It’s only one by-election of course and the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election was a most unusual one. It was caused by the sitting SNP MP, Margaret Ferrier, being ousted from her seat in a recall ballot following her suspension from Westminster for breaching lockdown rules during the pandemic. Of course we were going to lose, say the SNP. Our people stayed at home. Support for independence remains as high as ever.
True. But no amount of spin can counter the scale of this defeat and the crushing blow to Humza Yousaf’s already battered credibility as SNP leader and First Minister. The Rutherglen result confirms the run of opinion polls showing that Labour is back in contention and that the SNP’s decade-long hegemony is over.
Humza Yousaf is living on borrowed time only six months after he took over from Nicola Sturgeon
If the 20 per cent swing in Rutherglen were replicated at next year’s general election, Labour would win back all of the 40 seats it lost to the nationalists in the 2015 post-referendum ‘tsunami’ general election.
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