh Westminster seat and the new Lothian East seat. Much of Musselburgh town centre is in the Edinburgh East and Musselburgh seat, but Musselburgh Racecourse, for instance, is not (image: Boundary Commission for Scotland).

When the changes were first proposed last year, this is how we reported the story.

Wait, wasn't Tranent moving to a new constituency too?

If this was your initial thoughts then top marks for paying attention to what's been in the Courier in recent weeks! And we certainly don't blame you for being confused!

But that proposal – on which there is still to be a final decision – is actually for the boundaries for future Scottish Parliament Elections and won't come into effect until the next Holyrood election, likely to be in 2026.

It's been confusing enough for everyone that both the Westminster and Holyrood constituency boundaries are facing being changed in the space of a year, but it's even more so now that a General Election has been called just as the final consultation on the proposed new Scottish Parliament boundaries has concluded.

In short, the Holyrood proposals for East Lothian are not dissimilar to the Westminster ones: East Lothian is to be renamed 'Lothian Eastern', while Tranent and Elphinstone are to be moved to a new 'Edinburgh Eastern, Musselburgh and Tranent' seat also including Musselburgh, Wallyford and Whitecraig, which since 2011 have been in the Midlothian North and Musselburgh seat – more details in our article here.

But none of that is applicable to July's General Election – for clarity, residents of Tranent, Elphinstone, Wallyford, Whitecraig and the easternmost part of Musselburgh will all be voting in the Lothian East constituency on July 4.

Who are the candidates in Lothian East?

Usually six weeks out from a General Election, we would know who all the candidates are, but, this time around, we're still waiting for news from two of the major parties.

So far confirmed as standing in the Lothian East seat are: Douglas Alexander (Labour), Robert Davies (Reform UK), George Kerevan (ALBA), Shona McIntosh (Greens) and Lyn Jardine (SNP).

Until this week, Iain Whyte had been the long-standing SNP candidate - he had been since October - but has now stood down, for health reasons.

No candidates for either the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats have been announced yet – though it's a safe bet that both parties will be fielding candidates. We'll report who the candidates are as soon are they are announced.

One other notable name absent from the above list is, of course, East Lothian's current MP Kenny MacAskill. Elected as a member of the SNP in 2019, he defected to ALBA in 2021 but announced last week that he would not be seeking re-election in the county and is instead standing in Alloa and Grangemouth – more details in our article here.

Standing instead for ALBA in Lothian East is George Kerevan, who was himself East Lothian's MP between 2015 and 2017 when a member of the SNP – he too switched parties in 2021.

Douglas Alexander is also a former MP and indeed a former Cabinet Minister under Labour Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He was Shadow Foreign Secretary when he lost his seat of Paisley and Renfrewshire South to the SNP's Mhairi Black in 2015.

Robert Davies is a retired businessman from North Berwick, while Shona McIntosh became the first Green councillor on East Lothian Council when she was elected to the Musselburgh ward in 2022.

And what about the candidates in Edinburgh East and Musselburgh?

We have four candidates so far announced in this constituency – again, neither the Conservatives nor the Liberal Democrats have yet announced a candidate, and there's as yet no ALBA candidate for this seat either.

The four candidates announced so far are: Amanda Grimm (Greens), Chris Murray (Labour), Tommy Sheppard (SNP) and Derek Winton (Reform UK).

Tommy Sheppard is the sitting MP for the current Edinburgh East constituency that will form the bulk of the new constituency. He has been its MP since 2015.

Amanda Grimm lives in Musselburgh and is active in various community groups in the town. She is parliamentary campaigns officer for Scottish Green MSP Ariane Burgess.

Chris Murray lives in Edinburgh and currently works to support victims of human trafficking and modern slavery.

Derek Winton lives in Musselburgh and works as a management consultant.

What are the key things to look out for at this election?

At a local level, East Lothian (or Lothian East now) has morphed in recent years from being a safe Labour seat to a Labour-SNP marginal, so it will be fascinating to see what happens in what has now become one of the more interesting seats to watch in Scotland.

Looking at Scotland as a whole, this election will be a fascinating first test for John Swinney, just weeks into the job as the new First Minister, to see if he can revive the fortunes of the SNP – so dominant for so long in Scottish politics but having experienced a tough couple of years and sliding in the polls.

Labour in Scotland are polling as well as they have for a decade and will be hopeful of making considerable gains, while current polling suggests things could be a lot tougher for the Conservatives. The Scottish Greens will be hoping to get some representation at Westminster after their strong performance at the last Holyrood election, while the Liberal Democrats are aiming for a comeback after a difficult time of things in the last decade. Other parties like ALBA and Reform UK will be aiming to have a Westminster candidate win election under their banner for the first time.

As for the UK as a whole, if the polls are to be believed, Labour looks on course for not only a win but a big majority, which would put Sir Keir Starmer into 10 Downing Street, while the Conservatives could be facing their worst election result in decades.

But we're only at the very start of the election campaigning period and anything can happen.

How can I vote?

If you're already on the electoral register, you'll automatically be able to vote.

If you're not on the register, you have until June 18 to add your name – you can do so through East Lothian Council's website here.

You will also need to be aged 18 or over – unlike at Scottish Parliament Elections, those aged 16 and 17 are not allowed to vote at General Elections.

Once you're on the register, there are three ways of voting: in person, by post, or by proxy.

Most people vote in person. You can do this only on the day of the election (Thursday, July 4) between the hours of 7am and 10pm.

You will need to go to the correct polling place, which will be included on your polling card you will receive through the post ahead of election day – a full list of polling places in East Lothian will be published on the Courier's website in the lead-up to the day of the election.

Unlike at previous General Elections, new laws mean that you will now have to bring personal ID with you to be allowed to vote in person. This can take the form of any of the following: passport, driving licence (including provisional licence), blue badge, certain concessionary travel cards, identity card with PASS mark (Proof of Age Standards Scheme), biometric immigration document, defence identity card, or certain national identity cards.

If you need to vote by post or by proxy (when someone votes on your behalf), you will need to apply to do so – visit the council website here for more information on how to apply.