Former MPs hoping for a comeback on the subsequent election

When Douglas Alexander misplaced his seat within the Home of Commons to 20-year-old Mhairi Black in 2015 it was one of many greatest shocks of the evening.

The previous minister within the Blair and Brown governments had represented Paisley and Renfrewshire South since Labour swept to energy in 1997 and was defending a majority of greater than 16,000.

Now practically a decade later the SNP MP is standing down and Mr Alexander is hoping to return to Westminster – this time for East Lothian, a key Labour goal in Scotland.

He’ll be preventing the SNP’s Iain Whyte to attempt to take the seat held by Alba’s Kenny MacAskill, who defected from the SNP in 2021.

Some 100 MPs have confirmed they’ll stand down on the subsequent election, and new constituencies have additionally been created by boundary adjustments, offering alternatives for potential candidates outdated and new.

Mr Alexander is one in all a minimum of 19 former MPs looking for a comeback.

He says he hadn’t anticipated stepping again into public life, after pursuing a profession in academia, however within the autumn of 2022 he was approached by native occasion members to ask if he would contemplate standing.

“I do not miss the sport of politics. And I definitely have not missed the brutality of social media,” he says.

“However I made a decision that if I might play a small half in bringing Labour again in Scotland and contributing to Labour returning to authorities, then that was a worthwhile use of the approaching years.”

Solely a handful of Labour’s present shadow cupboard have beforehand served as authorities ministers so Mr Alexander might present some beneficial expertise to Sir Keir Starmer’s prime staff if Labour win.

Nonetheless, he insists his “overriding focus” is on getting elected in East Lothian, moderately than any ambitions for a authorities job.

Maybe unsurprisingly on condition that Labour are using excessive within the polls, fewer former Conservative MPs are standing once more on the subsequent election up to now.

Nonetheless, the BBC is conscious of two in Scotland, together with Luke Graham, who represented Ochil and South Perthshire from 2017 to 2019.

With nationwide polls suggesting the Tories are on the right track for defeat, greater than 60 of the occasion’s present MPs have already introduced they’re standing down.

However Mr Graham says in Scotland, the place the SNP has been in energy for practically 17 years, it is a totally different image.

He says it was “devastating” to lose his seat to the SNP in 2019, after simply two-and-a-half years within the job.

“I would just found out easy methods to do it after which that they had a snap election,” he says. “So it was very irritating.”

He is standing within the new constituency of Perth and Kinross-shire, which replaces his outdated seat, the place he’ll face the SNP’s longest-serving MP, Pete Wishart.

Regardless of persevering with to marketing campaign regionally since he was voted out, Mr Graham says the choice to face once more was nonetheless a troublesome one.

“I’ve turned down two jobs in the previous couple of months as a result of I am going for this election and I do not know what is going on to occur,” he says. “So it is a huge danger.”

With Labour using excessive within the opinion polls, the majority of the ex-MPs standing once more are from the occasion.

They embrace former shadow minister Heidi Alexander (no relation to Douglas Alexander), who stop because the MP for Lewisham East in 2018 to take up a job as deputy mayor of London for transport.

“I did suppose that I used to be leaving Westminster politics for good,” she says.

“Having mentioned that, there was this tiny little little bit of doubt behind my thoughts about whether or not there was some unfinished enterprise there.”

Recalling her alternative to go away Westminster six years in the past, she says she felt the chance to work at Metropolis Corridor was too good to go up.

However she admits she was additionally annoyed with the route of the Labour Celebration underneath Jeremy Corbyn. Ms Alexander was amongst a wave of resignations from his cupboard in 2016, after the Brexit referendum.

“I did not anticipate lacking the job as a lot as I really did,” she says. “It is a vastly assorted job and finished effectively you’ll be able to actually make a distinction for the neighborhood that you simply signify.”

Nonetheless, it wasn’t till she left her mayoral position in 2022 and the choice course of opened for the constituency of South Swindon, the place she grew up, that she critically thought-about standing once more.

“At that time it was determination time for me as a result of there wasn’t actually wherever else the place I’d have wished to place my title ahead,” she says.

A basic bellwether seat with a Tory majority of 6,600, South Swindon is precisely the type of place Labour might want to win to kind the subsequent authorities.

Her opponent will probably be Conservative MP Sir Robert Buckland, a former minister who has represented the world since 2010.

There’s been rising concern concerning the threats going through MPs following the murders of Jo Cox in 2016 and Sir David Amess in 2021.

Ms Alexander says her household do fear about her security if she returns as an MP and her mum specifically had considerations about her standing once more.

“I believed very lengthy and really laborious about it as a result of being an MP is not only a job, it does really turn into your life,” she says. “And it has a huge impact upon your loved ones.”

When the chance rose to face once more for Parliament – practically 20 years after he was final an MP – Matthew Inexperienced additionally had doubts.

“I do know the impact on different folks round you being an MP,” he says. “It is not one thing that individuals ought to go into evenly.”

He cites the depth of the job and all the time being on obligation, particularly in a rural constituency the place “everybody is aware of who you’re”.

Only a month in the past he had no intention of constructing a political comeback.

However when the earlier Liberal Democrat candidate for South Shropshire needed to step again for well being causes he thought he was the occasion’s greatest shot.

“I am not any individual pushed by an ambition to be an MP,” he says. “I have been there, I’ve finished that.”

Mr Inexperienced represented the constituency of Ludlow – South Shropshire’s predecessor earlier than current boundary adjustments – from 2001 to 2005.

“Anyone else coming in would not have the time to construct up their profile. And so I knew that at quick discover, the one individual within the Lib Dems who might put an actual problem in in opposition to the Tories can be me.”

It will not be a straightforward process. The seat was gained by Conservative Philip Dunne, who’s standing down on the subsequent election, with a majority of greater than 23,600 in 2019.

Regardless of the problem, Mr Inexperienced thinks he has an opportunity.

“I am the one individual to have crushed the Conservatives in that space within the final 100 years,” he says. “I’ve finished it earlier than, I can do it once more.”