Scottish Labour is celebrating an “incredible” win in a pivotal Holyrood byelection, beating the incumbent Scottish National party and fighting off Reform UK’s “racist” campaigning, in a result that confounded predictions and will boost the party ahead of next year’s Scottish parliamentary elections.
Voters in the central Scotland seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse rallied around the popular local candidate, Davy Russell, after a toxic campaign during which Nigel Farage launched an unprecedented series of personal attacks on the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, that were labelled racist by Sarwar and the SNP leader and first minister, John Swinney.
