The former SNP MPs now heading for the Scottish Parliament

Scotland’s new MSPs are being elected – but many of them are no strangers to parliamentary politics.

A raft of those now set to enter Holyrood do so after time at Westminster, and most have come in on an SNP ticket.

Amongst them are Stephen Flynn, the party’s Westminster leader, and frontbencher Stephen Gethins – both serving MPs who will now have to resign their Commons seats, triggering local byelections.

Flynn won victory in Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine, with his seat announced hours after colleague Gethins won in Dundee City East.

Heather Anderson, who won in Dundee City West, is a former MEP – a position she held for just four days, having been successful in the European election that was held shortly before Brexit took effect. She then served as a councillor in the Scottish Borders before joining Dundee City Council, winning the Coldside ward in 2022.

Kirsten Oswald’s victory in Eastwood saw the SNP take the seat from the Conservatives.

Oswald was her party’s deputy Westminster leader from 2020-2022, one of two terms during which she was MP for East Renfrewshire, which includes Eastwood in its bounds.

She lost her seat in 2024, as did colleague Alyn Smith, who today won in Stirling.

The victory will make Smith part of a vanishingly small club of politicians who have served in the European, UK and Scottish parliaments and see him following in the footsteps of party pioneer Winnie Ewing.

And there are more.

Alan Brown, who lost Kilmarnock and Loudon to Labour’s Lillian Jones in 2024, has now been elected as MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley.

David Linden, who was the party’s social justice spokesperson under Stephen Flynn, defeated Reform UK’s Thomas Kerr to secure SNP victory in Glasgow Baillieston and Shettleston.

Across the city in Glasgow Central, Alison Thewliss – who once employed Linden as a constituency staffer when she represented the area at Westminster – won more than 15,000 votes to become the new MSP. The total is triple that achieved by second-placed Labour.

Thewliss ran against Flynn for leadership of the SNP Westminster group after the resignation of Ian Blackford.

Patricia Gibson, ex-MP for North Ayrshire and Arran, is now the MSP for Cunninghame South, where she will count husband Kenneth Gibson as her political next-door-neighbour.

He has been MSP for Cunninghame North since 2007 and last term was the convenor of the parliament’s forensic Finance and Public Administration Committee.

Elsewhere, Martyn Day, once MP for Linlithgow and East Falkirk, has been elected as MSP for a Holyrood constituency with the very similar name of Falkirk East and Linlithgow. His vote share near 39 per cent this time, putting him comfortably ahead of Labour, which ended as the runner-up with 24 per cent.

And in Midlothian South, Tweeddale, and Lauderdale, Calum Kerr clinched victory. He spent two years as MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk and now takes on a Holyrood seat which was long held by Christine Grahame, who has now retired.