Batley and Spen victory is "temporary reprieve" for Labour

Ms Leadbeater was joined by Sir Keir Starmer in Cleckheaton today to celebrate the narrowest of wins (323 votes) over the Conservatives to ensure the party retained its position in the West Yorkshire constituency.

The result means Ms Leadbeater now represents the seat previously held by her sister Jo Cox, who was murdered in Batley by a far-right extremist in June 2016.

She secured the seat - which Labour held at the 2019 general election with a 3,525 majority- with 13,296 votes, narrowly beating Conservative Ryan Stephenson on 12,973.

Veteran left-winger George Galloway - who had targeted the constituency's Muslim voters in a campaign to topple Sir Keir - was third with 8,264.

Following a contest marked by allegations of violence and dirty tricks, Sir Keir paid tribute to Labour's "brilliant and brave" winning candidate.

"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," he said.

"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."

The result offers some breathing space to Sir Keir amid speculation about a possible leadership challenge in Westminster as the party continues to trail the Tories in the opinion polls.

Reader in Politics at Huddersfield University, Andrew Mycock is convinced the victory will not change much on a national front.

He said: "I think this is a temporary reprieve, it might buy Keir Starmer some time but there is still a lot of pressure. Questions remain about his leadership and the way he has articulated a different view of what Labour stands for.

"I don’t think the election in Batley and Spen, which was largely fought on local issues, really resolved those questions in terms of what he provides as an alternative to Boris Johnson. As we go into these next weeks and months, I don’t see it being a significant turning point."

In her acceptance speech, Ms Leadbeater said: “I’m absolutely delighted that the people of Batley and Spen have rejected division and voted for hope.”

She thanked her family saying “without them I could not have got through the last five years nevermind the last five weeks.”

Mr Galloway, of the Workers Party, said he would take legal action to get the result set aside, claiming his election effort had been damaged by a "false statement" that he had laughed while Ms Leadbeater was abused on the campaign trail.

"The whole election campaign was dominated by lazy and false tropes about our campaign, about the thousands of people that voted for us, about their motives for doing so, in a way which defamed them as much as it defamed me," he said.

Mycock feels there are many factors why Ms Leadbeater won with not all of them down to her own doing.

He added: "George Galloway’s presence was expected to make her lose the election, dividing the labour vote, yet the evidence is that he took away votes from those who may well have voted Conservative.

"For a constituency that has a difficult history, especially recently, the presence of Galloway did not go towards healing those community divisions.

"It was not an edifying political event. A lot of locals disengaged from the campaign, less than 50 per cent voted.

"It doesn’t suggest a particular strong support for the Prime Minister either. He visited Batley and Spen and seemed confident that they were going to win. The Matt Hancock affair potentially turned some new Conservative voters away from the party too.

"There were also questions around the Conservatives candidate. He was not from the constituency and there were rumours the campaign was rather underpowered.

"If there is an element of why Ms Leadbeater won it is probably down to her having a very strong local reputation rather than being a mandate for being a renewed Labour under Keir Starmer."