Starmer: Labour ‘blew the doors off’ byelection
Starmer continues.
“When I left here a week ago with the team I said you’ve go to win it – you blew the doors off!”
He congratulates Shanks.
Scottish voters “turned their back” on the Tory government but also “not so long ago saw a Labour party that drifted away from them”.
“We’ve changed and because we’ve changed we are now the party of the change here in Scotland, we’re the party of change in Britain, the party of change right across the whole country.”
Key events
Polling expert John Curtice said if the results of the byelection were extrapolated across the whole of Scotland, the SNP would be left with six seats in Westminster.
Speaking to BBC News, Curtice said: “If you take the results of the byelection and extrapolate across the whole of Scotland, you’ve got about a half a dozen SNP seats still, which means the SNP would be back down to the level they had in 2010.”
In 2019, the party won 48 seats in Westminster. Labour won one.
Labour conference will be ‘policy rich’ says party’s campaign coordinator
Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, has said the party’s upcoming conference will be “policy rich”.
Speaking to GB News, he said: “We go into our conference in a confident frame of mind, but also, we know the scale of the challenge after the last election. We’ve changed the Labour party. It’s a very different force from the one that was offered to the electorate a few years ago. Keir Starmer has driven that change. Now the project is to lay out in front of the country the kind of policies that Labour would put in place were we to win the next election.
“The next step in doing that is our conference which starts this weekend in Liverpool. So you’ll see a policy rich conference and one that will make clear that as the country wants change, the only people who can deliver that change are the Labour party.”
McFadden’s comments come after New Labour figures who powered the party to victory in 1997 warned against Keir Starmer’s cautious approach, which they said could damage his chances of winning the next election.
Libby Brooks
The superlatives are flowing at Scottish Labour’s victory rally in Rutherglen this morning.
The newly elected MP Michael Shanks describes his win as “a historic result” while Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, describes it as “historic”: “We have changed the face of Scottish politics.”
Congratulating Shanks, UK leader, Keir Starmer, who travelled up to the constituency overnight, said: “They said we’d never beat the SNP in Scotland and we did it … you blew the doors off!”
Interesting to hear Shanks and Sarwar hammering home their message that this result proves Scotland is the route to Downing Street. Given the resources poured into this single byelection campaign they’ll be calling for more before a general election.
Starmer says this is the “first step” of an important journey for “all of us” across the UK.
He says Labour will lay out their “positive case for change” at the Labour conference in Liverpool this weekend.
“Why Labour? Because we’’ve changed, we’re hungry for power and ready to serve across Scotland and the United Kingdom.”
Starmer now sets his sights on the SNP.
“This isn’t about just a few months of turmoil in the SNP – this is about years and years of non-delivery. And that is why we are the party of change.”
Starmer turns to the Tory party conference in Manchester.
“What a circus,” he says.
Starmer criticises “nodding dog” Sunak for passing through decisions he is now claiming are failures, Tory MPs mingling with Nigel Farage and cabinet ministers jostling for the job of PM because they know Sunak “is not up to it”.
“We are the party of change,” he says.
Starmer: Labour ‘blew the doors off’ byelection
Starmer continues.
“When I left here a week ago with the team I said you’ve go to win it – you blew the doors off!”
He congratulates Shanks.
Scottish voters “turned their back” on the Tory government but also “not so long ago saw a Labour party that drifted away from them”.
“We’ve changed and because we’ve changed we are now the party of the change here in Scotland, we’re the party of change in Britain, the party of change right across the whole country.”
Keir Starmer is speaking in Rutherglen.
“They said we couldn’t change the Labour party – and we did it.
“They said we couldn’t win in the south of England and the north of England – and we did it.
They said you couldn’t beat the SNP in Scotland – and Rutherglen you did it.”
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the party will continue working hard to earn the trust of Scottish voters.
Speaking at a victory rally in Rutherglen before introducing Keir Starmer, he said: “That hard work doesn’t stop now that we’ve won this byelection, that hard work ramps up because we are very clear. The we will have to work to earn your trust, earn your support.”
Keir Starmer had arrived in Rutherglen for a victory rally. Scottish Labour’s Ian Murray is welcoming him.
Our Scotland correspondent Libby Brooks is on the ground and will be bringing us the latest.
Here is a graph from our visuals team showing the difference between the 2019 vote in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and the results from last night.
The Scottish Conservatives lost their deposit in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection after securing less than 5% of the vote.
Thomas Kerr, the Scottish Conservative candidate, won 3.9% of the vote, below the 5% needed to retain his deposit. In 2019, the party won 15% of the vote.
Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster told BBC Breakfast: “We have a big challenge on our hands” after the party’s loss in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said voters in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West have “sent a clear message, it is time for change”.
Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, Starmer said: “Congratulations, [Michael Shanks], Labour’s new MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West. This is a seismic result.”
Congratulations, @mgshanks, Labour’s new MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West.
This is a seismic result. Voters have sent a clear message: it is time for change.
Labour will deliver. https://t.co/ijp6sjipBp
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) October 6, 2023
Severin Carrell
Our Scotland editor, Severin Carrell, has done an analysis of what this result means for the SNP and UK politics.
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, had used the word “earthquake” last week to foreshadow Labour’s remarkable victory in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, where its 30% winning margin exceeded even its predictions.
He did it cheekily, stealing one of the favourite lines often used by the former Scottish National party leader Alex Salmond when the nationalists were crushing Labour at repeated elections in the past. That theft of Salmond’s phrase has additional resonance. It points to a change in Scottish political alignments that spells danger for the SNP and its current leader, Humza Yousaf.
Labour won with a crushing 58.6% vote share by shifting itself rightwards, moving much closer to the political centre in Scotland. That positioning was key to Salmond’s victories in the run-up to 2014, when he won and held power by freezing council taxes and small business rates Scotland-wide.
This time, Labour ran its campaign attacking the SNP for allowing councils to raise council tax rates, for a planned congestion charge mooted by SNP councillors to enter neighbouring Glasgow (ignoring the implicit rejection of Labour’s support for London’s congestion charge), and for suggestions income tax might go up again.
Labour celebrates ‘seismic’ byelection victory
Libby Brooks
Scottish Labour’s Michael Shanks has won the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection in an overwhelming victory over the SNP that the party leadership declared “seismic”, and a clear demonstration that Scotland could lead the way in delivering a Labour government at Westminster at the coming general election.
In a result that exceeded Scottish Labour expectation, Shanks beat his closest rival, the SNP’s Katy Loudon, by 17,845 votes to 8,399 – a majority of 9,446 and a resounding swing of more than 20%.
The result marked a “seismic night in Scotland”, and proved that “Scottish politics has fundamentally changed”, said the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar. Voters were sending “a very clear message that they are sick of two tired, failing, incompetent governments”, he added.
Labour crushes SNP in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection
Good morning, I’m Sammy Gecsoyler and I’ll be here to keep you updated on today’s political developments.
Overnight, Labour has won a “seismic victory over the SNP in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection.
Labour’s Michael Shanks beat his closest rival, the SNP’s Katy Loudon, by 17,845 votes to 8,399 – a majority of 9,446 and a resounding swing of more than 20%.
The result marked a “seismic night in Scotland”, and proved that “Scottish politics has fundamentally changed”, said the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar.
