Nadia Ragozhina
Live reporter

It’s been a busy day in politics as Labour politicians from Holyrood to Westminster celebrated the results of the by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West.

While Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf says the by-election was a "disappointing night for the SNP", Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer attended a victory rally in Rutherglen.

He told the cheering crowds that the upcoming party conference in Liverpool was an opportunity to put “their positive case for change” to voters.

Ahead of the start of the conference on Sunday 8 October, Starmer will be on this weekend's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, presented by Victoria Derbyshire.

We’ll have live coverage of that, as well as the party conference in Liverpool, so don’t forget to check in.

That's it from us on this page today. You can read the full story of what happened in Rutherglen and Hamilton West here and our Scotland editor James Cook's analysis of what it means for Labour here.

Image source, PA Media

The BBC’s political correspondent Nick Eardley and producer Natalie Higgins have recorded a short podcast from Rutherglen today - looking at the local issues that may have swayed voters, and what this means for Labour's chances in a general election.

Listen to 5 Questions On... What Labour's by-election win means for the UK by clicking here.

Brendan Hughes
BBC News NI political reporter

Yesterday, Sir Keir Starmer said a referendum on one part of the UK leaving the union was "not even on the horizon".

The Labour leader was referring to a vote on Irish unification - but Scotland was probably also on his mind. He previously said he would campaign for Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK if such a referendum was held.

His comments could be an attempt to ease the fears of unionists in Northern Ireland that its place in the United Kingdom is receding.

But because Labour does not stand election candidates in Northern Ireland, such remarks have no bearing on the polls there.

Instead, his comments will be viewed as being aimed at least in part at voters in Scotland.

In the wake of the 2014 independence referendum, Labour lost out as the Scottish Conservatives stole a march as the primary voice of pro-Union voters.

Labour strategists will be hoping their leader's latest Irish unity comments may help win back further support as the party eyes up gains in Scotland in a general election. Meanwhile, the SNP's Humza Yousaf today said his party's task is to be "clearer" on their independence message.

Stephen Flynn, SNP’s leader at Westminster, has denied that party leader Humza Yousaf’s position was fragile after the by-election result.

“I don't think that the First Minister is in any trouble whatsoever. He’s had a lot to deal with internally, and I think the public are very well aware of that – I think he’s done a remarkably good job in that regard,” Flynn told BBC Radio Scotland.

Ahead of the party’s annual conference, which is due to begin in Aberdeen on 15 October, Flynn also called for party unity.

“We win as a collective and we lose as a collective, and we need to come together now and reflect upon what’s happened and make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

Image source, Jessica Taylor/PA

Several Scottish Conservative politicians have been reacting to Labour's by-election victory on social media site X.

Andrew Bowie, MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, says, external people across the political divide are "fed up with the SNP and our vote went to the one best placed to stop them".

He ends his post by saying that the Tories are "best placed" to stop the SNP.

Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for the Highlands and Islands, says , externalthe party's candidate, Thomas Kerr, "should be very proud", before adding that "folk want rid of the SNP and will vote for who’ll deliver that in their seat".

Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, says, external he has "huge respect" for anyone who puts themselves forward in an election, "particularly in tough controversial circumstances as by-elections often are".

Huw Merriman, a minister at the Department for Transport, said on Times Radio that Labour’s victory in Rutherglen and Hamilton West was part of a “natural” backlash to the SNP administration.

As we've just mentioned, voters in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are now required to show ID at the general election.

The Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election is the first time that photo ID has been required at Scottish elections. England put the new rules into practice in May, when it held local elections.

If you don't have a valid ID, which is estimated to be the case for two million people, you can sign up for a Voter Authority Certificate, external.

In Northern Ireland, this has been the case since 2003 but now it is UK-wide.

The government says this would "tackle electoral fraud" and give voters "confidence that their vote is theirs, and theirs alone".

You can read more here.

Conor Campbell, 26, voted for the SNP but said he was not surprised that they lost to Labour.

"It's to be expected after the recent issues with the party. It's going to lose a lot of support so we just need to deal with it," he said.

