BACKWARDS IN BATLEY

The absurd over-the-top reaction of Keir Starmer to Labour's slender win in Batley and Spen revealed the desperate state of his leadership.  He had clearly been up all night waiting for the result and tweeted within minutes of the declaration, hailing it a 'fantastic result'.  Hardly, Labour had just seen a 3,525 majority slashed to just 323 votes and would undoubtedly have lost were it not for the Hancock effect and thousands of postal votes.

Labour activist Paul Embery told Nigel Farage on GB News that the result was a 'squeak' and 'no cause to start popping champagne corks'.  Given the main demographic of Labour's activist base in Batley, champagne was clearly out of the question, but after a few hours kip Starmer did make his way up to celebrate in person.  Cue photos of Starmer and new MP Kim Leadbeater punching the air, as Starmer declared 'Labour is back' in a hastily edited video and 'Labour's coming home' in a cringeworthy tweet.

Despite Starmer's wild posturing, Labour didn't win this seat from anybody - they merely held a seat that had been Labour since 1997.  11 years into opposition this was in fact a dreadful result and if repeated across the north of England in a general election the party would lose countless red bricks - including those of Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) and Ed Miliband (Doncaster North).

Labour would also lose the following seats to the Conservatives:  Barnsley East, Doncaster Central, Hemsworth, Houghton & Sunderland South, Lancaster & Fleetwood, Oldham East & Saddleworth, Rotherham, Stalybridge & Hyde, Stockton North, Sunderland Central, Wansbeck, Warrington North, Weaver Vale, Wentworth & Dearne, Wirral West and Worsley & Eccles South.  This is not to mention the many more seats that the party would lose in the Midlands and Wales.

The result in Batley and Spen is a clear example that Labour is continuing to go backwards, not forwards.

A BIT RICH LADS

Labour's Dave Lammy has joined his party leader in condemning 'hatred and division' in the Batley and Spen by-election.

At least Dave had a lie-in this morning, unlike his extremely nervous leader who had clearly been up all night on tenterhooks.  Starmer issued his tweet minutes after the declaration.

We would just like to remind Dave and Sir Keir of the leaflet that was distributed by their party earlier this week...

You want to talk about 'division' lads, look no further than your own anti-Indian propaganda.

In a separate tweet, Lammy took aim at George Galloway personally, accusing him of being a 'carpetbagger who whips up racial tensions'.  Galloway had the perfect response...

LABOUR HOLD BATLEY & SPEN (JUST)

Labour have narrowly held the Batley and Spen by-election by a margin of just 323 votes.  George Galloway is seething about the result, but his demand for a full recount has been denied.  He is now threatening legal action.  There were reportedly more than 16,000 postal votes.

Galloway and his team at the count

The importance of this by-election for the leadership of Keir Starmer couldn't be overstated.  The man himself has clearly been up all night, tweeting within minutes of the declaration.

Starmer's assessment that Labour had faced off 'division' after their own divisive campaign literature exposed this week is a bit rich to say the least.

Turnout was 47.6 per cent, compared with 66.5 per cent for the 2019 general election.

Here's the result in full.

Batley & Spen 2021 by-election

Kim Leadbeater (Lab) 13,296 (35.2%) -7.5%

Ryan Stephenson (Con) 12,973 (34.3%) -1.7%

George Galloway (Workers) 8,264 (21.9%) New 

Thomas Gordon (LDem) 1,254 (3.3%) -1.4%

Corey Robinson (Yorks) 816 (2.2%) New

Thérèse Hirst (Eng Dem) 207 (0.6%) New

Jack Thomson (UKIP) 151 (0.4%) New

Howling Laud Hope (Loony) 107 (0.3%) New

Mike Davies (Green Soc) 104 (0.3%) New

Paul Bickerdike (Christian) 102 (0.3%) New
Jonathan Tilt (Freedom) 100 (0.3%) New

Anne Marie Waters (For Britain) 97 (0.3%) New

Andrew Smith (Rejoin) 75 (0.2%) New

Oliver Purser (SDP) 66 (0.2%) New

Jayda Fransen (Ind) 50 (0.1%) New

Susan Laird (Heritage) 33 (0.1%) New

The Green Party and Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party) did not contest this election.  Labour had been defending a marginal 3,525 majority from the 2019 general election and have held the seat since 1997.

