East Renfrewshire | |
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County constituency for the House of Commons | |
![]() Boundary of East Renfrewshire in Scotland | |
Local government in Scotland | East Renfrewshire |
Electorate | 69,982 (2015)[1] |
Major settlements | Barrhead, Busby, Clarkston, Eaglesham, Giffnock, Neilston, Netherlee, Newton Mearns, Thornliebank, Uplawmoor, Waterfoot |
Current constituency | |
Created | 2005 |
Member of Parliament | Blair McDougall (Labour) |
Seats | One |
Created from | Eastwood[2] |
1885–1983 | |
Seats | One |
Type of constituency | County constituency |
Created from | Renfrewshire |
Replaced by | Eastwood[3] |
East Renfrewshire (known as Eastwood from 1983 to 2005) is a constituency of the House of Commons, to the south of Glasgow, Scotland. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) using the first-past-the-post system of voting.
Until 1997, the constituency was the safest Conservative seat in Scotland.[4][5] At the 1997 general election, which was a landslide victory for Labour, it was won by future Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy who held the seat until being defeated by Kirsten Oswald of the Scottish National Party at the 2015 general election. In 2017, the constituency returned to Conservative control for the first time in twenty years, when it was won by Conservative candidate Paul Masterton. However, at the 2019 general election, Oswald regained the seat for the SNP once again, and in the 2024 Labour landslide, it again returned to the Labour party.
The constituency has a mostly middle-class electorate and includes affluent areas.[6][7]