Batley and Spen: Labour hold seat in by-election

[T_i_B]

I guess that right wing "culture wars" gibberish isn't the vote winner that the British media think it is.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57691543

Labour's Kim Leadbeater has narrowly won the Batley and Spen by-election following a bitter campaign. After defeating her Conservative rival by just 323 votes, she said constituents had "rejected division" and "voted for hope".

It means she will now represent the seat previously held by her sister Jo Cox, who was murdered there in 2016.

The result will ease pressure on Labour leader Keir Starmer after recent election defeats for his party. Sir Keir welcomed the "fantastic result", adding that Ms Leadbeater "ran a positive campaign of hope, in the face of division".

The campaign in West Yorkshire was marred by acrimony, personal abuse and allegations of dirty tricks.

[Soph0571]

1. Indeed

Here's hoping. A good result

[abqtommy]

2. I agree. But it's still sobering that the results were so close.

[Soph0571]

4. The nasty that is Galloway has a lot to do with that

But in the end the people of Batley went for decency over division. Hopefully it will be the start of a trend.

[T_i_B]

5. Tories managed to pull defeat from the jaws of victory

The trend in Yorkshire has been very much against Labour for a while and many thought this was exactly the sort of "red wall" seat that the Tories have been having great success with recently.

Why? Well I think I've spotted a few reasons

1) Too much emphasis from the right on "culture wars" bollocks, which is irrelevant at best to most voters
2) George Galloway - He might have hoped to split the Labour vote but did far more to split the anti Labour vote. Plus the antics of him and his supporters will if anything have driven more people back to Labour
3) The effect of Matt Hancock and Tory sleaze will have been to drive off some potential Tory voters

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. The campaign seems to have been more about Galloway acting as a spoiler

From the BBC article: "The Conservatives fought a relatively low-key campaign, with Mr Stephenson saying he was focused on talking to voters about "the issues that matter here".

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/02/labour-candidate-kim-leadbeater-wins-batley-and-spen-byelection

"Galloway’s campaign focused on winning the support of disillusioned Labour voters, promising that a vote for him would result in Starmer being ousted as leader."

[Emrys]

6. Galloway tried the same sort of tactics in the last Holyrood elections, trying to unseat the SNP.

After much blustering noise, obnoxiousness and similar revolting culture war nonsense, his uber-unionist party's showing was abysmal and had no detectable effect on the results.

Maybe one day he'll take the hint, but I guess carpetbagging grifters gonna grift.

[LeftishBrit]

7. Excellent news

Especially as both the Tories and the media seemed to assume that the seat was going Tory.

George Galloway is truly vile, though.