Afternoon summary
Labour has suggested that Badenoch’s proposal for the UK to leave the European convention on human rights could put peace in Northern Ireland at risk. (See 3.28pm.)
For a full list of all the stories covered here today, scroll through the key events timeline at the top of the blog.
Downing Street welcomes Council of Europe's suggestion that ECHR might be reformed
Kemi Badenoch was today quite sceptical about the suggestion from the secretary general of the Council of Europe that the ECHR might be reformed. (See 11.15am and 11.39am.)
But Downing Street welcomed what Alain Berset said in his Times interview. A No 10 spokesperson said:
Border security is vital to national security, and we welcome efforts to ensure the European Convention on Human Rights is being applied correctly and allowing countries to protect their borders.
It’s important there is discussion on how the ECHR operates to ensure it can safeguard human rights while meeting the needs of democracies. The Prime Minister has been clear on this, it should be parliament that makes the rules on immigration and government that makes the policy.
The Conservative proposal to leave the ECHR has also been condemned by the Refugee Council. This is from its CEO, Enver Solomon.
To turn our backs on people seeking sanctuary is to undo a legacy left to us by the wartime generation. The priority must be to fix the asylum system and carry our proud traditions forward into the future.
After the horrors of world war two, Britain and its allies agreed that refugees who come to our countries in search of safety should get a fair chance to apply for asylum. This is just as important now, as we continue to witness more innocent people fleeing to British and European shores. Alongside our European neighbours, we can choose a fair and controlled system to handle asylum applications and decide who can stay and who must return. Or we can choose chaos, with no system for dealing with the men, women and children who arrive on our shores.
Our own research shows that the majority of British people are proud of the country’s role taking in refugees since the second world war. Local communities across our country have welcomed and supported refugees to rebuild their lives, and play their part by contributing to our businesses, our high streets, our communities and our NHS.
While the election focus today has been on the Holyrood byelection in Scotland, there were eight borough and county council byelections in England yesterday – and there were good results for Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats.
Reform gained four seats – three from Labour, and one from the Conservatives.
And the Liberal Democrats gained two seats – both from the Conservatives – and held two.
The full results are available here.
Tory proposal to leave ECHR would put peace in Northern Ireland at risk, Labour suggests
Here is the full text of Kemi Badenoch’s speech this morning on the establishment of the party’s “lawfare commission” – the review that will consider the case for leaving the European convention on human rights.
Labour has dismissed it as an attempt to appease Robert Jenrick and Reform UK, who are both unequivocally in favour of leaving the ECHR. During the Tory leadership contest last year Jenrick said the UK should definitely leave, while Badenoch said she was not ruling it out, but thought it was too simplistic to think leaving would just solve the problem. Some Tory leftwingers voted for Badenoch (who in other respects was more rightwing than Jenrick) just because of her stance on this issue. They regarded EHCR withdrawal as an unacceptable red line.
Labour also says leaving the ECHR would put peace in Northern Ireland at risk because the ECHR is one of the foundations of the Good Friday agreement.
A Labour spokesperson said:
Kemi Badenoch’s review is nothing more than a desperate attempt to appease Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. If she’s so certain in her approach, why didn’t the Conservatives make these changes when they had the chance in government, rather than simply booting them into the long grass.
Compliance with international law has helped us strike deals with France and Germany to crack down on criminal smuggling gangs, and underscores the Good Friday agreement, which secures peace in Northern Ireland.
Badenoch says no need to throw Liz Truss out of Tory party because she's had her time
Kemi Badenoch has said that there is no need for her to expel Liz Truss from the Conservative party because she is not relevant to its future anymore.
Yesterday, after Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor gave a “never again” speech disowning Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget, there were calls for the party to go even further.
Today the BBC’s political editor, Chris Mason, asked Badenoch about the case for expelling Liz from the party, just as Keir Starmer removed Jeremy Corbyn.
Asked if Truss was still a party member, Badenoch professed not to know. Asked if she would consider kicking Truss out, Badenoch said she was focusing on showing voters that the Conservatives have responsible economic policies.
She went on:
It is not about any particular individual. I don’t want to be commenting on previous prime ministers. They’ve had their time. What am I going to do now? Removing people from a political party is neither here nor there in terms of what it is your viewers want to see.
When it was put to her that thowing out Truss would send a signal to voters about the kind of party she was leading, Badenoch replied:
Liz Truss is not in parliament anymore. We need to focus on how we’re going to get this country back on track.
Truss, who remains a Conservative party member, aides say, has responded to Stride with an article in the Critic. She says it is Stride and his allies who should be apologising.