Batley & Spen, 2019 general election

Tracy Brabin (Lab) 22,594 (42.7%) -12.8%

Mark Brooks (Con) 19,069 (36.0%) -2.8%

Paul Halloran (Ind) 6,432 (12.2%) New

John Lawson (LDem) 2,462 (4.7%) +2.4%

Clive Minihan (Brexit) 1,678 (3.2%) New

Ty Akram (Green) 692 (1.3%) n/c

GALLOWAY HAMMERS BBC BIAS

A video of George Galloway tearing into a biased BBC reporter has gone viral thanks to Defund the BBC.  Galloway was being interviewed by Martine Croxall, a familiar face on BBC News.  The full seven minute piece can be found below, courtesy of Galloway's Workers Party (the sound is a bit dodgy).  It is a perfect example of the institutional Labour bias at the Beeb, something which Galloway exploits perfectly.

Galloway seems pretty convinced that Labour will lose Batley and Spen.  We'll find out in the next few hours - the polls have now closed.

BATLEY TEACHER SCANDAL IS NOT RESOLVED

Labour's Batley candidate Kim Leadbeater has bizarrely claimed in an interview that the Batley Grammar School scandal has been 'resolved' - despite the fact that the teacher is still in hiding from bloodthirsty Islamists.  In an interview with BBC Politics North alongside her Tory opponent Ryan Stephenson, Leadbeater sidestepped the question of the teacher returning to the classroom and refused to acknowledge that ongoing threats to his life were a problem.  Click below for the clip.

Sorry Kim, but this scandal will not be resolved until the teacher returns to work and those plotting his murder are put behind bars.

DESPERATE LABOUR STOKE DIVISION

Labour are desperately trying to cling onto the Muslim vote in Batley and Spen with one day until voters go to the polls.  With George Galloway set to divide or even take the majority of the Muslim votes up for grabs, Thursday could herald the beginning of yet another exodus of Labour voters.  The party has long taken Muslim votes for granted, a fact alluded to when their candidate Kim Leadbeater was confronted last week.  It follows a long line of demographics that have deserted Labour since they lost power eleven years ago - Scottish voters, working class voters, the north of England, north Wales and the Midlands.  

The party has just realised that Muslim voters could be about to abandon the party, but it's probably already too late.  A flurry of Labour leaflets appeared this week aimed directly at Muslim voters, but the material has led to accusations that the party is stoking divisions between Asian communities.  On the leaflets is a picture of Boris Johnson meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is a Hindu nationalist.  With a bullet point complaining about 'human rights abuses' in Kashmir, it is pretty clear what the intention of the leaflet is (see below).

In Batley itself the Hindu population outnumbers Muslims and the presence of the leaflet has not gone down well with people of Indian descent.  Desperation has clearly led to a dreadful campaign error and the party is now being accused of BNP-style tactics.  Tory MP Kevin Hollinrake said: "It is desperate stuff.  Kim Leadbeater has made some very sensible comments in the past week about stopping all this division.  Now she is fuelling that same division.  It is deeply divisive".  Another Tory MP, David Morris, said Keir Starmer should disown the literature and apologise: "It is deeply disappointing to see Labour resort to dog-whistle politics in the by-election campaign.  It stokes division, it is hateful and makes a mockery of the kindler, gentler politics Labour claim they want to pursue.  Sir Keir Starmer must disown these leaflets and apologise for them.  If he doesn't then it shows that he is happy to sit back and pander to the politics of division in a desperate bid to hang on to the seat and avoid his own leadership challenge".

Furthermore, if Muslim voters cared to look into Modi's past associations they would also find prominent Labour figures have also enjoyed his company...

RED FLAGS IN BATLEY

There was a tense stand-off in Batley over the weekend as another rally took place on Saturday.  Unlike last Thursday's peaceful rally hosted by the Reclaim Party, the event staged by the For Britain Movement brought out a crowd of leftist so-called 'anti-fascists'.  The leader of For Britain is standing in this Thursday's by-election.  Police said 400 people were involved in the rally and counter-protest and three arrests were made, although the two sides were successfully kept apart.

