SNP regain seat in bad night for Labour
Margaret Ferrier has regained the Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency as the SNP completed a clean sweep in South Lanarkshire.
As one of the most tightly-contested seats in 2017, a five per cent swing from Labour to the SNP on Thursday saw Ms Ferrier – who was the MP for two years from 2015 – returned with a majority of 5230.
Loud cheers filled the John Wright Sports Centre in East Kilbride as the first constituency in Scotland was declared at 1.25am on Friday, December 13.
After her win, Ms Ferrier thanked her Labour predecessor Ged Killen for representing the constituency at Westminster.
She said: “We disagree on what Scotland’s future should be but, on behalf of the constituency, thank you for being our voice for the last two years.
“It is to the future we must now turn, as the newly reelected voice I am honoured and humbled to have been trusted once again by the people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West.
“To those of you who didn’t vote for me tonight, without hesitation, I will try and speak for you too. Your concerns and fears are shared by those of us who seek an independent future.”
Ged Killen said his party’s leadership issues had an impact on the result.
He told the Reformer : “My vote actually held up quite well but the SNP benefitted from the increase in turnout.
“There were a lot of issues at play in this election that are not typical, Brexit being one of them and independence being another.
“On those constitutional issues, Labour is squeezed and I don’t think that we’ve had necessarily clear leadership which has meant we have fallen through the middle. “Our party leadership at a UK level has had an impact on this result, we are seeing that up and down the UK. People just didn’t believe what we were putting forward and didn’t trust Jeremy Corbyn to deliver it.”
Conservative candidate Lynne Nailon came third as the Tory vote fell by 4.6 per cent, while the Lib Dem candidate Mark McGeever saw his party’s vote increase by less than one per cent.
Mr McGeever added: “It’s not the result we expected but I want to thank everyone who did turn out and vote for us. We do appreciate all the support we have received.
“Looking forward, we are very worried about the future of our country and very worried about what Boris Johnson with a right wing Tory government and a huge majority is going to do.”
Turn to P20 for Ms Ferrier’s first column for the Reformer.