"I think a lot of people lost faith a little bit in the party. Especially trying to push a second referendum, that's kind of in the past we need to focus on what's now."

He said the party should focus more on tackling issues surrounding young people, homelessness and domestic violence if it wants to win back voters.

Edith Hutchinson is a life-long Labour voter and thinks this result signals the party is set for a comeback.

"I think when the general election comes up in a bit they will get in as well," she said.

"The vote was a bit slow because people had to give photographic ID and a lot of people hadn't got that."

This is the first time voter ID has been required in a Scottish election after it was introduced in the English Local Elections last May.

Francesca Gillett
Live reporter

It's now been just over 12 hours since the seismic by-election result came through - and we're still getting reaction coming in.

To recap, modern studies teacher Michael Shanks was elected as the new MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West. Labour took the seat from the SNP in a larger than expected swing.

Our political correspondents have described it as a thunderbolt victory which has transformed the political weather in Scotland - giving Labour confidence that they could have a resurgence there in a general election. But the party does have a vast amount of ground to make up.

In the last hour, SNP First Minister Humza Yousaf has spoken to journalists, saying the party will reflect and bounce back stronger, also emphasising that there were local, contextual factors in this result.

The Scottish Tories have also responded - saying the result, which saw their vote share collapse, was "expected" as this was a two-horse race between Labour and the SNP - but in other Scottish seats the Tories are the main rival for the dominant SNP.

Alex Salmond, former SNP leader says that Humza Yousaf has "days to save his first ministership" after being defeated in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election.

Salmond has been critical of the SNP since he left in 2021, and said that the result is something the SNP has been asking for.

Salmond said: "The SNP fought an incompetent campaign in an unnecessary by-election and were comprehensively dropped by Labour.

"I see that Humza says it's disappointing, well I don't think that quite gets the enormity of what he's facing."

Salmond said that Humza inherited an "appalling legacy" from Nicola Sturgeon, but added that he is "making things much worse" and has "fallen on his face in spectacular fashion".

Labour not getting carried away - but a recovery in Scotland is now believablepublished at 14:00 British Summer Time 6 October 2023

14:00 BST 6 October 2023

Glenn Campbell
BBC Scotland Political Editor

Over the past couple of years, Labour has become confident of making a significant political recovery in Scotland at the next UK general election.

It was not uncommon to hear senior figures in the party speculate about the potential to increase their number of Scottish seats at Westminster from one to maybe a dozen or more.

Their spectacular win in Rutherglen and Hamilton West has given them a massive boost and emboldened them to recalculate.

They are not getting carried away with the analysis that suggests if this by-election result was replicated across Scotland, they would return more than 40 MPs.

They know that this is a by-election with a low turnout and a particular set of local circumstances and that a national vote could produce a different outcome.

However, they are now sufficiently confident in their own recovery for the party’s deputy leader in Scotland, Jackie Baillie, to predict that Labour could win a majority of the 57 Westminster seats up for grabs in Scotland.

The problem for the SNP is that while there are no guarantees this forecast will prove accurate, it is now believable in a way that it would not have been even yesterday - and that means the nationalists will have to work even harder to maintain their dominant position in Scottish politics.

More now from Humza Yousaf, who says SNP voters did not turn out to vote in this by-election - and admits that the party lost the trust of voters in the Rutherglen seat.

"The SNP has had a tough night, I've had a tough night," he says. "We've had adversity in the past, even in recent times."

But he says the large swing seen in the by-election does not mean it will extrapolate in a general election.

"We have to talk about what independence means to people in their everyday lives," he says, adding that the party's message needs to be "crisper and clearer".

Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf says the by-election was a "disappointing night for the SNP".

The "reckless actions" of former MP Margaret Ferrier and the police investigations into SNP finances played a part in the poor result, the SNP leader admits.

But he says the party will reflect, re-group and re-organise and bounce back stronger.

"The buck does absolutely stop me, but I think everybody knows this particular by-election had some very difficult contextual factors around it," he says.