Until Mel Stride and his allies admit the real economic failings of the last Conservative government, the British public will not trust the party with the reins of power again. He should be repudiating the globalist, leftist agenda they pursued which has dragged our country down with the Conservative Party as collateral.
What is needed – and fast – is an acknowledgment of those failings and the need for wholesale reform of how our country is governed. Because nothing will ever change so long as the existing broken system and its acolytes remain in control.
Swinney says, even though Labour won, Hamilton result shows SNP has 'made progress' over past year
Rachel Keenan is a Guardian reporter.
John Swinney, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, has offered a relatively positive take on his party’s defeat in the Hamilton byelection.
Speaking at a low-key press conference this morning (much of the Scottish media were at Labour’s victory rally instead), Swinney argued that the result could be seen as a modest victory for the SNP in the circumstances. He explained:
Last summer people would have doubted, after the really poor result we had in the UK general election, that the SNP could be back in contention to win a seat like Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, but we were in contention and only 600 votes adrift from winning it.
The SNP has made progress in this election. It’s not as much as I would like us to have made, but we’ve made progress against the backdrop of a really damaging election last summer.
Many were surprised that Labour did not seem to be the SNP’s priority when campaigning in this byelection with their line focussing on the rise of Reform UK. Using the line “vote SNP to stop Reform UK”, Swinney said he was just following what he was hearing on the doors while out campaigning.
People were telling us on doorsteps of their anger and frustration at the Labour party because of things like winter fuel payments being abolished and they weren’t going to vote for the Labour party.
But also, on the same sessions on the doorsteps, [we were hearing] that people were planning to vote Reform.
The confluence of those two things meant that I had to say our message was the SNP could stop Reform. I certainly don’t want the poisonous politics of Farage to be imported into the Scottish parliament.
Despite the majority of votes going towards pro union parties, the first minister still thinks that there is an appetite for independence in Scotland and said: “Fundamentally people’s views about independence are strengthening.”
He also said that going forward the party would be “making sure that people see independence as a real and urgent priority that can make a difference in their lives”.
Why Reform UK has not really 'come from nowhere' in Scotland
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
Despite the hyperbole from Richard Tice about the Hamilton byelection result on the Today programme (see 9.39am), Reform has not actually come from “nowhere” in Scotland.
There has long been a Eurosceptic vote in Scotland, sometimes active or at times latent, and Nigel Farage, Reform’s leader, has campaigned here before, in his previous guise as leader of the UK Independence party.
In 2014 he capitalised on that strain of nativist Euroscepticism when Ukip won a Scottish region seat in the European parliament – the year Scotland was immersed in the independence referendum debate. And in 2016, more than 1m Scots voted to leave the EU in the Brexit referendum - 38% of the votes cast.
The Reform brand may be relatively new in Scotland but its leader is not a fresh face, nor is the sentiment and attitude it seeks to represent - notwithstanding the other question of whether Reform’s role this time is largely as a conduit for protest votes from the large minority of voters disillusioned and angered by the incumbents in both the Scottish and UK government.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar says Hamilton result shows 'SNP's balloon has burst'
Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.
It’s a sunny morning in Hamilton town centre and a jubilant Scottish Labour head of comms has just presented the press pack with an apple pie (“they didn’t have any humble pie in the shop”) after the party’s surprise win in yesterday’s key byelection, which defied the predictions of pretty much every journalist gathering there.
The newly elected MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, Davy Russell, was congratulated by politicians and party workers as Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar told reporters:
The SNP’s balloon has burst, the people have changed their minds, they know the SNP have failed them and they want them out from office.
What this byelection has proven beyond any doubt is that if you want to get rid of the SNP, then the election next year is a straight choice between me and John Swinney. Reform might try to be a spoiler factor, but they can’t win here, they have no care for here. It’s between us and the SNP.
Sarwar said the byelection made it clear too that it was time for “the pollsters, pundits, political commentators, and the bookies to stop believing John Swinney’s nonsense”.
The SNP leader and first minister had described this byelection as a two-horse race between his party and Reform UK. But in the end the SNP, which had previously held the seat, were pushed into second place, only narrowly beating Reform UK by less than 1,000 votes.
At the rally, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie said this contest demonstrated that “talking to people and doing to work on the doorstep is absolutely vital to how we win”.
Other Labour figures, even those not brandishing pies of any kind, pointed out that the party had made a conscious decision to focus on the ground campaign, which is largely invisible to the national media but secured them victory in the end.
