Reform has passed the litmus test. But what comes next? Inside the by-election result no one expected

Labour’s victory came as a shock to nearly everyone - with the exception of Scottish Labour, according to leader Anas Sarwar.

Throughout the campaign, Labour framed their candidate, Davy Russell, as being so well known in the community he was running to represent that he didn’t need to bend to the same levels of media interaction as the competition.

Many wrote him off entirely when he turned down the opportunity to debate SNP and Reform candidates on STV, enforced by the SNP’s unbroken hold on the seat since 2011.

So often did Labour paint Russell as a local champion that it began to sound like political spin from a weakened position

In the end, they were right: Labour took the win with 600 votes more than the SNP, albeit a mere 2.3 per cent difference in vote share.

Towards the beginning of the campaign, the spotlight shifted to Reform, Labour and the SNP, and there it remained.

The other seven candidates in the running - including Scottish Conservative and Liberal Democrat runners - were largely out of sight and out of mind.

It was a scrappy campaign with a heavy weight on contributions from John Swinney, Anas Sarwar, and Nigel Farage locked in a constant power struggle to upend the narrative in their favour.

Social media videos and newspaper front pages steered discussions on the street, but both the SNP and Labour leaders chalking up the race to a showdown with Reform likely helped Nigel Farage’s candidate, Ross Lambie, as much as Reform’s own campaign.

Reform only received 58 votes in the 2021 election result for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse but the mobilisation of Reform north of the border resulted in more than a quarter of the votes turning turquoise: a substantial show of support that ensures John Swinney and Anas Sarwar can no longer write off Reform as a sideshow whose appeal can be contained in England.

Scottish by-elections are run for constituency seats only, but with proportional representation and list seats to account for in a national vote, Reform has proven they’ve made sufficient gains in Scotland to contest for regional seats, should they be unsuccessful in constituency counts.

With the possibility of Reform’s first Holyrood seat on the line, Richard Tice was a common fixture at Ross Lambie’s side on the campaign trail, joined by Nigel Farage in the final week to signal the party’s commitment to throw everything at next year’s Scottish election.

Reform sought validation in Hamilton and was rewarded with a close-run three-horse race.

The SNP will be sorely disappointed on two fronts: losing a seat held by Christina McKelvie for three election cycles; and Katy Loudon being the face of losing two by-elections in two years to Labour, following Michael Shanks’ election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West late in October 2023.

Labour’s newest addition to the Holyrood benches, Davy Russell, will have less than ten months to make his mark before campaigning begins for Holyrood 2026, but following Friday’s shock by-election result, you can expect Anas Sarwar to capitalise on his party’s bounce.

With renewed gusto, expect Labour to apply fresh pressure on the SNP henceforth to defeat the nationalist vote and prevent them from winning a fifth consecutive term in government.