The Labour Party could win 42 seats in Scotland if the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election was replicated at a general election, a polling expert has said.
Prof John Curtice told the BBC that, while the SNP could be on course to take just six seats, Labour has a momentum comparable with the run-up to the party’s 1997 landslide. “That potentially has implications for the overall outcome in the general election because if that were to happen, they would find it easier to get an overall majority.”
Labour’s candidate Michael Shanks ended up winning 17,845 votes in the by-election, out of a total of 30,531 cast, while the margin of a 20 per cent victory was twice what pundits had predicted. Out of an electorate of 82,104, some 37.19 per cent turned out to cast a vote.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer hailed the “seismic result” for the party.
The contest was triggered by the ousting of former SNP Margaret Ferrier, who was found to have broken Covid rules when she travelled between Glasgow and London after testing positive for the virus during lockdown in 2020.