Labour Win Crunch By-Election In Stunning Upset
Labour have defied the odds to win a crunch by-election in a major boost for Keir Starmer.
The SNP had been the heavy bookies’ favourites to retain the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse seat in the Scottish Parliament.
But in a stunning upset, Labour candidate Davy Russell won with 8,559 votes, a majority of 602 votes over the nationalist party’s Katy Loudon on 7,957.
Reform UK’s Ross Lambie came third with 7,088 – 26% of all votes cast, in yet another sign that the right-wing party is making major inroads across the UK.
The by-election was held following the death of SNP MSP Christine McKelvie, who had won it at the last Scottish Parliament election with a majority of more than 4,500.
Labour’s victory suggests it is all to play for ahead of next year’s Holyrood election, when the SNP will be aiming for an unprecedented fifth term in office.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: “I think people need to change the script, because we’ve proven the pollsters wrong.
“We’ve proven the commentators wrong, we’ve proven the bookies wrong.
“We’ve proven [SNP leader] John Swinney wrong and so many others wrong too.”
The result will be welcomed in 10 Downing Street, where Starmer has endured a rocky first 11 months as prime minister.
Imogen Walker, the wife of the PM’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, is also a Hamilton MP.
The by-election campaign was overshadowed by a race row after Reform UK wrongly accused Sarwar of saying he wanted to “prioritise” the Pakistani community.
The party published a video made up from footage of speeches Sarwar had previously made about the need to improve political representation for South Asian communities.
However, at no point in any of them did he say he wanted to “prioritise the Pakistani community”.
Sarwar subsequently called Nigel Farage a “pathetic poisonous little man” while his spokesperson said it was a “blatantly racist advert”.
Earlier this week, during a visit to Scotland, Farage doubled down by claiming the Scottish Labour leader had once said he wants the South Asian community to “take over the world”.