European election: UKIP on course for Scots MEP seat
(about 3 hours later)
Scotland's political parties are awaiting the results of elections to the European Parliament.
UKIP is on course to win its first seat in Scotland in the 2014 European election, which has seen the SNP win the most votes.
Voting took place on Thursday but results will not be announced until after polls close in other European Union member states at 22:00 BST.
Scotland's party of power is expected to win two of the six MEP seats, with two for Labour and one for the Conservatives.
There are six MEP seats in Scotland up for grabs, out of 73 across the UK.
The full Scottish result will be known at noon on Monday, as the Western Isles does not count votes on a Sunday.
The last European election, in 2009, saw the SNP win the largest share of the vote in Scotland for the first time, beating Labour into second place.
Scottish voter turnout in the election was 33.5%.
However, the full Scottish result will not be known until noon on Monday, as the Western Isles declines to count its votes on a Sunday.
A win for UKIP would mean Liberal Democrats losing the one Scottish MEP seat the party previously had.
The last Euro election, which came after the SNP's 2007 Scottish Parliament election win, saw the party take 29.1% of the vote - a 10 point increase from the 2004 election - ahead of Labour's 20.8%. The Tories took 16.8% and the Lib Dems, 11.5%.
David Coburn, UKIP's lead candidate in Scotland, said the result showed his party had appeal beyond England.
The result saw the SNP and Labour return two MEPs each, with one each for the Tories and Liberal Democrats.
He claimed, ahead of the 18 September Scottish independence referendum, the SNP had peaked and were now on the slide.
In the 2014 election, where Scottish voter turnout was 34%, the Scottish Greens are hoping to capitalise on what they predicted would be a falling Liberal Democrat vote north of the border, to win their first MEP seat.
Earlier, Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Alex Salmond said a UKIP win in Scotland, in fourth place, would still be a "world of difference" when compared to the party's performance in other parts of the UK.
UKIP has also been campaigning in Scotland.
The SNP came first on the night, with 386,193 votes, with Labour coming second, on 346,377 votes.
Ahead of the independence referendum, on 18 September, the SNP said a vote for the party was "a vote for Scotland", while Labour said it was the party of influence in Brussels.
In third place was the Conservatives, with 230,569 votes, followed by UKIP on 139,687.
The Conservatives have backed EU reform, while the Liberal Democrats said they were making a positive case for Britain in the EU.
The Scottish Greens hailed their "best ever result", after winning 107,805 votes, while the Liberal Democrats got a total of 95,076 votes.
The European Parliament's powers have expanded since the last election, and the 751 MEPs now negotiate legislation with national government ministers, before parliament votes on the laws.
They also have a say on budget areas, including agriculture and regional aid.
European Parliament seats are allocated in proportion to each country's population.
Britain is one of eight countries to use a "closed list" system where people vote for a party, rather than an individual, with seats allocated within each European constituency using the D'hondt system, a form of proportional representation.
The new intake of MEPs will be representing 500 million citizens in 28 states.