Updated
Q: If you think the defence review does not go far enough fast enough, what would you do differently?
Badenoch said the defence review unravelled because the government does not have a plan for getting defence spending to 3% of GDP. The Tories would address that, for example with welfare cuts, she said.
That was the final question.
Badenoch says Labour claims that Reform UK, not Tories, now their main opponents are 'nonsense'
Q: Labour people says they now regard Reform UK as the real threat, not you. How do you feel about that.
Badenoch replied:
I laugh when they say that because I know it’s nonsense.
They would love to have Reform as the main challenger. They’d love that. Reform is another leftwing party. They’re arguing for the same things, nationalisation, two-child benefit, cap. They would love to have a political fight like that. I don’t pay any attention to what they say.
She said Labour would be facing the Conservative party at the next election “and we’re going to get them out”.
Badenoch says Tories must take on Reform UK by having 'the best product'
Q: What is your strategy for dealing with Reform UK?
Badenoch said Tories have different views; some want to ignore them, some want to fight them, some want to copy them. The Tories are a ‘“broad church”, she said. She went on:
What I have said is that there is only one strategy that’s going to work, and that is making sure that we have the best product.
There’s no point fretting or worrying about what other parties are doing unless you make sure that the products or the content which you have is the very best. So let’s take it from there.
It’s not about me growing taller or looking prettier. It is about making sure that what we are communicating represents the authentic, traditional conservative values. That is what I stand for.
She said the party needed to talk about their principles and values to show people what they stand for.
Badenoch says Reform UK chair who resigned 'knows something rest of us do not'
Q: Isn’t there a risk that, by the time you have decided your policy, voters will have already left the Conservatives?
Badenoch said she completetly disagreed. She said she remembers when the SDP/Liberal Alliance was polling at 50%.
And, on Reform UK, she said the Zia Yusuf, who resigned as Reform chair yesterday, has concluded that getting the party elected is a waste of time. She went on:
He knows something that the rest of us do not. I think we should be paying attention to that. Rather than talking up a party that’s losing as many people as quickly as they are coming in, we need to start getting serious and stop treating politics like show business.
Badenoch says learning to be oppositon leader takes time, but claims she's getting 'better and better every week'
Q: How do you response to Mel Stride saying yesterday you will get better at PMQs and the media? Do you think you need to get better?
Badenoch said she did accept that as leader of the opposition you get better over time.
People often assume that the minute you come into a job like the leader of the opposition, you’re ready to go. It actually takes quite a while to learn how to do the job.
And what I have been saying is that every week it gets better and better, every week I have more experience.
And this is what every leader of the opposition has found. From Margaret Thatcher to David Cameron, that is what it has been like.
So when people assume that what they see on day one is what they’re going to get in four years, they’re completely forgetting that so much happens. The situation changes.
Badenoch says she wants MPs to be able to impose Trump-style bans blocking any arrivals from certain designated countries
Q: Do you see any merit in President Trump’s travel ban on people coming from 12 countries? Would you do something similar?
Badenoch says parliament should be able to decide who is allowed to come into the country, and that should include being able to impose “travel bans on a country-specific basis”.
But she says that does not mean she is endorsing the Trump proposal. She says she has not looked at the list of countries that he has banned.
UPDATE: Badenoch said:
Parliament needs to be able to decide who comes into the country, for how long, and who needs to leave, and that does include travel bans. On a country-specific basis it’s much tougher, it’s often more vague. But I think there are scenarios where that is viable.
That doesn’t mean that I agree with what Donald Trump has done, I haven’t actually seen the list of countries that he’s banned people from. I’m much more focused on … what’s happening here.
Updated
Badenoch suggests she wants to revive Rwanda plan
Q: Under your plan (see 11.19am), you would have to send illegal migrants to a third country. Would it be Rwanda?
Badenoch says she thinks the Rwanda plan should never have been scrapped.
Badenoch says she is opposed to Parthenon Marbles being returned to Greece, as report claims transfer plan agreed
Q: There are reports today the Parthenon Marbles will be returned to Greece. Would you support that?
Badenoch says she has not received those reports. She would like to see the details. But she goes on:
But I’ve never been someone who thought we should send the Elgin Marbles back.
Q: Are you saying you don’t believe the Council of Europe’s secretary general when he says reform of the ECHR might be possible? (See 11.15am.)
Badenoch says she read Alain Berset’s Times interview. She says Berset sounded like someone who had had his arm twisted. Previous attempts to reform the convention did not last. “So I’m not convinced,” she says.
She says, if the European court of human rights does reform over the next four years, that will be fine.
