Swinney urges Hamilton voters to reject ‘gutter politics' of Reform
The vote sparked by the death of Scottish Government minister Christina McKelvie in March will take place on Thursday, with a result expected early on Friday.
The SNP and Labour were initially seen as the frontrunners in the race, but Nigel Farage-led Reform UK has surged in the seat and hopes to push for second place.
One of the major talking points of the campaign has been the criticism levelled at Reform after an attack advert published by the party claimed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar prioritises people from Pakistan over those in Scotland.
The ad showed a speech from the Labour MSP where he urged more people from a south Asian background to enter politics, and it was later denounced as racist by Reform's opponents.
Speaking ahead of polls opening at 7am on Thursday, Mr Swinney again claimed the contest is between the SNP and Reform, saying: 'Today, people in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse can reject the politics of Nigel Farage and elect a local champion by voting SNP.
'Farage doesn't care about Scotland – he wants to cut our budget, undermine our Parliament and introduce charges for the NHS.
'Labour have given up on the campaign and have barely even bothered to defend their record of scrapping the winter fuel payment and cutting support for disabled people.
'So this by-election is a two-horse race between the SNP and Farage. And today, people in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse can unite behind the SNP and defeat the gutter politics of Nigel Farage by voting for Katy Loudon.'
The by-election presents the first real test of both Scottish Labour and the SNP since last year's general election, where the former returned to being the biggest Westminster party in Scotland and the latter haemorrhaged MPs, falling to just nine.
Ahead of the vote, Mr Sarwar said the choice facing voters is 'more failure with the SNP or a local champion' with Scottish Labour's Davy Russell, accusing the nationalists of talking up Reform to 'distract from their own failures'.
He added: 'Time and time again, the SNP has failed Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse.
'From our overstretched NHS to our declining education system to our crisis-hit housing system, almost all of what is broken in Scotland is run by the SNP.
'They don't deserve to win, but only Scottish Labour can beat them.
'The SNP wants to talk up Reform to distract from their own failures, but Scots will see through the spin.
'This is a chance to put this failing Government on notice and chart a new direction for all of Scotland – let's seize that opportunity.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Glasgow Times
43 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Swinney defends ‘two-horse race' comments after by-election loss to Labour
The First Minister spoke of his disappointment at his party's loss, acknowledging there is 'anger' about the cost of living and concerns around access to services in Scotland. In the run-up to polls opening on Thursday, Mr Swinney had repeatedly sought to frame the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election as a contest between his party and Nigel Farage's Reform. But in a surprise result in the early hours of Friday, Scottish Labour were victorious with their candidate Davy Russell taking 8,559 votes. The SNP's Katy Loudon took 7,957 votes, while Reform's Ross Lambie secured 7,088. Labour are celebrating their by-election win (Jane Barlow/PA) Mr Swinney spoke to journalists at the SNP headquarters in Edinburgh, saying his party had improved its position from a devastating general election result last year, but recognising they must make further progress ahead of next year's Scottish Parliament vote. He told the PA news agency: 'Clearly, we're disappointed that we didn't win last night, but we made progress in the election compared to the general election last summer, and we've got to build on that and make sure that we strengthen our support in advance of 2026. 'So the SNP made progress last night, but it's not nearly enough and we've got to build on that.' (PA Graphics) Asked if it was a mistake to call the by-election a 'two-horse race', he said: 'I called it the way I saw it. 'The way I saw it was the Labour vote was collapsing compared to the general election last summer, which it did, it was down 20%. 'We saw the Reform vote surging, which it has. The SNP sought to portray the by-election as a contest between themselves and Reform (Jane Barlow/PA) 'And in that context, I thought the SNP was best placed to see off Reform because of the scale of collapse in the Labour vote.' He said Nigel Farage represented a 'poisonous injection into our politics'. Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice has said he is 'delighted' with the result in Hamilton. (PA Graphics) Mr Swinney also defended his party's campaign in the constituency, saying it was 'energetic' and 'enthusiastic'. He had frequently visited the seat in the run-up to the vote. Asked if people are turning away from the SNP because of their record in government, he said: 'There's a lot of anger in the electorate just now because people are finding things tough, particularly with the cost of living, and they're concerned about about issues in terms of access to public services. 'So what my government is going to focus on is addressing the day-to-day priorities of people in Scotland, about improving their lives.' He mentioned the Scottish Government's plans to scrap peak rail fares in September and bring down NHS waiting lists.
