After batley and spen, starmer is off the hook — for now | thearticle

This, then, is what the culture war looks like. The victory of Kim Leadbeater by the smallest of margins in West Yorkshire this morning may not have “rejected division” in favour of “hope”,

but it was at least the end of one of the most bitter campaigns in recent memory. The gruesome presence of George Galloway failed to strip Labour of its former majority, something the

threats and intimidation of the last few weeks made look ever more likely. It does not take a raging cynic to claim that Labour’s 300 vote victory cannot serve as a plausible vindication of

Keir Starmer’s leadership, but it certainly quells the disquiet within and without his leadership. That the result was ever in so much doubt, when Labour are in opposition to a government

flailing in scandal and mendacity, is simply another reminder of the depth of the party’s electoral abyss. As if we needed one. The spectacle of the election campaign was depressing enough

for Labour figures, regardless of the eventual result. Galloway, standing for his new Workers Party of Britain, reprised his role as the country’s seemingly immortal political insurgent.

Galloway saw that his best chances of victory lay in taking on his former party over their apparent adherence to the cultural values set against many of those held by social conservatives in

the Yorkshire seat. Trying to ride such a populist wave, during the campaign he railed against not only the decrepit nature of the local roads, but the prevalence of “cancel culture” within

his former party. This was not done without reason. Batley has been the site of a local hounding of a teacher for daring to show his children a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, inciting

predictable paroxysms of fury from the much of the religious right. Galloway took the hint and focused much of his supposed ire on education: he did “not want [children] taught how to

masturbate” he informed us at an appearance with the self-proclaimed champion of free speech, Laurence Fox. Nor did he want the poor kids “taught there are 99 genders”. The other latent

prejudices of his voters were not untouched: Labour activists reported multiple counts of abuse from his supporters, whether in throwing homophobic abuse round at leafleters or the assault

of others on the streets by yobs, egged on by Galloway’s rhetoric. Broader issues also came into play, whether it was the rights of the Palestinians after the latest violence in Gaza and

Israel, or support for the Pakistani claims over Kashmir. Even Chris Williamson (remember him?) turned out to campaign for Galloway. It was a strange fusion of far-Left activism against

Starmer’s support for “woke” ideals and a defence of religious orthodoxy, but it is not one Galloway has hidden away from before. He is, most of all, a remarkably opportunistic figure, and

one willing more than anyone else to foment whichever fury will help his own cause. Keir Starmer will take one of his few comforts from this result to be proof that perhaps the culture war

on woke is not the electoral Goliath his Tory opponents hope it to be. Yet at least David won the fight in the end, something only an optimist of biblical proportions could expect in the

Labour Party. After all, this is a seat which has been held by Labour since 1997, and one which it should, with a popular local candidate such as Leadbeater, be able to win with ease, with

or without Galloway. Starmer’s own popularity, although not at Corbynite levels of resentment, is strictly mediocre. The leader did not tour the constituency to persuade any swing voters, in

sharp contrast to Boris Johnson’s parades round Hartlepool earlier this year. This will be lurking in the minds of Starmer’s opponents to his Left and Right: the notion that his trusty

course of recovery will only get his party so far, and that the old rules of the game, by which many of his Shadow Cabinet are playing, no longer apply to the game the rest of the country

are interested in. Any leadership challenge this summer is now impossible (Angela Rayner, deprived of her role as party Chair, was touted as the main contender from the Left), giving Starmer

the opportunity he craves to make a credible pitch to the country at a party conference in the autumn; he has said for a year now that the pandemic has restricted his access to the

electorate outside of the London bubble. The lifting of restrictions, with the popularity for the Government which that brings, will test that excuse to its limit. Beyond its immediate

political significance, the result in Batley and Spen does not give the political anorak much to dwell on. Downing Street will hope that those who do read the result will feast their eyes on

the sharp drop in the Labour share of the vote. This seat is neither part of the imaginary “Red Wall” nor, by any imagination, a Tory heartland, though the viciousness of the campaign

presents a microcosm of the rampant divisions, whether they be over class, race, religion or sexuality, which have divided much of the West and threaten to do the same in Britain. This

result will provide a temporary respite for Starmer, a leader accused by many of being in hibernation for much of his time in office. The bitter truth still remains stark, whatever the

rhetoric of a triumph of hope over fear from the party press machine today. The Left in Britain is bereft of ideas to combat a Tory government — a government apparently immune from popular

discontent in the face of scandals and failings, the likes of which were perilous for so many previous administrations. The hopeful figure of Kim Leadbeater, sister of Jo Cox, will act as an

antidote to the overhanging stench of stammering indecision and directionless impulses of the Starmer reign thus far. It is now the leader’s job to smite that perception once and for all,

for his own sake as much as for that of the rest of his party. Perhaps even, one day, for the sake of the country. Meanwhile, George Galloway has told us he will go to the courts for the

election result “to be set aside”. The demagogues, it seems, never move on. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an

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