But she has to be prepared for that not happening, she says.
Q: Isn’t this too little, too late, given how well Reform is doing?
Badenoch rejects that. She says she has time to develop policy, and she says she is going to use that time properly.
What I want us to do is something serious and proper. Just going on TV and making noise is not governing. And quite frankly, I’m tired of hearing politicians make promises that they don’t know how to deliver.
Q: Is there a chance this review could end with you concluding that the UK should stay in the ECHR?
Badenoch says she does not want to announce that the UK will leave the ECHR without a plan. She says almost every member of her shadow cabinet has identified the convention as an obstacle to what they want to do.
Badenoch says Zia Yusuf's resignation shows Reform 'not a serious political party'
Q: Are you worried that it is too late to turn things around for the Conservative party?
Badenoch says that would be a fair question if there were an election next week. But the next election is four years away, she says.
And she says the Zia Yusuf resignation yesterday shows Reform “is not a serious political party”.
Badenoch plays down significance of Tories' 6% vote in Hamilton byelection
Badenoch is now taking questions.
She downplays the Tory performance in the Hamilton byelection, saying the constituency is “not the place where the Conservative party fight back starts”.
She says Reform UK are showing they are a threat to all parties. She goes on:
We live in a very competitive political environment, and we have made it very clear that the situation has changed and we have to be different, and that is what my job is right now - to change the Conservative party to make sure we can fight in an era of multi party politics.
Badenoch announces 5 tests for EHCR policy review, to conclude by Tory conference.
Badenoch says she will not commit the Conservative party to ECHR withdrawal without a proper plan for what comes next.
She says Lord Wolfson, the shadow attorney general, will lead the policy review looking at this.
He will apply five tests, she says.
1) The Deportation Test: Can we take back control of our asylum system? So Parliament — not international courts — decides who comes here and who stays. Can we lawfully remove foreign criminals and illegal migrants to their home country or elsewhere — even if they have family here or claim they could be at risk if sent home?
2) The Veterans Test: Can we stop our veterans being endlessly pursued by vexatious legal attacks? And can we make sure our military can fight a future war without one hand tied behind their backs?
3) The Fairness Test: Can we put British citizens first in social housing and in receiving scarce public services, because we believe charity begins at home and those who have paid in should come first, especially when resources are limited.
4) The Justice Test: Can we make sure that prison sentences actually reflect Parliament’s intentions? Can we stop the disruptive protests which block roads or emergency services without being told it’s ‘disproportionate.’
5) The Prosperity Test: Can we prevent courts pretending climate change is a human right? And how can we make sure we can prevent endless legal challenges for our infrastructure projects so we can actually get things built and control our planning system?
She says the review will conclude in time for the Tory conference in the autumn.
Badenoch says human rights law is also holding back the military.
Just before VE Day, I met a group of Chelsea pensioners. They talked about their former colleagues having to give evidence in old age and having to recall in minute detail events that happened 40 years before or risk prison.
Morale is suffering, and recruitment and retention are getting harder, just as we need to rebuild our military strength.
And it’s not just veterans. Soldiers on operations face legal challenge too. We cannot run the risk of our troops fighting a war with one hand tied behind their backs. We are going to fix this.
Badenoch says she is 'increasingly of the view' UK needs to leave ECHR
Badenoch says she is “increasingly of the view” that the UK will have to leave the ECHR.
I have thought long and hard about this, and I am increasingly of the view that we will need to leave, because I am yet to see a clear and coherent route to change within our current legal structures.
Some say reform is the answer, but I say we have tried that before. 15 years ago, the Brighton Process achieved some success, but the Strasbourg court has shown no real interest in fundamental change. It has rebuffed those European states calling for a new approach, and in its recent decisions – above on all climate change – it has shown ever greater willingness to invent new rights and directly overrule popular mandates.
But I won’t commit my party to leaving the ECHR or other treaties without a clear plan to do so and without a full understanding of all the consequences for all parts of our United Kingdom. Because we saw that holding a referendum without a plan to get Brexit done, led to years of wrangling and endless arguments until it got sorted in 2019. We cannot go through that again.
Badenoch says illegal immigrants should be removed immediately and banned from claiming asylum
Badenoch says illegal immigration is the best example of where “lawfare is destroying our country”.
I will always defend the support we gave people from Hong Kong and Ukraine, but we cannot become the destination for everyone looking for a new home or a better life.
Nor can we be the world’s softest touch. In some years, our approval rate for asylum applications was above 80% last year, Japan’s was 2%.
