By Andrew MacAskill
LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won a surprise victory in a fiercely fought by-election for the Scottish parliament on Friday after one of the most bitter election campaigns in the country’s recent history.
In an election when race became a major issue, Labour won the seat from the Scottish National Party in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse following the death of a former government minister.
The result provides some relief for Starmer, whose party has suffered a steep fall in support since it won a landslide in a British general election last year after it raised taxes, cut welfare benefits and got into a row over the use of donations.
Voters rallied around Labour in the closely watched contest after Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, repeatedly referred to the ethnicity of the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who is of Pakistani heritage, drawing criticism from the other parties.
The Labour candidate Davy Russell won 8,559 votes in the election for the Scottish parliament, which has devolved powers over issues like health and education. The SNP won 7,957 votes, and Reform finished third with 7,088 votes.
The betting odds had predicted a comfortable victory for the SNP with Labour pushed into third place behind Reform.
Russell told his supporters that his victory had “sent a message to Farage and his mob, the poison of Reform isn’t us, it isn’t Scotland and we don’t want your division here”.
But a recent surge in support for Reform suggests the party is making inroads in Scotland as well as in England, a year before the Scottish parliament elections are held next year.
The support for Reform in Scotland is particularly surprising because the party’s brand of low tax, anti-immigration, anti-EU politics, has often been more associated with English nationalism.
Farage visited Scotland on Monday, days after a row over an online video put out by his party that falsely claimed Sarwar had said he would “prioritise” the Pakistani community.
Labour branded the advert “blatantly racist” and the SNP leader John Swinney urged voters to reject Reform’s “gutter politics”. Farage responded by accusing Sarwar of introducing sectarianism into Scottish politics.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, editing by Elizabeth Piper and Michael Perry)
