What will happen if Labour loses the Batley and Spen by-election?

Batley and Spen, which has been in Labour hands since 1997, is widely expected to turn blue on Thursday when voters head to the polls. Sean O’Grady considers the factors that have left Starmer’s party facing another electoral loss, and the potential consequences of a disastrous result

Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater has found it tough going (PA)

Starmer Out” is the blunt message on the posters of the George Galloway campaign in the Batley and Spen by-election, which will be held on Thursday. He may succeed, if only because his intervention on behalf of his Workers Party may split the Labour vote in a seat with a large Muslim community, and one where Labour has been losing ground to the Conservatives and other populist parties on the right.

Should that happen, and the Tories take the constituency (which has been in Labour hands since 1997), the Corbynite left or others may mount a challenge; there are rumours of manoeuvres by Angela Rayner and Lisa Nandy, both northern MPs, and by Dawn Butler, one of the front bench casualties when Keir Starmer took over from Jeremy Corbyn. They need about 40 MPs to back such a disruptive move, though, with probably little chance of beating Starmer in any case. But there’d be trouble, following the loss of Hartlepool, some disappointing performances in Scotland and the north and Midlands at the May elections, a 10-point Tory poll lead, a lost deposit at the Chesham by-election and general grumbles about the Labour leader’s managerial style.

At any rate, it would be a gross embarrassment, but, simply because of the arrival of Galloway in these West Riding times, it could be therefore explained away as something of a one-off. Identity politics and geopolitical disputes in Palestine and Kashmir seem to have been substantial factors, with Labour highlighting Boris Johnson’s recent talks with the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, and Galloway suggesting that Starmer and Labour are similarly too close to the Indian government, and insufficiently supportive of the Palestinian cause. According to Galloway, he was demonstrating outside Wembley while Labour leaders were “kissing the backside” of the Indian leader. The issue over the disputed territory of Kashmir, currently divided between India and Pakistan, has an impact because so many of the Muslim community have links to the area.

The Palestinian issue is equally divisive and, arguably, helpful to Galloway. Batley has also seen a row about a teacher accused of disrespecting Islam. Free speech, religious sensitivities, foreign policy and “culture wars” have weighed heavily in the seat, alongside hyper-local politics and accusations that Kirklees council favours Huddersfield above Batley or Cleckheaton.

That, then, is Starmer’s alibi – that it was an election in the middle of a pandemic played out on untypical issues and with a flamboyant interloper in the feisty form of “gorgeous” George Galloway, star of Big Brother and Russia TV. Such strange things happen in by-elections – less so at a general election where a clear choice of governments is required and Jammu & Kashmir is less of a focus.

Given everything, the best Starmer and Labour can hope for is a respectable second after the Conservatives, with the same excuses/reasons as the Hartlepool loss – vaccine bounce, pro-Brexit voters moving to the Tories, Labour having to rebuild no recover after the mistakes of the Corbyn era. The worst result would be to slump to third place, with Galloway just nicking it. The Tories are odds-on to win, but with 16 parties running, from the far-right For Britain to the Alliance Green Socialism, the picture may be a little confusing.

On the other hand, Batley is also a warning about how the complex cross-currents of race, religion, identity politics and “culture wars” can erode the Labour vote in every direction in seats similar to this in many parts of England. The pincer movement on Labour comprises defections of the Brexity, working-class Leave-inclined white working classes to the Conservatives, and sections of the Muslim and left-wing vote switching to protest vehicles such as Galloway’s Workers Party. Some in Starmer’s Labour movement are encouraging Labour voters to “lend” Galloway a vote simply to be rid of Starmer and return Labour to its socialist calling.

At the 2019 general election, Labour’s Tracy Brabin withstood the impact of a strong independent challenge from the Heavy Woolen District Independents party, (the name derives from its industrial traditions and a certain nostalgia), which was formed after the local UKIP boss became disaffected with his own party’s disarray. He scored 6,000 or so votes last time, probably peeling enough from the Conservatives to allow Brabin, an ex-soap actor to slip in with a majority of 3,525.

Now she has been elected the regional mayor, she has been followed as candidate by Kim Leadbetter, sister of Jo Cox, assassinated by a right far terrorist in 2016, during the EU referendum. Leadbetter, it is fair to say, has found it tough going, and Brabin has accused Galloway’s supporters of verbally abusing and physically assaulting Labour activists (Galloway has condemned any such action). Times have been tense and it’s been a bit of a murky business.

Galloway was once a Labour MP for a Glasgow seat who specialised in attacks on Tony Blair and the Iraq war. Having left the party, he has since made a habit of gatecrashing elections in safe Labour seats, with sometimes spectacular results. With his trademark fedora hat and eloquent rhetoric he is one of nature’s disrupters. After falling out with New Labour, he helped form the Respect grouping and seized Bethnal Green and Bow at the 2005 general election, held in the shadow of the Iraq invasion toppling of Saddam Hussein.

Galloway also swung in to win the 2012 by-election in Bradford West for Respect, a seat with some similarities with nearby Batley, and was quite a shock to the political establishment. (Both seats reverted to Labour at the subsequent general election). He’s been less successful more recently, with his pro-Union party scoring poorly for the Scottish parliament, but in places such as the east end of London and West Yorkshire, he plainly has a constituency, if not yet one he can represent in the Commons.