SNP byelection defeat prompts soul-searching across the party

SNP leader Humza Yousaf and candidate Katy Loudon outside the polling station at St Charles primary school, Cambuslang, during the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

Not even the most sanguine of SNP stalwarts anticipated a win in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, but the scale of the defeat in the long-awaited byelection – “skelped”, as one prominent MP puts it – was bracing.

It is prompting soul-searching across the party and an immediate pushback on leader Humza Yousaf’s plan to put independence front and centre during the next general election.