The counter-protest had been organised by 'Stand Up To Racism', a group linked to the Labour Party.  Diane Abbott is its president, while Labour peer Baroness Blower is vice chair.  Stand Up To Racism had tried to stoke disorder by whipping up activists with the claim that the founder of the English Defence League would be attending the For Britain rally.  In the end there was no sign of Tommy Robinson and the assorted band of leftists claimed 'victory' by saying they had 'scared him off'.  He had undoubtedly never intended to be there anyway.

Among the flags, placards and banners at the counter-protest were the red flags of communism, including the hammer and sickle of the Communist Party of Britain (see below).

These people are not simply ordinary citizens concerned about the supposed rise of right-wing populists, they are political extremists who support an ideology responsible for more death and misery than anything the right has perpetuated.  Antifa are not merely anti-fascists, they are communists.

LEADBEATER CONFRONTED BY ISLAMIST

Labour's candidate in Batley and Spen was confronted by an angry Muslim activist on Friday who had travelled over a hundred miles to say his piece.  Kim Leadbeater was campaigning outside a local mosque in the constituency when the incident occurred.  Accompanied by Bradford West MP Naz Shah, Leadbeater endured a torrid few minutes as the man raged about Kashmir and accused Labour of taking Muslim votes for granted.  Shah stepped in to try and defuse the situation, but the man - who freely admitted he had travelled all the way from Birmingham - was having none of it.  The video ends in Leadbeater storming off.

The above video was posted online by an Islamist news site, but there is a distinct cut in the footage.  The section that has been edited out shows the man ranting about LGBT education in schools.  Another angle posted online shows this part and also shows the man confronting Leadbeater again as she gets into her car.  Watch below and note his smile as he walks away having said his final bit - his whole persona of outrage appears to be purely theatrics and worthy of an acting award!

We have encountered this Islamist before on these pages.  Click here to see footage of him confronting Birmingham Yardley MP Jess Phillips back in May 2019.  His name is Shakeel Afsar and he was instrumental in orchestrating protests outside a Birmingham school against LGBT lessons.  At the time his protest was backed by Roger Godsiff, the Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green, a move that ultimately led to Godsiff being deselected.

In response to the Batley incident, Labour suggested that George Galloway was behind it.  They accused their former MP of standing on the opposite side of the road and laughing during the episode.  Leadbeater said a statement: "We were out campaigning outside one of the local mosques and then suddenly there was a big group of mainly men, I would say, who started shouting at me in the street, trying to say they were asking me questions, but they certainly weren’t giving me a chance to answer any questions, some of them not local.  George Galloway was at the other side of the street laughing, and I was extremely intimidated".

Labour leader Keir Starmer also pointed the finger at Galloway: "The abuse Kim Leadbeater has faced is disgraceful.  George Galloway’s poisonous politics have no place in our country".  We can't find any links between the two men and Galloway has since tweeted that the man is an 'extremist' and 'provocateur'.

Afsar clearly fancies himself as a figurehead for something, but he is yet to establish any political group or platform that provides Muslims with an alternative to Labour.  In two years he has amassed just 400 followers on Twitter.  Lame.

FOX & CO IGNORE LABOUR BAN

An open air debate banned by Kirklees Council went ahead anyway on Thursday thanks to the defiance of its organisers.  The debate in Batley's marketplace had been billed as a 'free speech rally' by Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox.  The chief topic for discussion was the ongoing fallout from the Muhammad cartoon incident at Batley Grammar School - the teacher involved is still in hiding from Muslim fanatics three months on.  A spokesman for Labour-run Kirklees Council said their ban on the rally was on the grounds of 'public safety':

"The council welcomes healthy debate and respects freedom of speech.  We also have a responsibility to make sure all events we permit on our land are safe, well organised and take into account potential disruption to local residents and businesses.  That’s why we ask organisers - in advance of an event - to provide details of their plans, how they have assessed potential risks and how we can work together to make sure their event goes smoothly for everyone.  This is a common sense approach and is standard practice across local authorities.  In this case, the event organisers have not requested permission for the use of the council’s land.  In the absence of assurances on public safety and legal compliance with Covid requirements or the impact on residents and businesses, council staff had no choice but to notify the organiser that they did not have permission to use the council’s assets".

