Labour’s win in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election caught almost everyone out.
The Holyrood seat was one that the party needed to take from the SNP if it is to stand a chance of winning next year’s devolved election. But few expected Labour to do so. It was running third favourite, behind the SNP and Reform. The Nats were confident they’d retain the seat, while it seemed possible that Reform could just about pull off a coup.
In the end, it is Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar who have emerged triumphant. Given the troubles of the UK government and the poor polling of Scottish Labour, this will provide both with a much-needed psychological boost. “We have proven the pollsters, the political commentators and the bookies wrong,” said Anas Sarwar. Fair play.
It was close, though – Labour candidate Davy Russell secured 8,559 votes to 7,957 for the SNP candidate and 7,088 for Reform. Reform will be buoyed by the fact that they came from nowhere and in the end created a three-way marginal. Their popularity suggests next May’s Holyrood vote could go very well for them.
It is the SNP that will be most troubled. Former minister Christina McKelvie, whose death caused the by-election, won Hamilton in 2021 with a 46.2 per cent vote share. This time the party achieved only 29.4 per cent. For all that John Swinney has been seen to stabilise his ailing party, the Nats are not winning back voters. Scotland’s crucial central belt still seems to prefer Labour, as it did in last year’s general election. Swinney had attempted to portray Hamilton as a two-way shoot-out between the SNP and Reform. That didn’t work. The SNP will need to think hard about how it can win over an electorate that is disillusioned after 18 years of the party in office.
The by-election told us a few things about the immediate future of Scottish politics. One, that Labour is not out for the count, even if that has been the narrative of recent months. Two, that even with Reform’s rise, Labour can still attract enough votes to win seats. Three, that Reform will not shy away from playing the race card, and that when it does so this won’t necessarily impact its vote in a negative way.
Labour now has a chance to change the story. Sarwar’s prodigious energies are already focused on using the Hamilton win to do just that: Labour is back in the game; only Labour can beat the SNP. If Rachel Reeves, as expected, restores the winter fuel allowance, removes the two-child benefit cap, and if she can bring some degree of economic growth back, then these steps could also play in Scottish Labour’s favour.
Sarwar has long argued that when Scotland’s voters stop thinking about politics through the prism of Westminster and Keir Starmer and instead focus on the Holyrood election, they will start to shift from the Nats to Labour. Victory in Hamilton suggests he may be right.
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