West Lothian is the first council in Scotland to have a councillor elected on the Reform UK ticket.

David McLennan won the Whitburn and Blackburn ward by-election with 1,177 votes, beating the SNP by 149 votes.

Callum Cox was the only other candidate to poll more than 1,000 votes in the by-election, bringing the Nationalists 1,028 votes.

The total number of valid votes cast was 3,675. Mr McLennan was elected at stage 8 of the count.

Labour trailed a distant third, with Samuel McCulloch polling 627 votes. The Conservatives’ Reece Sinnott took 129 votes putting the party in fourth place behind an Independent run from Tom Lynch, who polled 484.

The turnout was 22.2% (3,719 votes from a total electorate of 16,764). This is a higher percentage turnout than last year’s by-election in the s

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