Fife election: MSP returns to politics, Tory leader holds on

She won one of the four seats in the Dunfermline South ward, polling 1505 first preference votes to finish second overall behind James Calder who held his seat for the Lib Dems.

But the result was another setback for the Tories who saw their sitting councillor, David J. Ross, defeated – their second loss of the day so far, with fears there may be more to come.

Instead the ward returned two SNP candidates – Naz Anis-Miah who polled 1292 and Lynn Wardlaw who took 1316.

The ousted Mr Ross saw his vote slumped to 825.

Ms Hilton said: “It is clear the Tories have been rejected right across Fife.”

She said Boris Johnson, Prime Minister, should “do the decent thing” and resign after assessing the scale of losses across the UK.

She added: “People have voted for candidates who will stand up for them in their communities.”

In Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay, David Dempsey, leader of the Tory Group on Fife Council, held his seat, but the party lost one of its two ward councillors to the SNP as arah Neal ousted David Coleman.

Patrick Browne also clinched one of the seats for Labour.

Cllr Dempsey said: “We are two down from where we were, but 2017 was an exceptional result for us.”

He was quickly followed back to the council chamber by Darren Watt, Tory councillor in Cowdenbeath who held on with 1256 votes.

The SNP gained a seat with the election of Bailey-Lee Robb (513) – a former member of the Scottish Youth Parliament – while Labour’s Alex Campbell (2028) was returned along with the SNP’s Alie Bain (1916)