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Scottish Labour defied predictions to defeat the ruling Scottish National party in a key Scottish by-election that saw Reform UK finish in third place, providing a much-needed boost to Sir Keir Starmer.
Davy Russell took the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse seat for Labour with 8,559 votes, beating the SNP’s Katy Loudon by 602 votes on a turnout of 44 per cent.
Labour secured a vote share of 31.6 per cent, with the SNP on 29.4 per cent and Reform on 26.1 per cent. The Conservatives received 6 per cent.
The contest comes less than a year before the next elections to the Scottish parliament, when the SNP will seek to extend what will by then be a 19-year stay in power.
The result will come as a huge relief to Labour, which has been battling falling ratings in UK opinion polls, and a series of damaging electoral defeats, including across local elections in England last month.
Starmer on Friday described the result as a “fantastic victory”, adding that the people in Scotland had “voted for change”.
“Next year there is a chance to turbocharge delivery by putting Labour in power on both sides of the border,” wrote the prime minister.
Nigel Farage’s Reform — which has overtaken Labour in UK polls — fared worse than hoped by party insiders, who privately expected to come second to the SNP.
The Hamilton campaign was overshadowed by a racism row sparked by a Reform advert that incorrectly claimed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who is of Pakistani heritage, had pledged to “prioritise” that community.
Farage doubled down on the attack, claiming that Sarwar wanted the South Asian community to “take over the world”.
Just hours before the by-election result was announced, Reform’s Muslim chair, Zia Yusuf, resigned after one of its MPs called for a ban on the burka.
Reform described the by-election as a “historic” three-way result.
Its deputy leader Richard Tice tried to downplay the result, saying Reform had “way outperformed everyone’s expectations”. The fact that there were just 1,500 votes between the three parties marked a “seismic moment in Scottish politics”, he wrote on X.
The by-election, triggered by the death of sitting SNP MSP Christina McKelvie, was dominated by the rise of Reform, which has been garnering increasing support in council by-elections in Scotland, albeit at lower levels than in England and Wales.
John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, had described the contest as a “two-horse” race between the SNP and Reform, calling for voters to back his party to prevent Reform getting its first representative in the Scottish parliament.
Sarwar said the outcome demonstrated the depth of feeling against the SNP, which faces discontent over the state of public services. “If you want to get rid of the SNP, the only party that can do that is Labour,” Sarwar told the BBC, saying he expected to become the next first minister after the 2026 elections.
The result — in a central-belt constituency vital for any national victory — injects much-needed momentum into Sarwar’s bid to lead Labour into power in Holyrood next year. His strong ratings after Labour’s UK general election victory last year have come under pressure.
“Labour’s win is a major boost for a party which was written off as the main challenger in this seat by the SNP and much of the commentariat,” said James Mitchell of Edinburgh university. “It is more a blow to John Swinney than Nigel Farage.”
While opinion polls have indicated that the SNP has lost support since the last Holyrood election in 2021, Reform’s surge tends to take more votes from the Conservatives and Labour.
A national Norstat poll placed the SNP on 33 per cent, with Labour and Reform UK on 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.
Support for independence is at 54 per cent, rising to 58 per cent if Farage were to become Britain’s prime minister.
Swinney, responding to the by-election result, said the SNP still had “work to do”.
