The Hamilton by-election
Labour win, but are weakened
Yesterday (Thursday 5 Jun 2025) there was a by-election to the Scottish Parliament in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency. The Labour candidate, Davy Russell, won.
Davy Russell, the new Labour MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse
While Labour will be pleased they won the seat, they will be less pleased that their vote share actually went down 2 points:
The SNP vote share was also down, by 16.8% (of the voters), which means they lost just over a third of their vote share.
The biggest losers of the night were the Tories, who lost almost two-thirds of the vote share, it going down from 17.5% to 6.0%.
Why Reform did well
The biggest winners were Reform. They didn't win the seat, but coming from nowhere (they didn't contest the seat in 2021) to over a quarter of the vote, is a very strong performance which suggests they will do well in the Scottish general election next year.
Reform did well for three reasons:
immigration, an issue that Reform "own" in the sense that voters looking to reduce it think they'll be the party most likely to do so
a general sense that Britain is broken
a sense that the SNP are looking tired, because they've been in power so long
Why the SNP did badly
The SNP have been in power in Scotland for since 2007. That's 18 years, and there were people who cast their vote yesterday who weren't even born when the SNP entered office. So of course they're looking tired. As I wrote a year ago:
The SNP have been in power in Holyrood for 17 years, since 2007. They are looking tired and out of ideas and a lot of voters are unhappy with some of the things they've done. This means that, at the moment, they are not the best vehicle to achieve independence.
When parties are in government they have to made decisions. Inevitably these decisions will please some people and annoy others, but the people who're annoyed will be more annoyed than the people who're pleased will be pleased. Over time, more and more people will be annoyed by something the government has done, and they will lose popularity.
Independence is more popular than the SNP
While the SNP's electoral fortunes are waning, half of Scots still want independence. Looking at every poll this year, 4 put Yes ahead, and 4 put No ahead, so public opinion is balanced 50-50 on the issue, whereas the SNP is polling nowhere near 50%.
Hi, totally agree...what about the Turnout ? 44% for a bi-election in the context of Reform Uk taking a huge cut down south for a few months...
the "barrage " to the far right never happened here!?
Support for Independence doesn't mean nothing really in regards to the 2026 election. Doesn't mean nothing at all in terme of percentgae as there will be no vote on Independence and a "defacto election" (+udi) will mean nothing if snp, Alba, Liberate Scotland etc... don't unit behind an Indy manifesto and actually take It instead of begging for It. Percentgae for Indy goes along with political Indy Unity ( for the time of en election )
We are not far from a Labour (+ lib dem+ green) gvt in Scotland next year if Snp and Alba don't sort their s.... ..t, get their pride and their carrierist vision where they should be...
FYI any Government involving Reform would be a disaster for Scotland.
My post today:
https://substack.com/@dilligafido/note/c-123605434
“Kent is the home of Reform UKs first Elon Musk-style Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) unit, which has been set up to look at “wasteful spending” in councils.”
…The announcement on Sunday evening came as a surprise to many councillors, Mr Lehmann said, who claimed the move was a “barrage of distraction” from the “paralysis” the council is in.