THE Scottish National Party (SNP) has regained the Ochil and South Perthshire seat from the Conservatives.

John Nicolson beat the incumbent Luke Graham with 26,882 votes to 22,384, and was duly elected member of parliament (MP) for the area in the early hours of Friday, December 13.

Mr Graham had held the seat for two years, after winning by more than 3,000 votes in the 2017 General Election.

In his victory speech, Mr Nicolson claimed he would fight for the constituency, and Scotland as a whole, during his time at Westminster.

He said: “I was intrigued at the message that the Scottish Conservatives kept running throughout this campaign, which was: ‘give Nicola a message.’

“Well you know what, Scotland’s given a message to Nicola tonight, and the message is quite clear.

“We do not trust Boris Johnson; we do not believe in his sham promises over getting a Brexit deal done – perhaps the most vacuous political slogan of modern times.

“And they’re tired of the Scottish Conservative party, which, when told to ‘jump’ by Downing Street, has only one question: ‘how high?’

“They want MPs who will go down to Westminster and stand up for Scotland.

“I have only one intention when I go down to Westminster, and that is to fight for this constituency, and to fight for Scotland every single day.

“Because Boris Johnson, he’s ghastly enough now, can you imagine what he’s going to be like with this huge majority?

“We will be fighting him every day and resisting his plans, because Scotland deserves better.”

After his speech, the Advertiser asked Mr Nicolson what Clacks residents could expect from him during his forthcoming term in office.

He said: “I hope they’ll find me to be a very hard-working MP.

“I’ve pledged I’ll be in the constituency every weekend.

“A very important part of an MP’s work is constituency work, because you’re the last port of call for people who really need help.”

The exit poll produced by BBC News, ITV News and Sky News, forecast the SNP taking 55 of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats.

It was reported early today (Friday, December 13) that SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon will use that predicted Scottish majority to demand another Independence Referendum.

However, that is expected to be strongly resisted by Conservative leader Boris Johnson, whose party was predicted to take 368 seats in the Commons.

That figure, if correct, would be well above the 326 seats needed in order to command a majority in Westminster.

Results were still coming in across the country at the time of this writing.