UK Labour clings on in shock win in Batley and Spen by-election

Labour clung on to hold the Westminster seat of Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire by just 323 votes in a by-election held Thursday.

The opposition party had been expected to lose the seat after a poll by Survation put it behind the Tories by 6 percentage points. The Labour vote was also hit by a strong showing by former Labour figure George Galloway, leader of the Workers Party of Britain.

Kim Leadbeater, the Labour candidate, picked up 13,296 votes, with 12,973 going to the Tories and 8,264 to Galloway, in third.

Reacting to her victory, Leadbeater said, “I’m absolutely delighted that the people of Batley and Spen have rejected division and they have voted for hope.” She added that she was looking forward to some “glasses of fizz” and catching up on some sleep.

“There have been many highs in this election campaign but sadly there have also be some unacceptable lows. The acts of intimidation and violence by some who have come here with the sole aim of sowing division have been deeply upsetting to witness,” she tweeted earlier, referring to a divisive campaign marred by dirty tricks and violence against some of her supporters.

The result will come as a great relief to Labour leader Keir Starmer, who could well have faced a challenge if his party had lost the seat. Labour suffered a historic loss two months ago in the Hartlepool by-election, and the slide in Labour support in its former heartlands has led to questions over his leadership.

He hailed the outcome on Twitter saying: “Fantastic result for the brilliant and brave @KimLeadbeater. Kim ran a positive campaign of hope, in the face of division.”

Batley and Spen played a tragic part in Britain’s recent turbulent political history when the sitting MP, Jo Cox, was murdered by a right-wing extremist, who shot and stabbed her in the street just days before the U.K.’s Brexit referendum in June 2016. Leadbeater is her sister.

An extra threat to Labour was the candidacy of Galloway. The veteran politician was thrown out of Labour in 2003 for inciting British troops to defy orders in Iraq, and he has made it plain that he had no qualms about splitting the Labour vote — even if it allowed the Conservatives to come through the middle.

Speaking after the result, Galloway decried “multiple false statements” about his campaign, including a suggestion that he had stood by laughing while Leadbeater had received abuse on the street, something he said was false.

“The whole campaign was dominated by lazy and false tropes about our campaign, about the thousands of people that voted for us, about their motives,” he said, adding that he would challenge the result in court.

Tournout in the contest was 47.6 percent, well down on the general election showing in the seat of 66.5 percent.