LABOUR has been all but wiped out in Scotland after a disastrous election result for the party north of the border.

Shadow Scottish secretary Lesley Laird was among six Labour casualties, with Ian Murray in Edinburgh South now the party’s sole representative in Westminster.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard was in North Lanarkshire during the election count, where Labour had hoped to win as many as three seats.

Speaking following the result, Mr Leonard said: “These are deeply disappointing results.”

“More than that I am sorry for all those kids in all those families who are going to live for another five years in poverty when we had a chance in this election to make a real difference to people’s lives.

“I think there is no doubt we said we wanted to get through the din of Brexit and the constitutional issue in Scotland and I just don’t think we were able to do that sufficiently and effectively enough.”

Mr Leonard said his party is “going to need to have a look at what we said about Brexit, what we said about the whole constitutional question in Scotland.”

He added: “I don’t think it is so simple as to say if only we had an absolutely cast-iron message, that would have made all of the difference.

“Because parties that have stood in this election with what people described as clear, cast-iron, absolutist positions have also been swept aside by the SNP juggernaut.”

Many Labour politicians have said they were “squeezed by two kinds of nationalism” in Scotland and across Britain.

Matt Kerr, who was contesting Glasgow South West constituency, said a concentration on constitutional questions from other parties muddied the waters of class politics.

Mr Kerr added: “I’m disappointed for the people who are going to wake up to a Tory government that will continue to make the poor poorer and the rich richer — it is devastating.

“Labour are about class politics. Unfortunately, right now nationalism is in the ascendancy. That is not ground that people with class-based politics feel comfortable on.

“Our challenge is to build class politics from the ground up, and that will take time. It will take community work, political education and chapping doors.

“We are in this for the long-haul. They don’t call it the struggle for nothing.”