Britain is being mugged. Our asylum system is completely broken and will require a fundamental rebuild so that the British government, not people traffickers, control it.
That means a total end to asylum claims in this country by illegal immigrants and removing immediately all those who arrive illegally and try to claim asylum.
Badenoch says she does not believe suggestion from Council of Europe chief that ECHR could be changed
Badenoch says last month the leaders of nine European countries wrote to the Council of Europe, the body overseeing the ECHR, asking for changes to the way it operates. Alain Berset, the council’s secretary general, rejected this as political interference.
Badenoch acknowledges that Berset has now changed his line.
This is a reference to Berset telling the Times in an interview published today that he could see a case for change. Berset said:
We are witnessing a world where things are changing rapidly.
It is accelerating. We see this, and it means that it is normal that we must also adapt to this. We need adaptation. We need discussion about the rules that we want to have, and there is no taboo.
I see the necessity to adapt but we must also do this respecting our core values.
Badenoch says she intrepets this as meaning that in practice nothing will change.
Kemi Badenoch says ECHR now being used 'to attack democratic decisions and common sense'
Kemi Badenoch is now giving her speech on the European court of human rights.
She starts by referring to two Rochdale grooming gang offenders who could not be deported to Pakistan because of the ECHR.
She goes on:
The ECHR is now being used in ways never intended by its original authors. It should be a shield to protect. Instead, it’s become a sword, a sword used to attack democratic decisions and common sense.
This use of litigation as a political weapon is what I am calling lawfare. It isn’t just damaging our security, it’s also damaging our prosperity.
Tice defends Reform UK calling for debate on banning burqa, after proposal blamed for party chair's resignation
Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, has defended his party calling for a debate a debate on whether the burqa should be banned.
Yesterday Zia Yusuf, a Muslim multi-millionaire businessman, resigned as Reform’s chair. He had been in charge of professionalising the party – work that he seemed to be doing quite successfully – and his surprise decision to quit is seen as a blow to Nigel Farage. Here is Rowena Mason’s story about the resignation from last night.
In a post on social media, Yusuf did not give a full explanation for his decison to quit beyond saying he now longer believed “working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time”. But he announcement came about nine hours after he posted another message saying the decision of the party’s new MP, Sarah Pochin, to ask a question at PMQs implying that she favoured banning the burqa was “dumb”.
Banning the burqa is not officially Reform party policy. But Pochin implied it should be, and she was backed up by her fellow MP Lee Anderson who posted a message on social media on Wednesday saying:
Ban the burqa?
Yes we should.
No one should be allowed to hide their identity in public.
In an attempt to reconcile these various positions, Tice told the Today programme this morning that the party was in favour of this matter being debated. He said:
I think it is right that we should have a debate about whether or not the burqa is appropriate in a nation that’s founded in Christianity, where womenare equal citizens and should not be viewed as second-class citizens.
What’s interesting is lots of people are trying to sort label us and say, ‘You shouldn’t have this debate, it’s naughty of you to ask’. Why shouldn’t we? If we’re a great democracy that believes in free speech, let’s have a calm and respectful debate. Most people wouldn’t be aware that seven or eight nations across Europe have already banned the burqa. So let’s have a discussion. Let’s have a debate.
Asked if he was minded to support a ban, Tice said that he was concerned about the idea the burqa was a “repressive item of clothing”.
When Anna Foster, the presenter, put it to him that she had spoken to many women who want to wear the burqa, and that banning it would take away that choice, Tice claimed that was why a debate was needed.
Asked about Yusuf’s resignation, Tice he said he had not spoken to him since the announcement but that he was “enormously sad” he had gone.
The Hamilton byelection result shows that there is strong support for progressive politics in Scotland, according to Stephen Boyd, director of IPPR Scotland, a left-of-centre thinktank. He said:
Two thirds of votes cast went to progressive parties, while a quarter voted for a party promising to shake up the political establishment.
Scottish politicians should take heart that voters want a fairer, greener future, but must also recognise the work now needed to set out a compelling and positive vision for how to get there.
This should include a much bolder agenda to address persistent concerns around the cost of living, public services, poverty and housing- issues that help explain Reform’s momentum.
Far from being a defensive contest mired in negativity, the 2026 election is a battle for the high ground.
Downing Street exploring options for ‘progressive’ UK digital IDs
As Jessica Elgot and Amelia Gentleman report, Downing Street is exploring new proposals for a digital ID card to crack down on illegal migration, rogue landlords and exploitative work, set out in a policy paper authored by a centre-left thinktank.
