Expectations matter in politics. A narrow byelection victory for the opposition, with a swing against them in a seat they have held for over 20 years, would not normally be treated as a triumph. Yet, because the consensus expectation was that Labour was doomed in Batley and Spen, this is how Friday morning’s victory in the seat has been received. Two factors drove the belief that Labour would lose last week: Hartlepool and Galloway. Labour’s dramatic byelection defeat two months ago in a heavily Leave-voting northern seat led many to believe the party would face similar trouble in another Leave-voting northern seat. And Galloway, who has form as a disruptive force in Labour byelections, looked set to weaken the party’s principal advantage in Batley and Spen – a substantial and hitherto heavily Labour-voting Muslim community.
Both arguments were weaker than they appeared. Batley and Spen voted to leave, but by a much narrower margin (60%) than the Leave landslide in Hartlepool (70%). Labour’s vote in the West Yorkshire seat has held up better across recent elections than it has in the north-east port town, which Labour could easily have lost earlier had the anti-Labour vote united under one banner. The demographics of Batley and Spen are much more mixed, as befits a longstanding marginal battleground seat. It has richer and poorer areas, urban and rural areas, white working-class neighbourhoods and Muslim neighbourhoods. Many of George Galloway’s 8,000 votes will have come from those Muslim neighbourhoods, where he focused his disruptive, polarising campaign. But we should not assume this was Galloway’s only appeal. There has long been a substantial anti-politics vote in Batley and Spen – Ukip and the BNP both had strong showings here in past elections, and a Ukip-leaning independent group came third in the 2019 election. Galloway will probably have mobilised some of these voters, who were unlikely to back the Labour incumbent come what may. Some might have backed the Brexit-flavoured Conservatives in his absence.
Yet while the challenges to Labour in Batley were perhaps not as serious as they appeared, they were real, and have helped to frame last week’s result as a comeback triumph for the underdog. This is a valuable narrative for Labour’s embattled leadership, quieting critics who just days earlier were speculating about a possible leadership challenge, and giving Starmer’s recently reorganised team some breathing space. A Labour conference once again dominated by factional infighting looks a little less likely now. This win relieves the pressure on the Labour leadership, but deeper-seated problems remain. Labour has not posted an opinion poll lead since January, and had a poor showing in May’s local and mayoral elections. The party has yet to rebuild its appeal in Scotland or among Leave voters. Keir Starmer’s poll ratings have steadily declined all year, leaving him less popular now than the prime minister, and only a little more popular than his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn. Voters in focus groups say they don’t know what the Labour party stands for or what its leader believes in. A window of opportunity may open for the opposition soon. The political conversation, dominated for over a year by Covid, may soon return to more traditional topics as the pandemic threat finally fades. The boost the government has received from its successful vaccination programme will probably fade too, as the country moves out of crisis mode, and minds turn to post-pandemic recovery. Labour may then have a chance to focus attention on the structural weaknesses and inequalities exposed by the pandemic, and set out its ambitions to address these. It is a chance the party would do well to seize. A Labour party with aspirations to govern after the next election needs to do a lot better than cling on in seats it already holds.