SNP ‘running down the clock' before losing power, claims Anas Sarwar

Telegraph

a day ago

The SNP's 'balloon has burst' and John Swinney is 'running down the clock', Anas Sarwar, Scotland's First Minister, has said after Labour won a shock by-election victory.
The Scottish Labour leader said his party's knife-edge win in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse contest showed voters wanted to oust the SNP from power in next year's Holyrood election.
Labour's Davy Russell won the Scottish Parliament seat by 602 votes from the SNP's Katy Loudon, with Reform's Ross Lambie only 887 votes behind her. The Tories finished a distant fourth, barely saving their deposit, after their support collapsed.
Mr Swinney was left humiliated by the loss of the SNP seat after repeatedly claiming the by-election was a straight fight between his party and Reform. Alex Neil, the former SNP minister, said the First Minister should resign.
Speaking the morning after the victory, Ms Sarwar accused Mr Swinney of running a 'disgraceful campaign' that 'deliberately' encouraged people to vote for Reform.
Mr Sarwar said the result demonstrated that next year's Holyrood election would really be a 'straight choice' between the SNP and Labour, with Reform merely a 'spoiler' who could not win power.
But Prof Sir John Curtice, the country's most eminent psephologist, said Reform had achieved a 'highly creditable' third place by attracting a slew of former Labour voters.
Writing in the Telegraph, he warned Nigel Farage's party risked 'severely denting' Mr Sarwar's hopes of being First Minister.
Sir John also said Labour's performance, its vote share in the constituency declined, was 'well short of what is needed to demonstrate it is currently on course to win next year's Holyrood election.'
He said Labour still managed to scrape victory thanks to a 17-point drop in support for the Nationalists, with independence supporters 'less forgiving than they once were of what many perceive as the SNP's poor record in government.'
The contest was called following the death of Christina McKelvie, the Scottish Government minister, who won the seat for the SNP with a 4,582 majority in the 2021 Holyrood election.
'An outsider' in the contest
Although Labour won the equivalent seat at Westminster by almost 10,000 votes in last year's general election, the party's collapse in support during the early months of Sir Keir Starmer's government meant it was viewed as an outsider in the contest.
However, Labour insiders attributed their victory to Mr Russell's popularity locally and a strong get-out-the-vote operation that saw more than 200 activists travel to the constituency on polling day.
Speaking at a press call in Hamilton town centre with Mr Russell, Mr Sarwar said he was 'confident' that he could replace Mr Swinney as First Minister in 2025.
The Scottish Labour leader said: 'I think what we're seeing now is the running down of the clock. This is an SNP government that's lost its way, the balloon is burst, they are out of ideas, they are out of steam.
'They have no positive offer for the people of Scotland, they've got no positive record to put in front of the people of Scotland and they're running down the clock.'
He said there was a 'lesson' for pollsters and commentators who believed Mr Swinney's claim that the by-election was a straight fight between the SNP and Reform, arguing they should stop listening to the First Minister's 'nonsense.'
Pressed on Sir John's view that Reform's strong performance would make it difficult for Labour to win power next year at Holyrood, he said the psephologist was only looking at a 'snapshot' of a particular by-election.
Mr Sarwar argued this approach ignored 'the general mood music and the general momentum of a campaign going into next year'.
He added: 'On the ground, people believe the SNP are done. They are sick to the back teeth of them...They think they're a busted flush. They want them out.'
Sir Keir sent his congratulations to Mr Russell on his 'fantastic victory.' In a post on social media, the Prime Minister said: 'People in Scotland have once again voted for change.
'Next year, there is a chance to turbo-charge delivery by putting Labour in power on both sides of the border. I look forward to working with you.'
Speaking in Edinburgh, Mr Swinney said: '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.' Asked if it was a mistake to call the by-election a 'two-horse race' between the SNP and Reform, he said: 'I called it the way I saw it.'
The First Minister argued the Labour vote had collapsed compared to last year's general election and 'we saw the Reform vote surging, which it has.'
But Mr Neil, who served in Alex Salmond's and Nicola Sturgeon's Cabinets, tweeted: 'Poor by-election result for the SNP despite having the best candidate
'It shows that the opinion polls appear wide of the mark. Most importantly, it shows the current SNP leadership needs to be replaced urgently.' The SNP under Mr Swinney was also routed in last year's general election.
Labour won the by-election with 8,559 votes (31.6 per cent), despite its vote share declining by two percentage points compared to the 2021 Holyrood election result in the seat.
The SNP finished second with 7,957 votes (29.4 per cent), a huge drop in support compared to 2021, when Ms McKelvie won 46.2 per cent of the popular vote.
Reform finished third with 7,088 votes (26.1 per cent), which Sir John noted was 'well above' the 19 per cent support recorded in Scotland-wide opinion polls, despite the seat not being 'particularly fertile ground for Nigel Farage's party.'
Richard Tice, Reform's deputy leader, attended the count and insisted he was 'delighted' with the result. He said it was 'truly remarkable', adding: 'We've come from nowhere to being in a three-way marginal.'
But the result was disastrous for the Scottish Tories, who won only 1,621 votes. Their vote share declined from 17.5 per cent in the 2021 election to only six per cent.
'A very competitive political environment'
Speaking ahead of next week's Scottish Tory conference in Edinburgh, UK leader Kemi Badenoch said: 'Larkhall is not the place where the Conservative Party fightback starts'.
She said it was 'interesting' that Reform was 'causing problems for all parties' and noted that 'we live in a very competitive political environment.'
Miles Briggs, the shadow education secretary for the Scottish Tories, said the party knew it would be a 'difficult' by-election and blamed 'protest voting' for Reform and Labour.
He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: 'We know what that challenge is and we have no doubt of the fight that we have to take forward into the election next year.'