Steve Reed, the environment secretary, was the government voice on the media this morning and he confirmed that the government is interested in this idea. He told Times Radio:
It’s absolutely something that we are looking at, and that we should be looking at.
We know we need to look at all the actions we can take to stop the levels of illegal migration that we were seeing particularly under the last government.
We have to stop the number of people that we’ve seen who don’t have a right to come here.
Hamilton result suggests SNP on course to be largest Holyrood party after 2026 elections, but 'diminished', says John Curtice
Prof Sir John Curtice, the leading elections expert, told the BBC this morning that, although many people expected the SNP to win the byelection in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, if they had had been following the evidence closely, they would have realised it was always neck and neck. He said the SNP won the seat quite easily in 2021. But he said if you track how Labour and SNP support has changed nationally since then, and adjust the 2021 Hamilton result accordingly, you would have both parties on 31% in the constituency. He went on:
In other words, this contest always looked likely to be a very close contest. That’s what it’s proven to be.
In the end, Labour have done a little bit better than 31%, they’ve got 32%, and the SNP a little worse, 29%.
But there’s nothing in this result that suggests that Labour have turned around the reverse in the polls that they have suffered since the summer of last year. Though, equally, what is also true there is no sign in this result that the SNP are making much progress in reversing the losses that they suffered in support last year.
If you put those two things together, that means that the recent message of the opinion polls, which is the SNP are running just over 30% and Labour are running around 20% or so, that still seems to be a perfectly reasonable expectation.
And of course, such a result would not mean that Anas Sarwar (the Scottish Labour leader) was Scotland’s next first minister.
Asked about the Reform UK result, Curtice said:
It certainly means that Reform are making the political weather north of the border, as indeed they are south of the border.
This was the one bit of the result that was, to some degree, a surprise.
Reform are making progress in Scotland in the polls, as they are south of the border, but they’ve been running around 19/20%. Now in Hamilton, they’ve got 26%.
They’re certainly doing damage to the Conservatives who are down to 6%. It looks as though around one in four Conservative voters in Scotland – that is, Conservative voters as of last summer – are switching to Reform.
But, frankly, also one of the reasons why Labour’s victory is so narrow and is based on a lower share of the vote than Labour got in this constituency in 2021, and well down and what they got in the area last summer, is because Labour in Scotland are also losing more than one in six of their voters to Reform.
So the truth is Reform are damaging both the two principal unionist parties in Scotland. In this instance, not enough to save the SNP’s bacon.
But, more broadly across Scotland, there is still the likely prospect that the SNP will be the largest party in next Holyrood parliament, though probably a much diminished and much less powerful party than the one that currently occupies the Holyrood chamber.
Updated
Richard Tice says coming from 'nowhere' to being not far behind SNP 'incredible result' for Reform UK
Richard Tice, the Reform UK leader, told the Today programme this morning that his party had achieved an “incredible” result in the byelection. He said:
It’s truly remarkable. We’ve come from nowhere to being in a three-way marginal, and we’re within 750 votes of winning that byelection and just a few hundred votes of defeating the SNP, so it’s an incredible result.
Reform were actually 1,471 votes behind Labour. They were only “within 750 votes of winning” in the sense that, if they had managed to get 750 people who voted Labour to vote Reform instead, they would have come first.
Reform were also 869 votes behind the SNP – slightly more than “just a few hundred” implies.
Here are some more pictures from the byelection count at the South Lanarkshire council HQ in Hamilton last night.
John Swinney says SNP defeat in Hamilton byelection shows party has to offer 'vision of hope and optimism'
Here is an extract from the full statement John Swinney, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, issued after the byelection result was announced. He said it showed the need for the SNP to offer “a vision of hope and optimism”.
Labour won by an absolute landslide in this area less than a year ago - we came much closer tonight but the people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse have made clear that we still have work to do. Over the next few days we will take time to consider the result fully.
When I became leader of the SNP last year I made clear my intention to bring the party together and focus more than ever on standing up for the people of Scotland. During this campaign we heard a lot of anger about the cost of living - and it is clearer than ever that Westminster control is making Scotland poorer, whether that is the damage of Brexit, the hike in energy bills or the betrayal on the winter fuel payment.
Between now and May’s election, I and the SNP will set out a vision of hope and optimism. We will show people in Scotland that a better future is possible by taking decisions for ourselves - and that is how we will win in 2026.
Keir Starmer was not the only party leader to congratulate Davy Russell on his win in the Hamilton byelection. John Swinney, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, did so too in this social media post after the result was announced.
