Starmer’s survival as Labour leader depends on winning Batley and Spen 

Finding himself in a hole, Sir Keir Starmer just keeps on digging. The Labour leader’s decision to demote his deputy, Angela Rayner, has only made the débacle of last week’s elections look like a terminal catastrophe. His attempt to make her the scapegoat for the party’s loss of the Hartlepool by-election ensured that the media narrative over the weekend went from bad to worse.

Yet Labour’s results in Wales, the South-West, Manchester, West Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire and elsewhere were actually quite good. Sadiq Khan held onto the London mayoralty despite an unexpectedly strong challenge from Shaun Bailey, the Conservative candidate who had been written off by his own party. Overall, the Tories made impressive gains compared to the 2016 local elections, but the swing was smaller than at the 2019 general election. Labour could have spun the results as a step towards reversing that defeat. Instead, they have panicked themselves into an existential crisis.

Far from being the problem, Angela Rayner might actually turn out to be part of the solution. A no-nonsense Northerner, she is more likely to “cut through” in the contests to come than Sir Keir, who cannot escape the fact that he is the embodiment of everything that former Red Wall voters detest about Labour. His humiliating ejection from a pub exposed his limitations as a campaigner. Letting his staff brief against his deputy for travelling first class was bad politics as well as bad form: a well-heeled London lawyer has nothing to gain from accusing a self-made single mother of extravagance. The spat is all the sillier, given that Ms Rayner has now effectively been reinstated, with a meaningless 24-word title. The only part of it that matters is “Deputy Leader”, because that role is directly elected by members. Sir Keir has merely antagonised a colleague with whom he will still have to work.

The next big test of the Starmer leadership will come soon enough. A by-election in Batley and Spen has been triggered by the election of its MP, Tracey Brabin, as Mayor of West Yorkshire. A popular figure, she held the seat in 2019 by 3,525 votes, a smaller majority than in Hartlepool. Council election results in the constituency last week showed the Conservative vote up by 16.5 per cent; Labour’s was down 2.5 per cent. To Tory strategists, Batley and Spen looks like low-hanging fruit. How will Labour prevent its loss, with all the internecine warfare that a second Hartlepool would inevitably unleash? 

One mistake will not be repeated: this by-election cannot coincide with other polls, for the simple reason that there aren’t any. Holding Hartlepool on Super Thursday was a howler, subjecting Labour to a double-whammy. This time, Labour may delay Batley and Spen until the autumn to avoid the possibility of a long hot summer if the seat were lost. They may gamble that in another six months or so the Government’s vaccine “bounce” will have subsided. And there is the Micawberish hope that “something will turn up”.

Psychologically, though, to delay the by-election until as late as November would be a mistake. For one thing, it looks like cowardice. Sir Keir may have had a bad fall, but he needs to get back on the horse straight away. If he is going to save his leadership, he needs to do it soon. If not, for the sake of his party, an end with horror would be better than horror without end.

For another thing, Batley and Spen is a very different kind of constituency from Hartlepool. The latter had been Labour since 1964; Batley and Spen was represented by a Conservative until 1997. One difference was highlighted earlier this year when Islamists protested outside Batley Grammar School, after a teacher was suspended for showing pupils a cartoon of Mohammed. Many people were dismayed by the school’s capitulation to threats. Nor has anyone forgotten Jo Cox, the Batley-born MP who preceded Tracey Brabin. In 2016 she was murdered by a neo-Nazi while holding a constituency surgery. The subsequent by-election was uncontested by the other mainstream parties. This is a divided community that will require careful handling, because religious and ethnic tensions cannot simply be glossed over. But there are potential pitfalls for Tory as well as Labour politicians who campaign there while unfamiliar with the characteristics of this West Yorkshire seat.

The choice of Labour candidate will obviously be crucial: not just because it always matters in by-elections, but because this time it is Sir Keir who is on trial and, whatever selection process takes place, the choice will ultimately be his. When so much else is unpredictable, this is one of the few factors that the party leader can control. After what proved to have been a poor choice of candidate in Hartlepool, whoever fights Batley and Spen for Labour will come under even more intense scrutiny. A local candidate is desirable, a Blue Labour social conservative preferable, a Leaver essential: the constituency voted roughly 60-40 for Brexit in 2016. This is definitely not a job for a card-carrying metropolitan establishment carpet-bagger.

At the last general election, the Labour vote fell by nearly 13 per cent in Batley and Spen — but the Conservative vote also fell by nearly 3 per cent, enabling Tracey Brabin to hang on. So much has happened since then that the result of the coming by-election, whenever it takes place, is anyone’s guess. One thing, though, is certain: Sir Keir Starmer’s chances of leading Labour into the next general election depend upon a good result in Batley and Spen. Parties cannot abide a loser. His ordeal is only just beginning.

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