The seat was created in 1983, and was held by the
Conservative Party for four years, before being represented by
Menzies Campbell from 1987 to 2015. Campbell was elected as a member of the
Liberal Party, which later merged with the
Social Democratic Party to form the Liberal Democrats. At the
2015 general election, the seat was gained by
Stephen Gethins of the
Scottish National Party (SNP). Gethins held his seat at the
2017 general election by just two votes over Elizabeth Riches of the Liberal Democrats, making the seat the most
marginal in the United Kingdom. At the
2019 general election, Chamberlain defeated Gethins to regain the seat for the Liberal Democrats; this was the SNP's only loss at the general election.
Boundaries
Map of current boundaries
1983–2005: North East Fife District.
2005–present: The area of the Fife Council other than those parts in the constituencies of Dunfermline and West Fife, Glenrothes, and Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
North East Fife constituency is in the region of Fife in Scotland. Fife has the River Tay on its northern coast, and the
Firth of Forth to the south. The famous golf and university town of
St Andrews is the major settlement in the seat. Others include
Cupar,
Newport-on-Tay,
Newburgh,
Auchtermuchty, and
Anstruther.
North East Fife was notable in several respects in the
2019 general election: it was the SNP's only loss of the election,[4] had the largest decrease in vote share for the Conservative Party (after the special case of
Chorley, where the party did not stand) and also had the smallest
Labour share of the vote in the
United Kingdom, at 3.7% (again excluding Chorley, where the party did not stand).[5] The seat went from the most marginal seat at the 2017 general election to the fortieth most marginal in 2019 (measured by percentage majority).[6] When measured by absolute majority, North East Fife was the second most marginal Lib Dem-held seat at the election (after
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross).[7]