'VERY POOR'
John Swinney says there will be SNP ‘soul-searching’ after crushing election night for Nats as Labour sweep to victory
The First Minister has reflected on a bruising night for his party
THE SNP's result at the General Election has been "very poor", John Swinney has said.
The First Minister was visibly frustrated as he absorbed the fallout of his party's dismal performance at the polls.
3
3
3
The SNP supremo admitted that him and his colleagues will have to do a lot of "soul searching".
The Nats have lost a raft of seats as Labour has swept to victory across Scotland.
Speaking to BBC Scotland from the count in Perth, Mr Swinney said: "It's a very poor result for the SNP tonight.
"There will have to be a lot of soul searching as a party as a consequence of these results that have come in tonight."
Read more Politics stories
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said he is "confident" his party will win a majority in Scotland.
Speaking as he arrived at the Glasgow count, Mr Sarwar said the push for change will begin today.
It comes as his party beat the SNP in the early results in Scotland, with substantial swings to Labour.
He said: "I'm confident we're going to win this election in Scotland and I'm confident we'll have a majority in Scotland."
Most read in The Scottish Sun
Among those winners was former minister Douglas Alexander, who will return to Westminster for the first time since losing his previous seat in 2015 to SNP student candidate Mhairi Black.
Labour has been successful in a number of seats, including Kilmarnock and Loudon, West Dunbartonshire, Paisley and Renfrewshire South and East Kilbride and Strathaven, each with substantial swings between the two parties.
Graphic shows election results as they come in, with updated map and seat totals
The seismic results come as the BBC/ITV/Sky exit poll predicted a 170-seat majority for Labour across the UK, with the SNP dropping to just 10 seats, and a party source suggested it could lose all three of its seats in Edinburgh.
Lillian Jones picked up 19,065 votes to take Kilmarnock and Loudon from the SNP's Alan Brown, who had held the seat since 2015.
Just minutes later, Labour won the West Dunbartonshire seat from the SNP, unseating Martin Docherty-Hughes - with Douglas McAllister taking 19,312 votes.
While Johanna Baxter won 19,583 to defeat the SNP in the seat vacated by former deputy Westminster leader Mhairi Black.
Elsewhere, the SNP's Westminster leader Stephen Flynn was re-elected in Aberdeen South and Kirsty Blackman retained her Aberdeen North seat.
Meanwhile, former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon - reacting to the exit poll being released - said: "This is not a good night for the SNP on these numbers.
"I think there will be a question about whether there was enough in the campaign to give out, effectively, a USP to the SNP in an election that was about getting the Tories out and replacing them with Labour."
Read more on the Scottish Sun
Speaking on ITV, she added: "This is at the grimmer end of the expectations for the SNP if the exit poll is right and, from what I've said earlier on, I expect it will be.
"This is seismic for Labour. There's no getting away from that, it's a massive achievement for Keir Starmer."