Amy Callaghan: The new MP on winning Jo Swinson's seat

The unseating of LibDem leader Jo Swinson from East Dunbartonshire was something many believed would not happen. But during the drive to encourage voters to turn out, the positive public reaction led Callaghan to think the result might be extremely close.

“I was getting thumbs up, I was getting people saying I voted for you Amy, and I knew my team were getting that as well,” she told the Sunday National after her election win.

“I think it was resonating that was happening just as often as people were walking by me.

“I was thinking this seems we could be in with a chance.”

At the outset, it seemed like an unlikely prospect. Swinson held a majority of just over 5300 but had a high profile as the Liberal Democrat leader – even beginning her party’s campaign with now much derided declarations she could be the next prime minister.

READ MORE: General Election result: Jo Swinson loses seat in SNP landslide

However as the weeks went by opinion polls indicated falling support for her personally and for her party and the whispers began that she might be on a “shoogly peg” – initially dismissed by senior Liberal Democrat figures.

Meanwhile Callaghan was little recognised as she started her campaign – but a concerted drive involving thousands of door knocks, turning up at numerous community events and social media posts began to change that.

“It was to the point that I was meeting people for a second and third time, if they were round visiting friends or if we were chapping their door again,” she said.

“By the end of it people were stopping me in the street, as they had seen my face on leaflets or they had seen me about at community events.

“I think just listening to people makes such a difference – being here, being active, listening to folk and basing your entire campaign around it.”

Callaghan had dubbed Swinson the “pop-up” MP in campaign literature, with examples such as the Liberal Democrat leader’s failure to turn up at the only hustings held in the constituency providing easy ammunition.

She acknowledged her rival had been running a national campaign for her party, but she added: “I think if you are wanting to represent an area, no-one has a divine right to a seat. And if you want to represent that area you need to be there representing people.”

East Dunbartonshire was a prize the SNP had its sights firmly fixed on. On the eve of the election, the importance of the seat was underlined with a visit from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

SNP activists from across Scotland turned out the following day to help the drive to encourage voting, which started at 10am and lasted up until polls closed at 10pm. Getting voters out was key to success for the party. In the end, the overall total turnout was 80.3%, up by 2.1% since the last General Election.

“That is a huge contrast in our campaign from 2017 when a lot of our voters stayed at home in East Dunbartonshire,” Callaghan said

“Every single door we went to people were saying we voted already – and that was starting in the afternoon.

“Normally we are doing that at eight or nine o’clock at night and we are then taking people to the polling station then or they go round themselves.

“Everyone was so motivated to go out and vote which was incredible.”

The release of the exit poll at 10pm gave further indication of the upset to come. The forecast from the BBC gave a confident 95% likelihood of the SNP gaining the seat, while Sky News hedged on a 50/50 split.

For Callaghan’s team, it provided a moment of excitement – but only for a short time.

“You take these polls with a pinch of salt because they never give you a clear picture seat by seat,” she said.

“We had a brief celebration - and then though we have still got a lot of work to do.”

As the first ballot boxes arrived at the count in a sports hall in

Bishopbriggs around 10.30pm, the LibDems were still trying to play down the possibility of Swinson losing her seat.

The joint-leader of East Dunbartonshire council Andrew Polson, a Conservative councillor, was quoted as saying it was “on a knife edge” – reflecting the tension around the room.

As rows of vote counters sorted piles of ballot papers into trays, the mutterings about Swinson losing her seat began to gather pace. But no-one was willing to confidently predict a result.

At around 2am Callaghan arrived at the count, saying “we’ll see how it goes” to the waiting media, with a number of TV cameras, reporters and photographers assembled. Some had been swiftly diverted from other constituencies in anticipation of one of the biggest stories of the election.

It took another hour before Swinson appeared, despite reports of her leaving her house some time ago. There were rumours she had been waiting round the corner of the leisure centre in order to make an appearance just shortly before the declaration.

The tension ramped up as bundles of ballot papers and tallies were checked – but no recount was ordered.

It was around 3.45am when the final results were declared. A silence descended in the sports hall as the candidates made their way to the stage, their faces giving nothing away. With the results in alphabetical order, Swinson tally was last to be read – and it revealed she had lost by 149 votes.

Callaghan said it was an “incredible moment”.

She said: “You are just standing there waiting for this momentous moment, your life and the lives of so many people across East Dunbartonshire potentially changed overnight.

“One-hundred-and-forty-nine votes is quite tense, I was trying to be as confident as possible we could do it – and we did.”

She added: “I could not be more proud of the campaign we ran – I think it just shows if you resonate with local people and you stand up for what matters to them, you can achieve anything.

“I unseated a leader of political party whose message wasn’t resonating with voters – whereas mine was.

“People were getting visibly frustrated with some of the things that Jo Swinson was saying as leader of the Liberal Democrats, but I think the positivity from our campaign just shone through and that is what led people to vote for us.”

In her acceptance speech, however, Callaghan was pointed out that despite their political differences, she and Swinson – who became the first female leader of the Liberal Democrats when elected in July – had shown how young women can “smash boundaries”.

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t or you are not good enough,” she said on the night.

“Believe in yourself and know there is no limits to what you can achieve.”

It’s an attitude which has got Callaghan to the House of Commons at the age of 27, after facing a tough battle with skin cancer as a teenager. Her sights are now set on tackling issues such as poverty and austerity, protecting the NHS and inspiring other young women into politics, as well as representing her new constituents.

This weekend, she plans to celebrate her achievement with her family and the activists who helped her, saying “it is their win as much as mine”.

When she walks through the doors of Parliament this week with her 46 SNP colleagues, she said it will send the “strongest signal” to the UK Government.

“We are going down with a huge mandate for a future independence referendum,” she said.

“Boris Johnson can try and deny it all he wants, but Scotland has said loud and clear we want to choose our own future by electing SNP MPs right across the country.”