Swinney declares SNP victory as Labour records worst ever Holyrood result

John Swinney declared the SNP had “emphatically” won the Scottish Parliament election as Labour recorded its worst ever result at Holyrood and finished tied for second with Reform UK, which broke through with 17 seats.

The SNP secured 58 seats, seven short of the 65 needed for an overall majority and down from the 64 it won in 2021. The party finished comfortably ahead of a fractured opposition, with Labour and Reform each on 17 seats. The Scottish Greens returned a record 15 MSPs, the Conservatives slumped to 12 from 31 at the last election, and the Liberal Democrats increased their tally to 10.

Swinney said the result gave him a mandate to be returned as first minister and called on the UK government to show “greater respect” to Scotland after Labour was “hammered” at the ballot box.

“My message to Downing Street tonight is very, very clear. They have got a lot of listening to do to the fact that Labour have been hammered here in Scotland and an SNP government, after 19 years in office, has just been emphatically returned to office,” Swinney said, according to Press Association reporting.

The SNP has now governed Scotland for 19 consecutive years, but falling short of a majority means Swinney will need support from other parties to pass legislation and win the vote to be reinstalled as first minister. The pro-independence bloc at Holyrood stands at 73 seats, with the SNP and Greens combined holding a majority in the 129-seat parliament.

Labour’s collapse

Scottish Labour finished with 17 seats, down from the 22 it won under Anas Sarwar in 2021, the party’s worst performance since devolution in 1999. The result came hours after Labour lost control of councils across England and faced the end of 27 years of rule in Wales.

Sarwar conceded defeat after only seven seats had been declared, telling reporters his party was “hurting” but indicating he would not step down.

“We advocate for change, we did not win that argument, but it is my job to hold us together and that is a job I intend to do,” Sarwar said.

Jackie Baillie, the Scottish Labour deputy leader, held her Dumbarton seat, which she has represented since 1999. She said voters’ perceptions had been “coloured” by the performance of the UK Labour government under Sir Keir Starmer.

Reform breaks through

Reform UK, led in Scotland by the former Conservative peer Malcolm Offord, won 17 seats, all via the regional list system. The party had held only one seat before the election after a single MSP defected to it in the last parliament.

Offord said he had aimed for more than 20 MSPs but that the result would provide “a really good group to establish a base inside Holyrood.” He told BBC Scotland News his party would be “challengers and scrutineers” of the Scottish government and would focus on “the schools, the roads, the day-to-day matters that Holyrood needs to be focused on.”

The party came within 364 votes of winning the Banffshire and Buchan Coast constituency, where the SNP’s Karen Adam held on.

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay, whose party dropped to fourth place, said Reform had helped the SNP “sneak home in several constituencies they would otherwise have lost.”

“We warned repeatedly during the campaign that Reform were a gift to the SNP, and so it has proved,” Findlay said.

Greens make history

The Scottish Greens won their first constituency seats, with former co-leader Lorna Slater defeating the SNP’s campaign director, Angus Robertson, in Edinburgh Central. The party also won Glasgow Southside, the former seat of Nicola Sturgeon, and returned a further 13 MSPs on the regional list.

Green co-leader Ross Greer called it a “historic day,” while his counterpart Gillian Mackay said the “seismic result” would “change our politics and change Scotland.”

Robertson, who had served as constitution, external affairs and culture secretary, said boundary changes had been a “significant contributory factor” in his defeat but added: “At the end of the day what matters most is who gets the most votes, and that was not me.”

What happens next

Swinney is expected to be formally returned as first minister when Holyrood convenes. The SNP’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, and fellow MP Stephen Gethins both won seats at Holyrood and are expected to swap London for Edinburgh.

The SNP also captured the Shetland constituency from the Liberal Democrats, who had held it since the first Holyrood elections in 1999, and won Eastwood outside Glasgow from the Conservatives.

Swinney is expected to govern as a minority first minister, relying on issue-by-issue support from the Greens or other parties to pass legislation. The 73 pro-independence seats give him a working buffer on confidence motions, but the absence of a formal coalition leaves the government exposed on individual votes.

Swinney had framed an outright majority as a mandate to press for a second independence referendum. Without a majority, a second referendum remains off the table.