When Holly Bruce takes to the stage for the results of the Glasgow Southside count, she’s focused on one thing: her breathing. She’s doing her best to maintain an outward appearance of calm, hands clasped behind her back, but she’s visibly slowing her breath as she awaits the news on whether she’s off to Holyrood.
She’s got good reason to be nervous. The Scottish Greens have never stood a constituency candidate in this seat. Before today, they’ve never sent a constituency MSP to parliament either. At the last election, in 2021, Nicola Sturgeon won with a 60% vote share and over 9,000 votes more than Labour leader, Anas Sarwar. Taking up the SNP mantle today is Sturgeon continuity candidate Kaukab Stewart — the person Bruce has to beat.
Turns out though, Bruce doesn’t have much to worry about. When the votes are announced, she takes the seat with over 14,000 votes to Stewart’s sub-11,000. While the votes are announced, she mouths “okay” for each one, trying to stay composed and hold back the tears, avoiding the eyes of her colleagues so she can hold it together. All the while, she’s now safe in the knowledge 14,000 is more than enough to take the seat. It’s a seismic win, and confirms what the party has been not-so-quietly saying for weeks: the momentum for the Greens on the doorstep has been in their favour. As the election day grew closer, the party became increasingly confident they’d make history in Glasgow.
It’s just as well too, when Bruce arrived with fellow candidate Iris Duane this morning, the pair were met with rapturous applause and great fanfare, telling the press they were “buzzing” to win their first constituency seats (plural): bucking the BBC’s predictions they’d win but a single one.
In the capital, Lorna Slater set the tone with her Edinburgh Central victory (scalping SNP bigwig Angus Robertson in the process), but when it came to Duane’s contest later in the afternoon, she lost Kelvin and Maryhill to sort-of SNP incumbent Bob Doris by some 2,000 votes. For a moment, it seemed like the Greens may have counted their chickens before they’d hatched. Bruce’s win restarts the Greens’ party, and raises hopes they may win two regional seats to boot.
Calum Grewar
As Bruce joins the swarm of green on the floor, they celebrate her win with whoops, cheers and tears. “Incredible, ecstatic … no words,” one staffer says. Her dad, when asked if he’s proud, nods his head and blinks a few times to rid the moisture from his eyes. “Four thousand votes clear!” he exclaims, made up for his daughter. Zen Ghani, the new SNP MSP for Cathcart and Pollok, comes over to congratulate her and the pair share a big hug. “I’m your MSP now, so if you need anything, I’m here,” she jokes to Ghani, who lives in her Southside fiefdom.
We grab Bruce for a quick chat just as Reform councillor and MSP-hopeful Thomas Kerr walks past. “We did it Thomas,” she jokes cattily, referencing a video Kerr released about “living with the consequences” of voting for her.
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