Sir John Curtice, who you've heard from earlier on this page, has been talking about predictions for the general election and what the by-election signifies.

The professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde said the 20% swing to Labour, if repeated in the general election, could allow the party to "recapture" seats in the north and make it easier for the party to "get an overall majority".

Curtice also told the BBC's Today programme that he was surprised by the result. He added: "If you look at recent opinion polls across Scotland, they were pointing to an 11-point swing from SNP to Labour."

Labour needs to win back some of the 40 seats it lost in Scotland in 2015 to the SNPs to be likely to get in front of the Conservatives in 2024.

Image source, EPA

The UK government's Scottish Secretary Alister Jack has said the result of the by-election shows the constituency of Rutherglen and Hamilton West is a "two-horse race" between Labour and the SNP.

"It was entirely focused on to those two parties because that's historically where the seat has been.

"We have to be realistic. There are parts of the central belt which have always been a battle between Labour and the SNP."

Speaking to the PA News agency, he said all the parties - except the SNP and Labour - lost their deposits, not just the Tories. Losing a deposit is when a candidate fails to win 5% of the vote share and must forfeit their £500 deposit to stand.

He said he was very confident that the Conservatives will increase their seats before the general election.

He said that the Tories "stand up strongest for the union" and that the SNP's defeat shows voters are "fed up with a lack of delivery from the Scottish Government and their obsession with independence".

The chairman of the Scottish Conservatives, Craig Hoy, has denied that the result is "compelling evidence of a significant Labour revival".

Hoy - who is an MSP - added: “The result was what we expected. We knew that our vote would be squeezed, as the third party in a contest between Labour and the SNP."

Hoy said Rutherglen and Hamilton West is not representative of the whole of Scotland.

He said there are "swathes of seats across the country- such as in Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, the North East and South of Scotland" where only the Scottish Conservatives can beat the SNP and "get the focus back onto Scotland’s real priorities.”

Douglas Macdonald from Rutherglen told BBC Scotland News he voted tactically in the by-election to get the SNP out.

The 81-year-old, who has volunteered with the Salvation Army for more than 70 years, said: "I am most definitely happy that there was a big change in the by-election. I wanted rid of the SNP because of their reputation here in Rutherglen."

But turnout for the vote was 37.19%, a dramatic fall from the 66.5% recorded at the last general election.

Kieran Paterson - one of the more than 51,000 constituents who chose not to cast their vote - said: ""Realistically none of this is ever going to affect me."

The 26-year-old security worker has voted in the past but said it has been quite a while - and if politicians want to see him at the polling station they would need to tackle crime in the local area.

From Westminster to Holyrood, the topic on everyone's lips is the next general election.

The question is, when is there going to be one?

The short answer is we don't yet know for sure.

Under current rules, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak must call a general election by January 2025, as they have to be held no more than five years apart.

Around Parliament, speculation about an election in either the spring or autumn of next year is rife, but the government have not said anything yet to confirm or indicate this officially.

If a PM wants an early election they need to make a request to the King to dissolve Parliament - the official term for closing Parliament in order to hold an election.

Once an election is called, polling day is expected to take place 25 working days later.

• Read more here

Hannah Miller
Political correspondent

Image source, PA

The deputy leader of Scottish Labour says the party can win a majority of the seats in Scotland at the next general election.

Jackie Baillie tells BBC News her party will "work every seat as hard as we've worked Rutherglen and Hamilton West".

Describing Rutherglen and Hamilton West as a "weathervane seat" - meaning the result indicates overall voting trends across the country - Bailey says she believes Labour can push the SNP "into second if not third place".

Image source, Reuters

And if you've enjoyed last night's by-election drama, there is more to come.

In just a few weeks, on 19 October, attention will turn to two seats currently held by the Conservatives.

In Mid-Bedfordshire, the parties will battle it out over the former seat of Johnson ally Nadine Dorries, who quit in dramatic fashion in August, launching a blistering attack on Rishi Sunak. And in Tamworth, it’s the seat of Chris Pincher that’s up for grabs.