Shetland Islands Broadcasting Company

Hannah Marie Goodlad has been enjoying her first full day as the SNP member of the Scottish Parliament for Shetland, after her landmark win yesterday. Her win was the first time that a political party, other than Liberal Democrats, has been returned to the Scottish parliament in the constituency of Shetland.

In the Orkney and Shetland constituency for the UK parliament, a political party other than Liberal Democrats, or Liberals, has been returned only twice since 1832, that being in 1935 and 1945, with no elections in 1939 and 1943 because of the Second World War.

There was much speculation during the campaign that Reform UK and Scottish Greens would do fairly well in Shetland, perhaps into the teens of percent each. The problem was where those votes would come from.

From the 17,979 registered voters in Shetland 11,535 votes were cast in the constituency vote, a turnout of 64.1 percent and down from 66.1 percent in 2021.

In the Highlands & Islands region, several familiar names to Shetland were returned to the Scottish parliament, mainly Ariane Burgess (Scottish Green), Maree Todd (Scottish National Party) and Vic Currie (Reform UK) who stood for the Shetland constituency. But Orkney based Jamie Halcrow Johnston, who visited Shetland during the campaign, failed to be re-elected.

The full results in the Shetland constituency of the Scottish parliament: Hannah Mary Goodlad (SNP) 5453 votes 47.3%; Emma Macdonald (Scottish Liberal Democrat) 3,936 votes, 34.1%; Alex Armitage (Scottish Greens) 949 votes, 8.2%; Vic Currie (Reform UK) 725 votes 6.2%; John Erskine (Scottish Labour) 169 votes, 1.4%; Douglas Barnett (Scottish Conservative and Unionist) 137 votes, 1.1%; Brian Nugent (Alliance to Liberate Scotland) 65 votes 0.5% and Peter Tait (Independent) 50 votes, 0.4%.

With the floating production storage and off-loading vessel Petrojarl Rosebank berthed in Ågotnes in Sotra in Norway being prepared for its eventual decades-long anchorage in the Rosebank field, the most intense work to date is underway in the Rosebank field, 85 nautical miles west-north-west of Unst. Seven offshore support vessels are working in the field.