Top UK pollster Professor Sir John Curtice has revealed the “classic mistake” made by Scottish Labour, following their “narrow” by-election victory in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse.
Taking the top spot with 8,539 votes, Scottish Labour secured the win against the SNP and Reform UK candidates, who came in second and third place.
Analysing the results on GB News, Curtice claimed that the win was “narrow” for Scottish Labour, and was “actually achieved on a lower share of the vote”.
Delivering his verdict on Reform taking third place, Curtice said it is “still an unexpectedly good result”.
Top UK pollster Professor Sir John Curtice has exposed the ‘classic mistake’ by Scottish Labour following their ‘narrow’ by-election win
PA
Delivering his verdict on GB News, Curtice explained: “The honest truth is that none of the parties have managed to fulfil their maximum ambitions.
“It’s certainly clear that the nationalists are still struggling to recover their support from the fair drubbing they received north of the border in last summer’s UK general election.
“Equally, however, Labour’s win, which was narrow and was actually achieved on a lower share of the vote than Reform got in the constituency in 2021, when they were clearly defeated, just a couple of points down.
“Labour’s performance is also consistent with the polls which at the moment, which suggest that Labour’s vote is down to about just a fifth of the vote in Scotland.”
Outlining Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s chances of becoming First Minister as a result of the victory, Curtice added that they are still a “long way behind” from securing that win.
He said: “If you compare what they achieved in the by-election yesterday of 32 per cent of the vote with what the party was getting locally in the Westminster election, 50 per cent, you can see that Labour is a long way behind.
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Scottish Labour’s Davy Russell secured victory over the SNP and Reform UK with more than 8,000 votes
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“And yes, Labour will undoubtedly get a bit of a morale boost from this, but the truth is if Anas Sarwar is going to be the next First Minister, Labour would have to win this seat by a much bigger margin if they were going to convince us that they were doing well enough that they could actually displace the SNP as the largest party at Holyrood.”
Sharing his insight on Reform’s third place result, Curtice claimed that Farage benefited from Anas Sarwar’s efforts to “attack” the Reform leader ahead of the election.
Curtice told GB News: “As far as Reform is concerned, it is an unexpectedly good result for the party, given that they’re running at the moment at just under 20 per cent or so in the Scotland wide polls.
“Certainly it looks to me that the attempt by Labour and the SNP jointly to attack some of Nigel Farage’s social media adverts, particularly suggesting that Anas Sarwar was trying to promote the interests of the South Asian community in Scotland, that didn’t necessarily do Reform that much harm.”
Curtice told GB News that the ‘attacks’ on Reform did ‘no harm’ to their campaign in Scotland
GB News
Highlighting the “classic mistake” executed by the parties, Curtice continued: “I think they made the classic mistake in politics of giving good publicity, at least from Reform’s point of view, to the campaign of your opponents, and that’s often a mistake that parties make.
“But that said, Reform are probably still going to be dependent on getting seats primarily through the regional list elements of the Scottish Parliament election, but that could still mean that they end up as the second largest party at Holyrood.”
Reacting to his party’s win, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar told GB News that there is a “clear message” from the voters, urging them to “not listen to the nonsense of Reform”.
He said: “The only way of getting rid of the SNP is by supporting Scottish Labour next year in the Scottish Parliament. Do not listen to the noise or the nonsense from Reform.”
