Labour Party Narrowly Hold Parliamentary Seat in Batley and Spen By-Election

The sister of the murdered Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox has narrowly won the seat following a bitter election battle fraught with claims of illegitimacy, intimidation, alleged racism and homophobia, and fake leaflets from all sides. 

On Friday morning, Labour’s Kim Leadbeater said that her activities in recent years had consisted of “working for the Jo Cox foundation, bringing people together across the community of Batley and Spen.”

“Sadly, we’ve seen some nastiness during this by-election campaign and there are some divisions that need to be healed. I think if anyone can achieve that, then I can. I conducted a very positive campaign, I focused very much on the good people of Batley and Spen. We’ve had a huge amount of people up here to help me campaign and, you know, I’m incredibly grateful to them and I’m incredibly grateful to the people of Batley and Spen for putting their trust and faith in me.”  

Of the 79,373 vote-eligible residents in the constituency, 37,786 (47.6%) verified ballots were cast. Leadbeater narrowly won a 323 vote majority, while her Conservative rival Ryan Stephenson came second with 12,973 total votes. The former Labour and Respect Party MP George Galloway came third with 8,264 votes.

The by-election was triggered by the departure of Tracy Brabin, the previous Labour MP for the constituency, who became the Westminster representative for the area following the murder of Jo Cox by Thomas Mair, a neo-Nazi white-nationalist, in 2016.  

After defeating Ryan Stephenson, who had fought a campaign focused on what he said were the “issues that matter here,” Leadbeater said constituents had “rejected division” and “voted for hope” with the “vast majority” of her conversations with voters consisting of local rather than national issues.

In recent months, inter-community tensions in Batley, which has a 20 percent Muslim population, have made global news. In March, the exhibition of a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten by a teacher at the Batley Grammar School sparked days of protests and calls for his sacking outside the school’s gates. To date, the teacher has not returned to work at the school and reportedly remains in hiding - with many citing the Islamic charity Purpose of Life’s release of the teacher’s name as a risk to his life. 

Jo Cox's widower Brendan Cox said Leadbeater had been “incredibly brave” during “a very bruising and pretty horrible campaign at times.” The Labour Party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, praised her “inspiring resilience against the odds.”

“This is a fantastic result for the brilliant and brave Kim Leadbeater who will be an incredible Labour MP for Batley and Spen. Kim has shown inspiring resilience in the face of hatred and intimidation. She was unafraid to call it out and ran a positive campaign of hope. Kim embodies everything I want the Labour Party to stand for: passionate about her local community and determined to bring people together. We won this election against the odds, and we did so by showing that when we are true to our values - decency, honesty, committed to improving lives - then Labour can win. This result shows Labour at its best. This is just the start.”

Leadbeater’s victory will be received as a welcome reprieve for Starmer’s leadership, which in May faced a shattering humiliation in the Hartlepool by-election. Jill Mortimer, who won the by-election, is the first Conservative MP for Hartlepool since the constituency’s creation in 1974 and won 15,529 votes to Labour’s 8,589 in what she said was a “truly historic” victory. 

“Labour has taken the people of Hartlepool for granted for too long - I heard this time and time again on the doorstep. People had enough. Now through this result, the people have spoken and they’ve made it clear: it’s time for a change.” 

The former shadow home secretary and MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Diane Abbott, tweeted at the time: 

“Crushing defeat for Labour in Hartlepool. Not possible to blame Jeremy Corbyn for this result. Labour won the seat twice under his leadership. Keir Starmer must think again about his strategy.” 

The far-left group ‘Momentum’, inspired by Corbyn, called the Hartlepool result a “disaster” and implored the party’s leadership to “build a coalition with the left on transformative policy, return to community organising, and empower members to shape the future of our party.”

Local residents in Hartlepool cited Labour’s lack of connection with the traditionally working-class town as the reason for the loss. In the wake of the vote, a large blimp of Boris Johnson was erected outside of the Mill House pub opposite to where the vote count took place, Liam Westmoreland, 33, a resident, noting:

“If I’d have told my grandad, who has passed away now, that I was going to be a Conservative voter he’d have probably given me a slap. My family have been staunch Labour voters for years. But those were the days when Labour actually represented the working man.”

Gerald Oliver, 68, added: 

“To be honest, I think the town could do with a change. We feel like we’ve been left behind. We want Hartlepool put on the map for good reasons.”

Speaking to Sky News, Conservative Party co-chair Amanda Milling said Stephenson’s defeat had been “really disappointing” and had been impacted by the resignation of former health secretary Matt Hancock for kissing his departmental aide in breach of his own lockdown rules. 

“Matt resigned and that was the right thing to do, but there was whole host of different issues that came up. But we also need to remember that governing parties don't gain by-elections and taking it to such a small number of votes in itself was a tremendous result - quite extraordinary I would say.”

Stressing there was “a lot of love for the Prime Minister,” Milling affirmed that the Batley and Spen victory was not a “great win for the Labour Party ... they only won by a matter of 300 votes.”

Following the vote, George Galloway vowed to take legal action to get the election result “to be set aside” on “multiple grounds.” 

“You’ll be hearing much more of this from me, directly from the horse's mouth over the next hours and days. 

The Labour peer Lord Mandelson, however, lambasted Galloway for the “forces” he had “tried to unleash in Batley and Spen.”

“[This was not something] I had ever seen in an election before. He was trying to create a grotesque communal grievance amongst Muslim voters in that constituency and to use that to turn them against Labour - misrepresenting Labour's policies, misrepresenting Keir Starmer's views about Islam and about the Palestinians. And portraying Kim Leadbeater as some sort of fanatic.”