Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, defeated Angus Robertson of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in Edinburgh Central on Thursday 7 May 2026, winning 12,680 votes to Robertson's 7,702. The 4,978-vote margin is one of the largest single-constituency Green wins on a constituency vote in Holyrood history. It is the Scottish Greens' second-ever Holyrood constituency seat and the second time the party has taken a constituency seat from a senior SNP figure on the constituency rather than the regional-list ballot.
Robertson served as Scotland's external affairs secretary and held Edinburgh Central since 2016. He had been one of three figures most often named as a successor to John Swinney in the SNP's post-election leadership conversation. His departure narrows the field of internal challengers and removes a Yes campaign veteran whose 2014 referendum role gave him a profile beyond the parliamentary group. The SNP's caretaker administration (event-03) now manages a leadership succession with a thinner bench than the morning of the count.
The Slater win is the northern translation of the Green Party's Polanski-Deptford targeting strategy launched on 10 April. The Cliftonville Kent by-election on 9 April previewed the mechanic at single-ward scale; the swing-margin numbers sit on the London-Greens page (event-06). Edinburgh Central, with its high private-rented-sector concentration and tenant-friendly demographics, fits the same template The Greens used to flip Hackney and Lewisham (event-06).
The 12,680-to-7,702 margin matters beyond the seat. SNP candidates in adjacent Lothians constituencies will read it as evidence that The Greens can take seats off the SNP rather than function as a list-vote ally, which changes the SNP's own list strategy in 2030. The Scottish Greens enter the new Parliament with 15 seats (event-04) and a constituency win against a senior SNP figure: the combination gives them leverage over an SNP minority administration disproportionate to the seat-count differential.
