Swinney is punished for decades of SNP failure in crushing by-election defeat
'Humiliated' John Swinney saw his party beaten by Labour in another by-election amid claims voters punished the SNP for 18 years of 'abject failure'.
Just hours after the First Minister confidently predicted there was 'no way' Labour could win the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse Holyrood seat, Anas Sarwar's party triumphed by 602 votes in what should have been a safe bet for SNP.
The surprise win, achieved in spite of voter fury at UK Labour cuts and a media-shy candidate dubbed the Invisible Man, left SNP activists reeling at the count.
New MSP Davy Russell said the Nationalists had 'broken the NHS, wasted money, and after nearly two decades, they don't deserve another chance'.
And Scottish Labour deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie said: 'John Swinney has been humiliated by this result.
'The voters have clearly punished the SNP for their 18 years of misrule.'
In other developments:
Nigel Farage said Reform UK's strong third place showed it was 'just getting started in Scotland'
Russell Findlay apologised to voters after the Scottish Tories came fourth, saying 'My party let you down in government and we accept responsibility for our mistakes'
Former SNP cabinet secretary Alex Neil said 'the current SNP leadership needs to be replaced urgently', while former SNP deputy Jim Sillars accused Mr Swinney of a 'manifest failure to read the street' and called him 'unfit' to lead
Ex-SNP MP Joanna Cherry KC said her party was 'stagnant' and 'needs a major rethink'
An elated Mr Anas Sarwar yesterday said it was the springboard to a Labour win at Holyrood and predicted the era of Nationalist rule was coming to an end.
Celebrating with Mr Russell and a throng of activists in the summer sun, Mr Sarwar said it was 'pretty obvious' that Mr Swinney was now on 'borrowed time'.
He said the SNP had run a 'shameful' campaign that glossed over the party's record and tried to focus on Reform because Mr Swinney 'knows the record is one of abject failure'.
He said: 'What we're seeing now is the running down of the clock. This is an SNP government that has lost its way. The balloon is burst. They're out of ideas.'
Mr Sarwar said he believed the victory to be 'even more significant' than the party's win in the nearby Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election in October 2023 - which he said had been key in helping to secure Labour's general election win in July last year.
At a low-key press conference in Edinburgh, a dejected Mr Swinney admitted his party had not recovered last year's general election thrashing, when it lost 39 of its 48 MPs.
'The SNP's made some progress but it's not enough and we've got to make further progress before the elections next May,' he said.
The by-election was triggered by the death of SNP minister Christina McKelvie from cancer at the age of 57.
It was one of the ugliest campaigns in modern Scottish politics, with accusations of racism levelled against Reform after it homed its attacks on Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.
A Reform campaign advert claimed Mr Sarwar had said he wanted to 'prioritise the Pakistani community' based on a 2022 speech in which he said no such thing.
Mr Swinney tried to use the advert and Reform's rising support to turn the contest into a battle between his own party and Nigel Farage's and exclude Labour.
He claimed it was a 'two-horse race' in which Labour didn't feature.
'I'm confident we've done enough to win the contest,' he said on the eve of the poll.
'Labour can't win. It's over for the Labour Party. There's no way they can win here, after the disastrous record of the Labour government.'
But Labour's traditional door-by-door campaigning and an affable local candidate who highlighted deteriorating public services under the SNP narrowly won out.
Mr Russell erased an SNP majority of 4,582 on a 7 per cent swing to Labour.
Labour's share of the vote was 31.5 per cent, down from the 33.6 per cent at the 2021 Holyrood election.
The SNP's vote share slumped by more than a third from 46.2 per cent to 29.3 per cent.
Despite hype about overtaking Labour or even winning, Reform UK came third, but achieved a 26.1 per cent share despite not having a Holyrood candidate in the seat before
The Scottish Conservatives came fourth but narrowly held on to their deposit.
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