Fox called the decision an 'affront to democracy' and went ahead as planned.  Also speaking at the rally was the popular local independent candidate Paul Halloran, who has indicated that he would stand as a Reclaim candidate in future.  Neither Halloran or Reclaim are standing in next week's by-election, but George Galloway is - much to the dismay of his former party.  Galloway addressed the rally and had some damning analysis of Labour, outgoing Batley MP Tracy Brabin and identity politics.

In a separate interview, Galloway went further: "Labour is going out in a puff of wokery.  Its trans-mania infatuation has turned off millions.  The visceral dislike of Labour on white English working-class estates is palpable.  People have concluded Labour doesn’t like them - and they heartily reciprocate".  Ironically it's the Muslim vote that Galloway is reportedly mopping up in Batley and Spen, dividing what had previously been a block Labour vote and almost certainly delivering the seat to the Tories in the process.

Both the Labour and Conservative candidates ignored an invitation to attend the debate, something Fox alluded to on Twitter.

The rally was attended by around 200 locals and heard from Fox, Halloran, Galloway, Martin Daubney (ex-Brexit Party MEP) and candidates from the SDP and Monster Raving Loony Party.  Labour's absence and their council's attempt to halt the event will have done the party no favours in Batley.  And say what you like about Galloway, but he is a man who defies the contemporary cancel crybabies of the left and will share a platform with anyone - including his political opponents.  This is called being a grown up!

Galloway addresses the small crowd in Batley's marketplace

The full rally can be seen here.

OWEN'S BATLEY 'BLUNDER'

Owen Jones was forced into an embarrassing apology earlier this week after stating that he wanted Labour to lose the forthcoming Batley and Spen by-election.  The wee lad was involved in one of his regular Twitter spats during which his opponent asked whether he would prefer it if Labour failed to hold the seat.  "Yes!" came the emphatic reply.

The cyber antics began when Charliethered accused Little Owen of being a 'Tory by proxy'.  The following morning Jones deleted his response to the Batley question and tweeted the following retraction.

Unfortunately for Owen, the screen capture of his 'Yes!' response had already done the rounds.

FOX'S DELETE BORIS TWEET

While the advertising boycott of GB News was headline news last week, Fox's Biscuits also quietly fell pray to the cancel mob.  With the Tories eager to bounce back from their defeat in Chesham and Amersham, the Prime Minister deployed himself to Batley and Spen on Friday.  As part of his whirlwind visit was a tour of Fox's factory in Batley.  The confectioners later tweeted their 'pride' in having received Johnson.

It didn't take long for the Twitter cancel mob of leftists and Remainers to pile in and Fox's deleted the tweet within hours.  When are big brands going to realise that keyboard warriors on Twitter are a tiny minority who do not necessarily represent public opinion?

BATLEY & SPEN CANDIDATES

Conservative candidate Ryan Stephenson will be hoping to defeat Labour's
Kim Leadbeater in Batley and Spen

Nominations have closed for the Batley and Spen by-election.  A total of 16 candidates will contest the election, but there will be no candidates from Reform UK or the Reclaim Party.  Both parties say they have stood aside in order to boost Tory chances of taking the seat from Labour.  Reform's leader Richard Tice said:

"We do not want to split the vote and reduce the chances of Labour being ousted.  While we do not support this government, particularly with its approach to lockdowns, the Northern Ireland Protocol and its new globalist tax agenda, a Tory win would lead to an early election - possibly next year - and hopefully be the final nail in Labour’s coffin".

Tice's sentiment was shared by Laurence Fox of Reclaim, who has also managed to persuade a popular independent to pull out of the by-election.  Paul Halloran finished third here in 2019, beating the Lib Dems, Reform UK (then called the Brexit Party) and the Greens.  Halloran is no fan of Labour either.  Fox said:

"Over the past few weeks, I have been working closely with Paul Halloran who understands more about Batley and Spen than any of the opportunistic candidates standing in the by election.  I have also spoken with many others from across the Batley and Spen constituency about what happened at Batley Grammar School.  Paul and I have decided that we will not stand in the by election.

