Seeing off the Nationalists

Congratulations to Beatrice Wishart on winning the Shetland by-election to the Scottish Parliament yesterday. The result was:

LD – 5659 (47.9%, -19.5)
SNP – 3822 (32.3%, +9.3)
Ind RT – 1286 (10.9%, +10.9)
Con – 425 (3.7%, -0.1)
Grn – 189 (1.6%, +1.6)
Lab – 152 (1.3%, -4.6)
Ind MS – 134 (1.1%, +1.1)
Ind IS - 66 (0.6%)
UKIP – 60 (0.5%, +0.5)
Ind PT – 31 (0.3%, +0.3)

The challenge to the Lib Dem hold on the island constituency was always going to be from the Scottish Nationalists and I understand they threw everything and the kitchen sink into the battle. The Shetland Islands are in a UK Parliamentary constituency with the Orkneys which the SNP were within a few hundred votes of winning in the 2015 general election. Indeed, the Orkney and Shetland Islands was one of only three constituencies the SNP failed to win in Scotland that year. Now, with the SNP still riding high, a close result was expected but failed to materialise.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives had a standstill result and stayed in deposit losing territory. Labour started the campaign just inside deposit saving territory but slumped to 6th place and a lost deposit. Indeed, Labour lost three quarters of their share of the vote though some of this can be explained by their being squeezed in the battle between the Lib Dems and SNP.

A noticeable absence was the Brexit Party. What happened to them?