Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar has hailed his party’s shock victory in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-elections, saying the results sent a “clear message” from the Scottish people, who he says are “sick of the SNP” and “reject the poison of Farage”. Scottish Labour stunned the SNP to win the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election by just 602 votes, whilst Reform UK beat the Conservatives into third place, just 800 votes shy of the SNP in second. Report by Faragt. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Well, this is an incredible result, and Hamilton, Larcol and Stonehouse has now led the way in helping to elect a Scottish Labour government next year.
00:08And the overwhelming message here is clear. People are sick of this SNP government.
00:12They want them removed from office, and they recognise the 18 years of failure.
00:16They've also rejected the poison of Nigel Farage, but they've also said, and I think it's important to be straight about this,
00:21they also want a UK Labour government to go further and faster in demonstrably improving their lives.
00:26That's the message that people have sent. But next year now, it's a clear choice.
00:31In the election next year, it's not about reform. It's not about Nigel Farage. It's not about protesting about something else.
00:36It's a straight choice. A third decade of the SNP with John Swinney as First Minister, or a new direction for Scotland with me as First Minister.
00:43Well, I think there's a few different factors that made up the reform vote.
00:46One is there was always quite a sizable Tory vote in this constituency that has now transferred en masse to reform.
00:53Secondly, there were people who were expressing a frustration as a protest against perhaps both governments that supported reform.
01:00And third, some people will have fallen for the frankly ludicrous campaign suggestions and campaign of John Swinney
01:06that tried to talk up reform and actually push voters into the arms of reform by pretending that somehow only reform and the SNP could win the seat.
01:13And I think that has utterly failed. And it says something actually about someone that's been in power for 18 years that he couldn't stand on his record,
01:21he couldn't stand on a positive offer for our country, and instead the entire campaign boiled down to vote SNP to stop Farage.
01:29Well, next year, the choice is simple. Do we keep the SNP or do we stop SNP waste, stop SNP incompetence, and stop SNP failure?
01:36And the only way of doing that is by electing a Scottish Labour government.