 

It has been made clear to both of us that many people in Batley and Spen are fed up with the Labour Party.  The Labour Party have lost their way.  We cannot in good conscience stand and risk splitting the vote and condemning Batley and Spen to any more years of Labour control.  The Labour Party is one of the most divisive and intolerant political parties in the UK".

Conversely, the Green Party has stood aside in order to try and help Labour hold the seat.  The Greens had initially selected a candidate, but dropped him after historical tweets were uncovered, reportedly of a homophobic nature.  Leftist parties that are standing include the Alliance for Green Socialism (Mike Davies), the Workers Party of Britain (George Galloway) and the Yorkshire Party (Corey Robinson).  The remoaners' party, Rejoin EU, is also standing (Andrew Smith) as are the Social Democratic Party (Oliver Purser).

There are a whole host of right wing, conservative, nationalist and anti-lockdown candidates including Paul Bickerdike for the Christian Peoples Alliance, Thérèse Hirst for the English Democrats, Susan Laird for David Kurten's Heritage Party, Jack Thomson for UKIP, Jonathan Tilt for the Freedom Alliance and Anne Marie Waters, the leader of the For Britain Movement.

As per usual in our two-party state, the winner will almost certainly be from either Labour or the Tories.  Labour are aiming for the sympathy vote by installing the sister of the murdered Batley MP Jo Cox as their candidate.  This is despite the fact she was not even a party member until very recently, her membership application appearing to have cynically coincided with Tracy Brabin's election as West Yorkshire mayor.  Kim Leadbeater will go up against Tory candidate Ryan Stephenson, a councillor in Leeds, to the north of Batley.

One advantage Leadbeater has is that she is a local candidate, in fact remarkably she is the only candidate on the ballot paper who has provided a home address in the Batley and Spen constituency.  The nomination papers published this afternoon show that candidates have flocked from far and wide, including candidates from Scotland (Galloway), Northern Ireland (Fransen), Hampshire (Laud Hope), Oxfordshire (Smith), Tyneside (Thomson) and County Durham (Purser and Waters).

Intriguingly, despite a requirement for only ten nominations from constituents in order to stand - along with a £500 deposit - both Galloway and the Conservatives have provided far in excess of that number on their election papers.  Worryingly for Labour, 19 of the 20 names on Galloway's paperwork are Muslim.  The Muslim vote could be crucial for Labour in a constituency with a large ethnic Pakistani population, so if Galloway splits that in any way it would make their fight to hold on to the seat even harder.  July 1 will be a squeaky bum time for Keir Starmer.

Batley and Spen candidates 2021

Paul Bickerdike (Christian)

Mike Davies (Green Soc)

Jayda Fransen (Ind)

George Galloway (Workers)

Thomas Gordon (LDem)

Thérèse Hirst (Eng Dem)

Howling Laud Hope (Loony)

Susan Laird (Heritage)

Kim Leadbeater (Lab)

Oliver Purser (SDP)

Corey Robinson (Yorks)

Andrew Smith (Rejoin)

Ryan Stephenson (Con)

Jack Thomson (UKIP)
Jonathan Tilt (Freedom)

Anne Marie Waters (For Britain)

The by-election will take place on July 1.  Labour will be defending a 3,525 majority and have held the seat since 1997, before which it was blue.  The most recent result can be found below.

Batley & Spen, 2019 general election

Tracy Brabin (Lab) 22,594 (42.7%) -12.8%

Mark Brooks (Con) 19,069 (36.0%) -2.8%

Paul Halloran (Ind) 6,432 (12.2%) New

John Lawson (LDem) 2,462 (4.7%) +2.4%

Clive Minihan (Brexit) 1,678 (3.2%) New

Ty Akram (Green) 692 (1.3%) n/c

DATE FOR BATLEY BY-ELECTION

The date has been set for the Batley and Spen by-election and it will be held five weeks today on July 1.  The vultures will be circling for Keir Starmer if Labour lose the seat, which they have held since 1997.  The party is pinning its hopes on a sympathy vote, having selected the sister of the late MP Jo Cox.  Cox had been the MP here for just over a year prior to her murder.

