While Keir Starmer is busy in a game of chairs to maintain control of the Labour Party after a series of electoral defeats including Hartlepool and Chesham and Amersham where the Labour Party was put behing the Greens with a few hundred votes, the chase is on.
It was Diane Abbott, a close associate of Jeremy Corbyn - former Labour Party Leader thrown out of the Labour Party and now standing as an Independent in the House of Commons -, who said that defeat in Batley and Spen would be the end of the leadership of Keir Starmer.
George Galloway is another former Labour MP involved in a crusade to defeat the Labour Party in Batley and Spen - the seat that used to be represented by Jo Cox where none other than Kim Leadbeater sister of Jo Cox is standing for election.
Who can Keir Starmer trust inside the Labour Party shadow cabinet? Who can he count on should there be another leadership challenge? Every reshuffle is a bruising experience. Could there be a Labour Dominic Cummings in waiting?
As previously reported, the gap between Labour and Conservative has been getting smaller since the seat went to Labour in 1997. Now, Muslim voters that constitute a sizeable minority in Batley and Spen and other disaffected Labour voters most of whom voted for Brexit see little in the present Labour Party. If we take this into account then Batley and Spen is a very marginal Labour seat and ready for the taking.
The margin in 2019 was 3,525. Given what has been happening since the demise of Jeremy Corbyn, it is not unthinkable that such a reduced majority could be wiped out by those who choose to support George Galloway and those who choose to abstain. In this particular scenario, since the two main contenders are Labour and Conservative, there would be no strategic voting that could save the Labour Party from certain defeat because the Lib Dems are two far below to make up for the difference. It must also be said that the Lib Dems got 4.7% of the share of the vote compared to the previous election in 2017 and that another change of leadership in the Labour Party would signal that the choices made by Labour voters in Chesham and Amersham where voters chose to vote Lib Dem were right.
In May 20201, Labour kept control of 44 Council having lost 8, while the Conservatives gained 13 reaching 63 local authorities. Yet another rebuff in Batley and Spen, a seat held by Labour and that has an important meaning for Labour as it was represented by Jo Cox, the Member of Parliament killed on June 16th 2016.
At 12:53 pm, Britsh Summer Time, on Thursday, June 16th 2016, Jo Cox (born Helen Joanne Leadbeater) was shot and stabbed outside a librery in Birstall, West Yorkshire. Witnesses indicated that she was shot three times - once near the head - and stabbed multiple times.
Not surprising then that the Labour Party decided to put aside its own party rules regarding membership and candidates for election and decided to allow Kim Leadbeater to stand for election, a move that didn't happen without criticism from within the Labour Party itself. Whether emotional elements have any weight with voters remains to be seen. In any case, Kim Leadbeater has stated that she is the only candidate standing that has actual links with Batley and Spen.
No comments:
Post a Comment