Highland seats swinging to the Lib Dems

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today used a visit to the Highland Swing in Killiecrankie to outline how Highland seats are swinging towards the Liberal Democrats and away from the SNP after years of neglect from the Scottish Government.

The seats that the party are targeting are:

• Caithness, Sutherland & Ross, currently held by SNP minister Maree Todd. The Liberal Democrats hold the corresponding Westminster seat with a majority of 10,489.
• Inverness & Nairn, where Liberal Democrat Angus MacDonald won the corresponding Westminster seat in 2024 and the nationalist vote will be split between Fergus Ewing and Emma Roddick.
• Skye, Lochaber & Badenoch, where the party won a December 2025 Fort William & Ardnamurchan by-election by more than 11% from the SNP.
• Argyll & Bute, where former MP Alan Reid is standing for the party in a seat which has only ever been held by the Liberal Democrats or the SNP. A recent Election Maps forecast put the Liberal Democrats just 3.3% behind.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said:

“If you live in Caithness, Sutherland & Ross, Inverness & Nairn, Skye, Lochaber & Badenoch or Argyll & Bute you have a choice between a hardworking Liberal Democrat MSP or another nationalist who will always put their party before the interests of their constituents.

“Over the past year I have knocked on doors from Dunoon to Dounreay, talking to people about what they care about.

“I have heard horror stories about mothers giving birth by the side of the A9, about businesses whose shelves lie empty because their ferries are cancelled and by pensioners freezing in the shadow of wind farms unable to heat their homes. This is the very real impact of years of SNP neglect.

“That has directly informed the manifesto that we are standing on at this election with pledges to get on with dualling the A9, restoring maternity services to the Far North and fixing the ferries fiasco for good.

“As a result, we have found voters rediscovering their Liberal Democrat roots and many more swinging behind us who have never voted for our party before on both the constituency ballot and the peach regional ballot.

“Our highland and island communities deserve better. And with the Scottish Liberal Democrats, you can vote for it.”