Western Telegraph
an hour ago
- Western Telegraph
Swinney defends ‘two-horse race' comments after by-election loss to Labour
The First Minister spoke of his disappointment at his party's loss, acknowledging there is 'anger' about the cost of living and concerns around access to services in Scotland. In the run-up to polls opening on Thursday, Mr Swinney had repeatedly sought to frame the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election as a contest between his party and Nigel Farage's Reform. But in a surprise result in the early hours of Friday, Scottish Labour were victorious with their candidate Davy Russell taking 8,559 votes. The SNP's Katy Loudon took 7,957 votes, while Reform's Ross Lambie secured 7,088. Labour are celebrating their by-election win (Jane Barlow/PA) Mr Swinney spoke to journalists at the SNP headquarters in Edinburgh, saying his party had improved its position from a devastating general election result last year, but recognising they must make further progress ahead of next year's Scottish Parliament vote. He told the PA news agency: 'Clearly, we're disappointed that we didn't win last night, but we made progress in the election compared to the general election last summer, and we've got to build on that and make sure that we strengthen our support in advance of 2026. 'So the SNP made progress last night, but it's not nearly enough and we've got to build on that.' (PA Graphics) Asked if it was a mistake to call the by-election a 'two-horse race', he said: 'I called it the way I saw it. 'The way I saw it was the Labour vote was collapsing compared to the general election last summer, which it did, it was down 20%. 'We saw the Reform vote surging, which it has. The SNP sought to portray the by-election as a contest between themselves and Reform (Jane Barlow/PA) 'And in that context, I thought the SNP was best placed to see off Reform because of the scale of collapse in the Labour vote.' He said Nigel Farage represented a 'poisonous injection into our politics'. Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice has said he is 'delighted' with the result in Hamilton. (PA Graphics) Mr Swinney also defended his party's campaign in the constituency, saying it was 'energetic' and 'enthusiastic'. He had frequently visited the seat in the run-up to the vote. Asked if people are turning away from the SNP because of their record in government, he said: 'There's a lot of anger in the electorate just now because people are finding things tough, particularly with the cost of living, and they're concerned about about issues in terms of access to public services. 'So what my government is going to focus on is addressing the day-to-day priorities of people in Scotland, about improving their lives.' He mentioned the Scottish Government's plans to scrap peak rail fares in September and bring down NHS waiting lists.
The National
an hour ago
- The National
This is what the Hamilton by-election tells us about SNP chances for 2026
The swing implied by the Norstat poll a few days ago suggested that the SNP ought to defeat Labour in the by-election by a tiny margin of less than one percentage point, whereas in fact Labour came out on top by just over two points. That's a trivial difference, and thus the result lends support to the main message of the polls, which is that the SNP enjoy a substantial nationwide lead on the Holyrood constituency ballot. Hamilton should not be mistaken for a bellwether constituency. READ MORE: SNP campaign chief addresses independence focus after by-election loss It's significantly tilted towards Labour, in the sense that if support for the SNP and Labour was roughly tied across Scotland, Labour would likely be winning Hamilton by a double-digit margin. It's absolutely possible for the SNP to remain the largest single party in the Scottish Parliament if they lose in Hamilton again next May, and even if they lose by a bigger margin than they did in the by-election. The potential problem, however, is that by-election results do not just passively provide insights into the present state of play. They can also in themselves be drivers of public opinion. In particular, surprise by-election outcomes often generate snowball effects in favour of the winning party. The SNP are still haunted by the memory of how their unexpectedly heavy drubbing in the Rutherglen & Hamilton West by-election in 2023 provided Labour with a springboard that helped propel Keir Starmer to a majority of Scottish seats in the 2024 general election. Fortunately, there's a good reason for doubting that a similar effect will occur after Hamilton. The UK Labour government is one of the most hapless administrations in living memory, and it seems entirely plausible that within a few days the afterglow of the by-election result will be overshadowed by yet another misstep from Starmer or Rachel Reeves. If the SNP can just weather the short-term storm of a few painful headlines, it's conceivable that within a few months they'll look back at this by-election as having no real significance beyond the obvious fact that it reduced their contingent of MSPs by one. That said, it's also important to consider the question of the dog that didn't bark. The only reason the Labour win comes as a surprise is that expectations of a massive Reform UK breakthrough, and a two-horse race between the SNP and Reform, had been allowed to run away with themselves. If the result had played out in line with those expectations, there was a theory that John Swinney would have been in a no-lose situation, because he could have used any Reform win to rally the anti-Farage vote behind the SNP, who would have looked like the only remaining alternative to a Reform-led government in Edinburgh. READ MORE: 'We have work to do': John Swinney reacts to shock Hamilton by-election loss Instead, Anas Sarwar has been reconfirmed as the leading challenger to Swinney, albeit only just - and it's obviously a lot harder to paint Sarwar as a bogey-man. But in truth it's perhaps just as well for the SNP that Reform weren't able to use Hamilton to establish themselves as the main opposition party in Scotland. If they had done, there's a danger that the rump Tory vote might have moved across to Farage en masse, and pushed Reform to the type of vote share where they could have seriously threatened the SNP on the constituency ballot next year. There's something to be said for staying in the more familiar territory of an SNP v Labour battle, not least because Starmer's unpopularity ought to ensure there is a hard ceiling on Labour support next May. Another consolation for the SNP is that they can point to their narrow defeat as a timely wake-up call for the independence movement. The Scottish Green candidate in Hamilton took 695 votes, amounting to a 2.6% vote share. If there had been no Green candidate, and if the SNP had taken at least 87% of Green votes, Labour would have been defeated. In practice that's not what would have happened in the real world, so the Green intervention did not cost the SNP victory. But it's now clear that there are some central belt constituencies that the SNP will not win next year unless they can squeeze votes from smaller pro-independence parties, and unless they can persuade disillusioned SNP voters not to stay at home. A few constituencies here or there could make all the difference between retaining the pro-independence majority at Holyrood, and losing it.