Labour were so desperate to select Kim Leadbeater that they waived a membership rule in order to allow her to stand.  Candidates are normally required to have at least one year's party membership in order to contest a seat, but Leadbeater only joined the party in 'the last month', although it is not clear if she joined before or after Tracy Brabin was elected West Yorkshire mayor.  She was one of the first to publicly declare an interest in standing, while claiming that she is 'no political animal' and Westminster needed more 'real people'.  Given what appears to have been a cynical and opportunist endeavour in obtaining the candidacy, Leadbeater will slot right in on the Westminster gravy train - should she win.

44-year-old Leadbeater is a personal trainer and former college lecturer who rose to prominence as an ambassador for the Jo Cox Foundation.  She was awarded an MBE this year in recognition of her voluntary work during the pandemic.  Like her sister, she is Batley born and bread.

Going up against Leadbeater will be Leeds Tory councillor Ryan Stephenson.  The Woodhouse ward which he represents is roughly ten miles from Batley, but that didn't do the party much harm in Hartlepool, where a councillor from 45 miles away won the seat.

The Green Party, George Galloway's Workers Party of Britain and the Yorkshire Party are among the other parties to have announced they will be contesting the by-election.

Labour will be defending a 3,525 majority going into this by-election, a majority that had already more than halved from the 8,961 majority the party enjoyed in the 2017 general election.  The Labour majority going into the recent Hartlepool by-election was 3,595.

Batley & Spen, 2019 general election

Tracy Brabin (Lab) 22,594 (42.7%) -12.8%

Mark Brooks (Con) 19,069 (36.0%) -2.8%

Paul Halloran (Ind) 6,432 (12.2%) New

John Lawson (LDem) 2,462 (4.7%) +2.4%

Clive Minihan (Brexit) 1,678 (3.2%) New

Ty Akram (Green) 692 (1.3%) n/c

BRABIN ELECTED WEST YORKS MAYOR

Brabin pictured at count, wearing a face mask emblazoned with the regional map

Labour's Tracy Brabin has won the inaugural West Yorkshire mayoral election after a run-off against the Tory candidate.  In the run-off she received a total of 310,923 first and second preference votes against 208,957 for the Conservative candidate.  It's a double celebration for the former actress, as today is her 60th birthday.

This contest is the last of the mayoral elections to be declared.

West Yorkshire Mayor (New Post)

Tracy Brabin (Lab) 261,170 (43.1%)

Matt Robinson (Con) 176,167 (29.1%)

Bob Buxton (Yorks) 58,851 (9.7%)

Andrew Cooper (Green) 55,833 (9.2%)

Stewart Golton (LDem) 30,162 (5.0%)

Waj Ali (Reform) 14,943 (2.5%)

Thérèse Hirst (Eng Dem) 8,969 (1.5%)

Final Round

Tracy Brabin (Lab) 59.8%

Matt Robinson (Con) 40.2%

The next question on everyone's mind is what happens to Brabin's position as an MP.  This was a question posed on Twitter by journalist Michael Crick.

Thanks to Crick's inquiries we have now learned that Brabin has no choice but to resign her Batley and Spen seat.  This is because she will inherit the responsibility of West Yorkshire police and crime commissioner, a role that cannot be held by an MP.  The role of PCC in Sheffield is not held by the mayor, hence Dan Jarvis maintains two jobs.  However, contrary to Crick's assertion about that role not being paid - it is, to the tune of £79,000.  This means Jarvis picks up £81,932 as an MP in addition to his £79k as mayor.

One wonders if Brabin would have given up her seat given a choice.  Poor Tracy, how on earth she will manage to survive on £105,000 a year for the next three years?  Luckily she knows how to feed her family for as little as a fiver, thanks to her days working in Sainsburys...

Another parliamentary by-election for Starmer in the north of England is the stuff of nightmares for the embattled Labour leader, particularly given that Batley and Spen is another marginal.  Labour will go into this by-election defending a 3,525 majority.  Their majority in Hartlepool was 3,595.

Batley & Spen, 2019 general election

Tracy Brabin (Lab) 22,594 (42.7%) -12.8%

Mark Brooks (Con) 19,069 (36.0%) -2.8%

Paul Halloran (Ind) 6,432 (12.2%) New

John Lawson (LDem) 2,462 (4.7%) +2.4%

Clive Minihan (Brexit) 1,678 (3.2%) New

Ty Akram (Green) 692 (1.3%) n/c

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