Bowls, bus shelters and race rows: Why Hamilton by-election will shape the fate of Scottish Labour and Reform

Labour is braced for a humbling defeat in a by-election that could have been the launchpad to a historic victory next year.

Hamilton is no stranger to being the epicentre of Scottish politics.

The South Lanarkshire town kick-started the SNP’s launch into the mainstream when Winnie Ewing won a landmark by-election in 1967 that gave the party its platform to speak to the Scottish people - one it has not let go of almost 60 years on.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar | Jane Barlow/PA Wire

Despite that dramatic SNP win, the seat and the town has been a Labour stronghold.

The Holyrood seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, which is up for grabs this week, has belonged to the SNP’s Christina McKelvie since it was created in 2011 until her sad and untimely death in March - a constituency the former Scottish minister never looked like relinquishing.

READ MORE: Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election: What you need to know

Two years ago, the Rutherglen and Hamilton West Westminster by-election was won by Labour’s Michael Shanks, setting the mood for Sir Keir Starmer’s thumping general election victory last year.

But as the town once again becomes the beating heart of Scottish politics, Labour appears poised to fall short of what would have been a launchpad to remove John Swinney from office next year. Instead, the party looks set to be heading in reverse.

Labour’s missed chance

Labour chiefs have kept their chins up amid the impending doom. Party leader Anas Sarwar has repeatedly stressed this week that Scottish Labour can win the seat.

“Everyone knows Davy”, one activist insisted - lapping praise on Labour’s candidate Davy Russell.

Anas Sarwar with Labour candidate Davy Russell for the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election on the campaign trail. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) | Getty Images

Mr Russell, who has faced accusations of dodging the media during the campaign after an apparent refusal to take part in an STV debate, is a well-kent face through, it is argued, South Lanarkshire’s bowls club culture. Mr Russell himself is a member of Quarter Bowling Club.

“It’s cheap pints and good chat”, one bowls fanatic said. “But it’s how people round here socialise.”

A lacklustre campaign

Mr Russell has insisted he is a “well-known figure”. But then so is his SNP rival Katy Loudon, who stood unsuccessfully against Mr Shanks in the 2023 Westminster by-election. She appears poised to now enter Holyrood.

Anas Sarwar and Davy Russell at a go-karting centre | Scottish Labour

Labour’s campaign has had hiccups - the optics have been less than perfect. Mr Sarwar announced a press call at a go-karting track, only party bosses were anxious about him risking a car-crash - so there was no tyre-screeching action for the Scottish Labour leader, only metaphors about the party going nowhere.

An excruciating radio interview by Mr Sarwar earlier this week was compounded by the Scottish Labour leader referring to Mr Russell as Davy Hamilton.

READ MORE: Anas Sarwar losing Holyrood election could spark Labour rebellion to oust Keir Starmer

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner joined the campaign trail on Thursday. But her fleeting visit was eclipsed by Gaza protesters who forced a last-minute location change alongside her repeated refusal to address whether the UK government will end the controversial two-child benefit cap.

Angela Rayner on the campaign for Labour in Hamilton | Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

Anyone who has met Mr Sarwar will know he is an eternal optimist. It is clear that despite the doom and gloom surrounding his chances of winning next year’s Holyrood election that at one point looked like an inevitability, and Labour being able to claim victory in this week’s by-election, he is still all smiles.

Labour has insisted Mr Russell is a “great candidate”, but questions will be raised about a likeable character not taking part in the TV debate or organised hustings.

Hamilton is one of the biggest towns in Scotland, but large parts experience higher than average levels of poverty and deprivation. According to the 2022 census, more than 30 per cent of 16 to 74-year-olds in Hamilton are economically inactive.

Larkhall, another key part of the constituency, was once dubbed Scotland’s most sectarian town after its strong links to Glasgow’s blue football team led to a ridiculous uproar by a minority against the colour green. The sandwich chain Subway bent to public pressure and painted its shop front grey instead of green and it wasn’t alone.

But the town has shaken that image. And while parts of the community remain draped in Union Jacks, other than metal grills protecting green traffic lights from vandals who went through a spate of smashing the Celtic-supporting illuminations, the town is no longer the cartoon version of itself it once was.

READ MORE: Anas Sarwar brands Nigel Farage a “tedious, pathetic little man" as racism row intensifies

There has been no local polling for the constituency, so experts are relying on national polls, focus groups and the mood on the ground. But all signs point to the SNP winning the seat. What is less clear, however, is who will come in second place.

Nigel Farage’s circus

Despite boasts from Reform UK the party can win the seat, it is incredibly unlikely that Nigel Farage’s party can topple the SNP in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse.