Congratulations to Davy Russell on his election as MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. @KatyLoudonSNP fought a superb @theSNP campaign. We have made progress since the election last year but not enough. We still have work to do and we will do it.
Congratulating your opponents if they win an election is a conventional courtesy in democratic politics, but it does not always happen.
Here is an analysis of the significance of the Hamilton byelection result from Severin Carrell, the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
And here is an extract.
Some voters have been visited four times by Labour canvassers and politicians: Labour MPs and MSPs flooded the constituency – in part because the UK party, from Keir Starmer downwards, knew they could not afford further humiliation at the hands of Reform.
It seemed in the final days of the campaign that Reform’s “air war” was seriously wounding Labour’s campaign: Farage revealed on Monday that a Scottish Labour councillor, a young man who had previously been chair of Glasgow University’s Labour students group, had defected to Reform. That did shock the party.
But in the event, the ground war won – to the great relief of a UK party that has just been pummelled by Reform in Runcorn and England’s recent council elections. “I think we have the better field operation and we’ve been around people’s doors,” the strategist said. “We’re hungry for the votes and people see that.”
What commentators are saying about Hamilton byelection result
Here is a round up of what some of the best commentators are saying about the Hamilton byelection result on social media.
From Rob Ford, a politics professor and elections expert, on Bluesky
Few Hamilton by-election thoughts: 1. Expectations matter - this was an area where Labour won a Westminster by-election on a massive swing less than two years ago and won in a general election less than one year ago get Labour’s victory yesterday is a massive shock given poling woes.
2. Scotland is still different - people based expectations of a 3rd place Lab finish on British polling drop but forget Labour advanced far further in Scotland than elsewhere. Labour standing still in Hamilton is actuallly consistent with Lab rise and fall in Scotland
3. The SNP haven’t rebounded - their decline over past few years hasn’t reversed, suggesting a more fragmented Scottish Parl contest coming next year
4. Reform are now a force on Scotland - 26% is easily Farage’s best ever Scottish result and while he didn’t win this time, he is still set to become a major force in Scottish politics for the first time next year
5. Scottish Tories are in deep trouble - granted, this isn’t one of the parts of Scotland where they do better but this was a dire result for them. Reform may be a more appealing option for socially conservative unionists, displacing them altogether in much of Scotland
6. Fragmentation makes things unpredictable! Only 5.5% separated first and third here. Such a narrow result could easily have broken differently and local candidates and campaigns could have made a difference.
7. This will be a massive morale boost for Labour in general & campaigns teams in particular - losing Runcorn by a tiny margin will have hurt and polling wise the picture has been uniformly grim. Pulling out a surprise win and confounding conventional wisdom will put a spring back in many steps.
From Patrick Maguire, the Times’ chief political commentator
Labour gain Hamilton. That is massive.
Squeaking through a tight three-way scrap by that sort of margin in the seat where Morgan McSweeney lives. Too on the nose.
Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, is Irish. But he is married to Imogen Walker, the MP for Hamilton and Clyde Valley.
After the Glasgow Garscadden by-election in 1978, Donald Dewar said: “This changes the whole psychological climate of Scottish politics.” Could surely say the same tonight.
See also: “Reform come third in Hamilton.” Yeah. Having come from nowhere to 26 per cent, five points behind the winner — in the central belt of Scotland! — with a single member of staff north of the border and nothing resembling Labour and the SNP’s activist base and ground game
From Ballot Box Scotland, a Scottish elections website, on Bluesky
Labour will certainly be pleased to win this one, but that’s a pretty close result; if you run these as uniform swings versus 2021, it only secures a total of 8 Labour constituency MSPs versus 51 for the SNP. As I’ve said before, this was must-win for Labour, but margin matters, and it’s not huge!
A sort of balance of caveats here as well: a 2.1% Labour majority, with 3.6% for Pro-Independence parties who won’t stand for the constituency in 2026, which will help the SNP. At the same time, don’t expect as high a Reform share outside the white heat of a by-election, which will help Labour.
Labour constituency vote on a national swing like this: 19.6% Labour constituency vote in most recent poll: 19% SNP constituency vote on a national swing like this: 30.9% SNP constituency vote in most recent poll: 33% Reform much further off but for top two, result consistent with national polls.
From Luke Tryl, director of More in Common UK and another elections expert, on Bluesky
Big result on lots of levels - just one by-election but: 1. SNP’s struggles from last years General Election clearly aren’t over 2. For Labour to gain is impressive even on a lower vote share 3. Reform just 1500 off a win shows their presence in Scotland is real.
