Former Better Together chief claims SNP seat for Labour

FORMER Better Together chief Blair McDougall has claimed a seat from the SNP – as the party struggles across central Scotland.

McDougall took East Renfrewshire for Labour, ousting the SNP’s Kirsten Oswald.

He was the chief strategist to the Unionist campaign during the 2014 referendum.

The seat was central to the SNP storming to electoral dominance in 2015, when they turfed out former Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy.

READ MORE: SNP figures react to 'stark' exit poll result leaving party with just 10 seats

Elsewhere, Mhairi Black’s old seat has fallen to Labour as a top Unionist was elected to Parliament.

(Image: Archive)

Labour’s Johanna Baxter (above), a Unison official and former director of anti-independence group Scotland in Union, has claimed the Paisley and Renfrewshire South seat from the SNP.

READ MORE: Labour win first Scottish seat of General Election as SNP vote share collapses

In 2015, this seat was also symbolic of Labour’s routing by the SNP as Black unseated former Cabinet minister Douglas Alexander (below).

She became the youngest MP since 1832 and was re-elected twice until she announced she was stepping down at this election.

READ MORE: General Election exit poll predicts Labour landslide as SNP win just 10 seats

Alexander was declared the winner in his new seat of East Lothian, which had previously been held by Alba’s Kenny MacAskill.

Baxter won 19,583 votes to the SNP candidate Jacqueline Cameron’s 13,056.

The SNP have so far lost seats to Labour in West Dunbartonshire and Kilmarnock and Loudoun.