But Reform could realistically finish as runners-up ahead of Labour in what would be a humiliating blow to Mr Sarwar’s already-diminishing chances of winning next year’s Holyrood election.

The by-election campaign has somewhat been overshadowed by Mr Farage cultivating a stooshie over videos targeting the Scottish Labour leader that have led to accusations of “race baiting”. As politicians across the UK are finding out, these controversies, and this won’t be the last, play straight into the hands of Reform. No amount of racism squabbles appear to be putting people off voting for Mr Farage’s party.

Reform insiders insist the party can win the seat, but coming second would in many ways be seen as a victory as Mr Farage pushes on with his strategy of being a complete and utter irritant to Labour.

This week, Mr Farage is expected to stride into the constituency himself - and it is likely to be a complete storm.

Reform UK, leader Nigel Farage

The candidate Reform have selected for the seat, one of two Tory defectors the party’s deputy leader Richard Tice got into a twist over after forgetting their names earlier this year, is regarded as a strong hopeful to have on the ballot.

Ross Lambie, a South Lanarkshire councillor and an architect, is seen as, what one SNP insider described, “the polished face of Nigel Farage”, and a candidate “more attractive to voters than your typical Brexiteer”.

Despite the SNP being odds-on favourites to retain the seat, the First Minister is leaving nothing to chance.

Mr Swinney was flanked by eight of his government ministers, including Health Secretary Neil Gray and Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan, still on maternity leave, as he arrived in Hamilton by train and spoke to journalists under a bus shelter caked in bird muck on Monday. Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon was also launched back into frontline politics on the campaign trail as the SNP, although not panicked, is taking nothing for granted.

Mr Swinney used that visit to Hamilton, his second in the space of a week, to warn the SNP were embroiled in a “three-way contest” with Labour and Reform. It was a clever move that will likely aid Mr Swinney’s party’s ambition to get out the vote and make sure supporters venture out to polling stations on Thursday.

SNP favourite to retain seat

Despite the fearmongering from the First Minister, polling expert Mark Diffley, founder of the Diffley Partnership, has stressed the SNP will go into Thursday’s poll as clear favourites.

READ MORE: Poll reveals Scottish seats Reform would win while Labour decimated by SNP

Speaking to The Scotsman, Mr Diffley said: “What the national polling is telling us is that Reform won’t win - it’s telling us that the SNP will win or at least start as favourites to win.

“They are now significantly ahead in the national polling - at around 35 or 36 per cent, on average. Labour are polling at about 20 per cent on average, Reform at 15 per cent.”

Mr Diffley said that there was “enough evidence to be quite confident that the SNP will win”, but who finishes second is less certain.

The polling expert pointed to “a huge amount of dissatisfaction” from voters, particularly with the Labour UK government with decisions including cutting winter fuel payments having “not gone down well at all”.

“That’s not to say that the SNP is a particularly loved or popular government at the moment”, Mr Diffley said. “But national polling suggests that it has made somewhat of a recovery from last year while Labour’s vote share has plummeted.”

If, as is expected, Labour fail to win the by-election, the fallout could be incredibly humbling for Mr Sarwar and his dwindling hopes of becoming the next first minister of Scotland.

Mr Diffley said: “The whole position of the parties in the last nine months has shifted in an incredibly fluid and quite dramatic way. If this by-election was this time last year, then Labour would have been odds on to win it. But a year on, they are odds on to lose it.

John Swinney and SNP candidate for the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election Katy Loudon. Photo by John Devlin | National World

“We’re in this position where the SNP at a national level has lost about one in four of its voters from the 2021 Holyrood election. But because the anti-SNP or pro-union vote is now diluted even further because there’s yet another party sharing that vote, it makes the SNP’s task much easier - both in terms of Hamilton and the big one next year.”

He added: “The polls tell us the majority of the lost Labour vote is going to the SNP, in some cases back to the SNP and off to Reform in the other direction.

“The key challenge for Labour is how do you bring back people who have drifted off into entirely opposite directions?”

Labour going in reverse

On a national level, Mr Diffley warned that Labour is “back to where it started” in 2021 in terms of public support”.

“The risk is it makes absolutely no progress whatsoever over the last five years and looks about as far away as ever from forming a government next year”, he said.

If Reform do manage to tip Labour and take second place, Mr Diffley starkly cautioned it would send a warning shot to Scottish politics about how out of love voters are with the mainstream parties.

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He said: “It would send a message that the level and the depth of the disillusion at the moment amongst the electorate is such that a party that is new on the scene, has no particular heritage or history in Scotland, is openly saying we’ve got no policies at the moment, has no leader in Scotland, has no ground gain as far as I can tell, is still able to do well in a by-election.

“That would be the message - that it’s a signifier of how p***** off people are at the moment.”