John Swinney has defended his decision to call the Hamilton by-election a “two-horse race” between the SNP and Reform UK, despite Labour’s victory in the vote.
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, 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 8559 votes.
The SNP’s Katy Loudon took 7957 votes, while Reform’s Ross Lambie secured 7088.
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.”
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.
“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.
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.
