Politics student rides SNP surge to defeat shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander to become youngest MP since 17th century. But first, she has to complete her dissertation.
The odds were heavily stacked against the SNP’s Mhairi Black winning the Paisley and Renfrewshire South seat to become Westminster’s youngest MP for centuries.
She was up against one of the best-known Labour MPs left in Scotland, Douglas Alexander, who was defending a majority of more than 16,000. He was not only shadow foreign secretary but had lots of election experience in abundance, enough to secure him the job of Labour’s UK campaign coordinator.
Some of her obstacles were self-inflicted, resurrected comments on social media – such as her expression of hatred for Celtic football club, normally the kiss of death for candidates in the west of Scotland, potentially alienating a large slice of the electorate from the outset.
None of it mattered. The 20-year-old University of Glasgow student won anyway, riding the SNP surge that has engulfed Scotland, comfortably overturning Alexander’s majority with more than 23,000 votes.
“The fact is that people have woken up to the fact that Westminster has not been serving them and the Labour party has not been serving them,” she said.
She gave a gracious victory speech, praising her predecessor warmly. “While I appreciate that this is a blow from Douglas Alexander, I truly hope he will remain to see his future in politics once he has recovered from this result,” she said.
Her message to voters was inclusive: “Whether you voted for the SNP or not, and whatever your views are on Scotland’s future, I will seek to represent you and everyone in this constituency to the very best of my ability,” she said. “This election is about making the voice of this constituency and the whole of Scotland heard more effectively at Westminster than ever before.”
Black won cheers from supporters when she pledged the SNP would stop what she said would be the billions wasted on a renewal of Trident. She also promised to call for the powers that were promised to Scotland during the referendum campaigns, and said she would fight to put an end to austerity cuts that are hurting communities “both north and south of the border”.
What is she going to do now, reporters asked. “Sleep.” After that? “Breakfast.” And after that she will have to complete her dissertation, due by the end of the month in order to complete her politics degree. The dissertation should be relatively easy for her, steeped as she is in the SNP: how the SNP’s party structure has had to accommodate the influx of new members since the referendum, up from 20,000 to over 100,000.
Black is not so vain that she has been working out the consequences of her winning, such as studying who was the the last youngest MP in parliament. Liberal Democrat Charles Kennedy was elected at 23 but she only 20. When a reporter told her the last person younger than her was 1667 it came as news to her.
Black and her father, a long-term Labour supporter, became disillusioned with the party. She had been brought up in a socialist household, she said, well aware of the major figures from Labour’s past – from Keir Hardie to Dennis Skinner.
She attracted attention early in her campaign when footage of her speaking at a pro-independence rally in October last year showed her labelling some of those who rejected independence as gullible and selfish. When challenged, she insisted she had changed her attitude towards No voters.
She was also forced to discuss her history on Twitter – which she has been using since she was 14 – after writing in unfavourable terms about how she hated Celtic.
Brought up in Paisley, she is a Partick Thistle supporter and said her Twitter comments about Celtic should have been seen in context, in response to vandalism at the Thistle ground by Celtic fans. She did not in the end have to explain herself: the voters did not seem to care.
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