British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party easily won a by-election in Glasgow on Thursday, in what is likely to be the embattled leader’s last test at the ballot box before the general election.
Labour comfortably defeated the Scottish National Party, winning almost three times as many votes, to hold its stronghold of Glasgow North East in Scotland’s biggest city, official poll results showed.
“Tonight the people have had their say and they backed Gordon Brown and his efforts to secure our economic recovery,” Labour candidate Willie Bain said. “People in my community have spoken not just for the constituency but for the country. The message for the general election is clear, game on.”
Labour had been widely expected to win the seat, which was made vacant by the resignation of Michael Martin, the parliamentary speaker, over his handling of a lawmakers’ expenses scandal that rocked British politics this year.
The win, however, will still come as a relief for Brown, who is struggling to revive miserable poll ratings and avoid a widely-forecast defeat to the opposition Conservatives in the general election due by next June.
Labour secured 12,231 votes or 59.39 percent of the vote in the seat, which the party has held for 74 years. The Scottish National Party (SNP), which forms a minority government in the devolved Scottish Parliament, won 4,120 votes or 20 percent.
The far-right British National Party was beaten into fourth place with 1,013 votes or 4.92 percent behind the Conservatives.
Brown has broken with prime ministerial tradition and campaigned in Glasgow North East — which adjoins Glasgow East, snatched from Labour by the SNP in a stunning by-election victory last year.
Former sheet metal worker Martin, 64, held the seat for 20 years from 1979.
Among the 13 candidates were two former BBC journalists, a blind former reality TV show contestant and John Smeaton, who famously roughed up a fleeing terror suspect during the 2007 Glasgow Airport attacks.
Voter turnout was low at 33 percent.
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