The Gordon constituency has its fourth MP in as many elections as the constituency was reclaimed from the Conservatives by a very small margin.
The leader of Aberdeenshire Council’s SNP group, Richard Thomson, turfed-out Colin Clark.
The Tory farmer and businessman was a surprise “giant slayer” in the 2017 vote, beating former First Minister Alex Salmond and ending his career.
A stunned crowd at the count at P&J Live took more than a second to realise Mr Clark was gone and that the SNP candidate had won the seat by a little over 800 votes.
On reclaiming the constituency for the nationalists, Mr Thomson – whose future with the local authority is now unclear – said: “There are people very unhappy with the way the UK government has gone over the past few years and I think that as much as anything has meant people backed the strongest party of remain.
“Our pledge to protect the NHS and put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands has also been a very important message.”
Reflecting on his loss, Mr Clark added: “I think our vote is actually up but the SNP vote is too. I recognise that.
“We fought a very good campaign. We got very close. The Labour vote has gone across to the Conservatives in England and in Scotland it has gone to the SNP.
“What’s important is that we recognise that we leave the EU as a United Kingdom and this entire campaign is about making sure there isn’t an indyref 2 and we don’t break up the United Kingdom.
“The union vote is still bigger than the SNP vote and it’s important we reflect what the people of Scotland want.”
Turnout in Gordon was up on the 2017 election, despite concern the unusual December timing would impact voter numbers.
Richard Thomson won with 23,885, closely followed by Conservative Colin Clark with 23,008.
Labour’s Heather Herbert and James Oates of the Lib Dems collected 3,052 and 5,913 votes respectively.
