Labour has unexpectedly beaten off a Tory challenge to one of its seats in West Yorkshire, edging home with a significantly reduced majority of just 300 votes.
Expectations were rock-bottom for Labour ahead of the contest in Batley and Spen, where a by-election was held on Thursday to replace former MP Tracy Brabin.
The narrow surprise victory is good news for Keir Starmer, who has been fearing a leadership challenge were he to lose yet another seat to the Conservatives.
Sir Keir called the defence a “fantastic result for the brilliant and brave” Kim Leadbeater.
“Kim ran a positive campaign of hope, in the face of division,” he said. “She will be an outstanding Labour MP for Batley and Spen.”
It was only in the very latest stages of the campaign that things started to look up for the party on the doorstep, following an earlier poll during the campaign that had shown the seat falling to the Conservatives by a solid margin.
Ms Leadbeater saw off a confident Tory candidate and an insurgent challenge from former MP George Galloway.
She took the seat with 13,296 votes, a majority of 323 over Tory candidate Ryan Stephenson after a bitter contest. She won 35.19 per cent of the vote to the Conservatives’ 34.33 per cent.
“I’m absolutely delighted that the people of Batley and Spen have rejected division and they’ve voted for hope,” Ms Leadbeater said.
She thanked her family, saying “without them I could not have got through the last five years nevermind the last five weeks” of “gruelling” campaign.
And she added: “I want to say a huge thank you to the police who, sadly, I have needed more than ever over the last few weeks.”
Asked why Labour had lost so many votes compared to its 2019 showing under Jeremy Corbyn, Ms Leadbeater referenced the 2019 election election, result, stating: “It was very close. But you know, We’re under no illusion in the Labour Party that we’ve had two really tough election defeats in recent years and we’ve got some work to do.”
But she denied there was something “fundamentally wrong” with Labour.
George Galloway, who targeted voters in traditionally Labour areas with the aim of toppling Sir Keir, came a relatively strong third with 8,264 votes, or 21.87 per cent.
Mr Galloway said he would apply to have the result set aside by the courts, claiming his efforts had been damaged by a “false statement” that he had laughed while Labour’s Kim Leadbeater was abused on the campaign trail.
“The whole election campaign was dominated by lazy and false tropes about our campaign, about the thousands of people that voted for us, about their motives for doing so, in a way which defamed them as much as it defamed me,” he said.
“So on multiple grounds we will apply to the courts for this election result to be set aside.”
The Conservatives failed to take the seat despite the Brexit Party not standing, which some observers suggested would help them.
Much coverage of the campaign focused on disaffected former Labour voters, many of them from the towns’ British Asian community taking issue with Sir Keir’s stances on issues like Palestine and Kashmir.
But enough voters ultimately turned out for Labour, saving Sir Keir the humiliation of losing another constituency in the party’s so-called “red wall” across the north and Midlands.
Less than two months ago on 6 May the party lost the seat of Hartlepool at a similar contest, which has historically supported Labour, including at the two most recent elections under former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
But the same fate did not befall Batley and Spen, the former constituency of Jo Cox, who was assassinated by a far-right extremist during the 2016 EU referendum campaign. Ms Leadbeater, now the Labour MP for the seat, is Ms Cox’s sister.
Ms Cox’s widower Brendan tweeted: “We are all incredibly proud of [Kim Leadbeater] today and Jo would have been too”.
“The people of Batley and Spen have voted for decency and positivity once again.”
