Batley and Spen By-Election

 

Labour have held onto the Batley and Spen constituency by their fingernails. This was after a bitter and vitriolic campaign in which the police had to be called numerous times. The Labour candidate, Kim Leadbeater, beat the Tory challenger, Ryan Stephenson, by just 323 votes. This seat has been a very symbolic one since the assassination of Jo Cox MP in 2016, although there's a question mark over what really happened there, see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2016/12/programme-214-podcast-trial-of-thomas.html. (I also strongly recommend this investigative documentary by Richard D Hall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxXcYsC8aIM) Kim Leadbeater is Jo Cox' sister and the resulting sympathy vote probably helped her defy the polls, along with the fact that she is a local candidate in an election inundated with parachutists. The most obtrusive of these is George Galloway. One of the reasons the pollsters predicted a Conservative win was because the charismatic veteran independent is popular with Asians, people who would normally vote Labour. The Tories planned to break through that split and seize the seat. It almost worked. Galloway and his Workers' Party came third with 8,264 votes. It is possible he took some Tory votes as well because of the Brexit situation and the recent sleaze scandal involving Matt Hancock. The Conservatives are down 1.7 % on their last election figures. Amazingly Mr Galloway plans to contest the election in court, even though it is not on his own behalf as a third placeman. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0BZhm6471c. I don't know what George's fans will think about him aiding and abetting a Tory. Sir Keir Starmer popped his greasy grey head up in the constituency overnight to support his candidate. He gave the less-than-totally-stirring speech in the link above about "healing divisions". Speech writers aren't even trying to be original these days. Starmer portrayed this as a glorious moment and a vindication of his leadership. The fact is, this is a pyrrhic victory for the Labour Party. Their narrow win involved a 7.4% drop in their vote since 2019. This was in what was once considered a safe Labour seat. If you look at the chart of Labour's popularity rating since 1997, right now they are at their lowest ebb, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batley_and_Spen_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#/media/File:Batley_and_Spen_vote_share.png. Unless they can perform a miracle between now and May 2024 they will once again be fighting like crazy to hold on to the seat. There is something distinctly odd about the Batley and Spen constituency. In the 2019 general election, the Brexit Party's candidate was Jill Hughes, somebody who believes in aliens, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2019/11/brexit-candidate-believes-in-aliens.html. (The Brexit Party has really gone downhill since then. Farage has left them... again, and they've changed their name to the very insipid "Reform UK".) What will happen in 2024, assuming there is no other by-election between now and then, depends on events, such as the continuing success of Brexit, the lockdown cycle and whether Boris Johnson can escape the Dark Side he is currently as deeply embedded in as Darth Vader... Still, remember that story did end happily.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2019/10/brexit-portal.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/06/by-election-blues-for-boris.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2017/05/reconsidering-voting.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/06/boris-wedding.html.