Starmer’s unpopularity was insurmountable for Scottish Labour – and a boon for Reform

Long before the final votes were counted in Scotland, veteran Labour politicians said it was a defeat made in Downing Street.

When the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, strode into the Glasgow count arena on Friday afternoon flanked by sombre-faced activists, the scene was a mirror image to the same venue in 2024, when his resurgent party won 36 seats from the Scottish National party, playing a significant part in Keir Starmer’s landslide victory.

Two years later, Starmer’s unpopularity proved an insurmountable obstacle for Sarwar, despite record donations to Scottish Labour and a formidable electoral machine, honed over the past five years. And with only a handful of constituencies declared, he decided to concede defeat before the real scale of Labour losses across the country was known.

More than 12 hours later, when the final regional results were declared after 1am, it was clear that Holyrood politics had been upended. Scottish Labour had tied in second place behind the SNP with Reform UK, the party that previously attacked Sarwar’s loyalty to Scotland in a racist ad. And a party that the SNP leader, John Swinney, has described as an acute threat to devolution.

While, unlike Westminster, Holyrood has no “official” opposition, the second-placed party leads first minister’s questions every week. A tie has not happened before, but the assumption is that Scottish Labour and Reform UK will take turns.

The newly elected SNP MSP Ivan McKee thanked voters in his Glasgow constituency “for rejecting those that seek to divide our communities”, but despite making fewer inroads than some polls had predicted, Reform picked up 17 seats on the regional list allocations. It failed, however, to make any breakthroughs on the constituency vote, with its Scottish leader, Malcolm Offord, trailing in third place in his native Inverclyde.

In fourth place, the buoyant Scottish Greens secured what its co-leader Gillian Mackay described as a “seismic” result, gaining MSPs in every area of the country.

Scottish Green co-leaders Gillian MacKay and Ross Greer at their campaign launch in April. Photograph: Rachel Keenan/PA

Thanks to a successful strategy of standing candidates in only a few potentially winnable constituencies and funnelling support on to the regional list vote, they harnessed a Green surge that was the result not just of the Zack Polanski bounce south of the border, but progressive dissatisfaction with both Scottish Labour and the SNP, especially over the war in Gaza.

For the SNP, it was a muted victory, its support plunging across the country to result in its lowest constituency vote share, at 38.3%, since 2007, and much slimmer majorities for incumbents. There were losses to the Liberal Democrats, and a surprise defeat by Labour in Na h-Eileanan an Iar (the Western Isles), against the background of local fury at Scottish government failures to deal with an ongoing ferries crisis.

While voter anger at the SNP government’s public service failures was evident on the campaign trail, at the ballot box it benefited from the fracturing of the pro-union vote.

Craig Hoy, the Scottish Conservatives chair, who held the seat of Dumfriesshire – one of three southern seats the party won despite dire polling – said Reform had allowed the SNP to win many of its constituency seats by splitting the anti-independence vote.

“John Swinney really should’ve been up for a pasting tonight, and Reform let him off the hook,” he said.

The result is a Holyrood chamber with a very different character. At the helm of Reform is Offord, a billionaire financier and former Tory peer with no experience of leading a party in parliament, whose MSPs, as second-place tie, will take key roles in Holyrood committees. These MSPs include Senga Beresford, who has stated support for Tommy Robinson and the deportation of Muslims, and Amanda Lindsay, who was accused of using an antisemitic trope.

The new Scottish Greens groups includes Iris Duane, the parliament’s first trans woman member, Q Manivannan, a non-binary Tamil immigrant, and Kate Nevins, who was berated as “dangerously naive” by opponents when she called for the abolition of prisons.

One-third of SNP MSPs stood down at the end of the last term, including trusted veterans and women sick of juggling political commitments and family responsibilities, but today saw their new cohort boosted by experienced players from Westminster, including the current Commons leader Stephen Flynn, who is known to have leadership aspirations, as well as respected figures such as Alison Thewliss, Kirsten Oswald and Stephen Gethins.

In the coming days more will be known about how the parties will work together. Although a pro-independence majority exists between the SNP and the Scottish Greens, Swinney is highly unlikely to seek a formal coalition after the disastrous governing partnership that brought down his predecessor, Humza Yousaf.

This had been the most unpredictable Scottish election for more than a decade, with a record number of undecided voters, and one defined by public apathy and frustration. No party put forward the big ideas needed to fix Scotland’s most pressing problems, be that its looming budget black hole or the depopulation crisis. This was reflected in a turnout of 53.1%, 10 points down on 2021, and surely demanding every new MSP’s attention on how to re-engage half the Scottish public.