Scottish Parliament election 2016 constituency result: Rutherglen

BROWN, Robert (Scottish Liberal Democrats)

HAUGHEY, Clare (Scottish National Party)

KELLY, James (Scottish Labour)

MUIR, Taylor (Scottish Conservatives)

• ELECTED: Clare Haughey, Scottish National Party

The SNP has secured its first victory of the 2016 Holyrood election, with the party ousting Labour’s James Kelly in Rutherglen.

The result, the second of the night to be declared, saw Clare Haughey elected as the new MSP for the area - which Labour had held since the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999.

Ms Haughey polled 15,222 votes, comfortably ahead of Mr Kelly on 11,479.

It came after the Liberal Democrats held the Orkney seat, with Liam McArthur returned as the MSP for the island constituency.

The result from Rutherglen came amid speculation that Labour could lose all its constituency seats in Glasgow.

The party suffered an electoral wipeout in the city in the 2015 general election, when the SNP took all of the seats.

Amid signs that the party could suffer a similar fate in the Holyrood poll, SNP depute leader Stewart Hosie said: “The early indications here in Glasgow are that we are doing very, very well indeed.”

He added: “Now, some of the Labour majorities in seats around the country are quite substantial and it will be a challenge to overcome them.

“But we’ve put the shift in, we’ve done the work, I think the manifesto was bold and ambitious, so we now need to wait until the declarations are made.”

Ms Haughey told BBC Scotland that her success in the Rutherglen seat came after a “lot of hard work across the constituency”.

The new MSP said: “We’ve been very positive in our campaign and people like to hear a positive message.”

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