Obviously the win is what sets the agenda however narrow (see Runcorn!) But worth noting while Labour’s vote is only just down from 2021 that was their worst ever Scottish results and their support it is down from close to 50% compared to seats covering the same areas in Westminster last year
Still winning a by election in (Westminster) govt isn’t easy and wins in by elections set the momentum
For the SNP this means more soul searching, they should have been in a position to capitalise on Labour discontentment but their vote share is similar to last year’s dreadful GE results (in overlapping seats). In our focus group people felt the SNP still hadn’t found their way post sturgeon
For Reform they have clearly built a credible base of support since the General Election in Scotland, making raw vote not just % gains. If (and it’s a real if given recent turmoil) they can hold it together they could be a formidable force in the Scottish Parliament next year
Further take away - We could be heading for a very messy election next year: on the sorts of swings we saw last night it’s not clear that you’d be able to form a stable Government at Holyrood.
From ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston
To an extent Labour’s Hamilton gain is about Reform again. On the eve of the poll, the SNP told me they saw the Reform surge and that it would knock Labour into third place. Instead Reform has taken share from the incumbent, the SNP, and deprived the SNP of the seat. Once again, Reform is a manifestation of “a curse on all your houses”
From Lewis Goodall from the News Agents podcast on Bluesky
Well that changes the entire feel of Scottish politics in the long run up to Holyrood elections next year. Labour GAIN in Hamilton. SNP still struggling. Lab down on % in general election but up on 2021. Strong Reform result. Tories absolutely nowhere and supplanted by them.
Result a good parable of politics across GB at the moment. Highly fragmented, highly multi party, with that fragmentation guaranteed to deliver unpredictable results and wind for parties on tiny margins.
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Full results from Hamilton byelection
Here, from PA Media, are the byelection results in full.
Labour gain from SNP
Davy Russell (Lab) 8,559 (31.57%, -1.99%)
Katy Loudon (SNP) 7,957 (29.35%, -16.84%)
Ross Lambie (Reform UK) 7,088 (26.15%)
Richard Nelson (C) 1,621 (5.98%, -11.47%)
Ann McGuinness (Green) 695 (2.56%)
Aisha Mir (LD) 533 (1.97%, -0.82%)
Collette Bradley (SSP) 278 (1.03%)
Andy Brady (SFP) 219 (0.81%)
Marc Wilkinson (Ind) 109 (0.40%)
Janice MacKay (UKIP) 50 (0.18%)
Lab maj 602 (2.22%)
7.42% swing SNP to Lab
Electorate 61,485; Turnout 27,109 (44.09%, -16.62%)
2021 result: SNP maj 4,582 (12.63%) – Turnout 36,284 (60.71%)
McKelvie (SNP) 16,761 (46.19%); Lennon (Lab) 12,179 (33.57%);
Gallacher (C) 6,332 (17.45%); McGeever (LD) 1,012 (2.79%)
Starmer hails Labour victory after surprise win in Hamilton byelection for Scottish parliament
Good morning. Assuming he was not still up at 1.36am, Keir Starmer woke to good news this morning – Labour winning the byelection in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse for the Scottish parliament. It has gained the seat with a 7.4% swing from the SNP.
This is a surprise. A week ago the SNP were press releasing a Norstat poll for the Times suggesting they were ahead by 33%, with Labour on 19% and Reform on 18%. And the bookies had the SNP in the lead too. Yesterday one firm had the SNP as firm favourites, followed by Reform, with odds of 11/1 available to anyone prepared to bet on Labour. Presumably someone has made some good money. For the rest of us, this is a welcome reminder that opinion polls, and bookies’ odds, are not always a sound guide to results, particularly in byelections.
Starmer was criticisised for not campaigning in Hamilton. But he did announce a big U-turn on the winter fuel payments while the campaign was taking place, and that may have helped get his candidate, Davy Russell, over the line.
This morning Starmer posted this message on social media.
Congratulations to @DavyRussell4HLS and the team on a fantastic victory. 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.
A win is a win, and this is good news for Labour. But, as the leading psephologist John Curtice has been telling the BBC this morning, the Reform UK vote is significant too. They came from nowhere to a strong third place, with 26% of the vote. The Conservatives, on 6%, only just avoided losing their deposit.
Here is our overnight story by Libby Brooks, Rachel Keenan and Severin Carrell
I will be posting more reaction to the result, and analysis, shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
11am: Kemi Badenoch gives a speech where she will say she is “increasingly of the view” that the UK should withdraw from European convention on human rights.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
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