What an absolute and complete shitshow the by-election campaign is turning out to be in this seat. This formerly relatively safe Labour held seat is now at the centre of a bruising and divisive campaign that reminds me of similar unpleasant political contests of the past such as the byelection in Bermondsey of 1983 or Smethwick in the General Election of 1964. The reason I say this is that the Batley and Spen byelection, which is being held because the former MP Tracy Brabin won a Mayoral contest, is being fought in a really dirty way with religious and communal causes being championed either by Labour Party or by George Galloway’s Workers Party which is siphoning off Muslim votes from Labour.

The Tories are the favourite to win this seat but if they win it will be by default because the alternatives are so damnably awful with both Galloway and Labour’s candidate Kim Leadbetter, the sister of murdered MP Jo Cox Jo Cox, both aiming most of their campaigning energy at the roughly 20% of the constituency’s voters that are Muslim. Campaigning on local issues appears to be virtually non-existent with both Labour and Galloway courting the Muslim vote and addressing mostly Muslim concerns.

Nobody from either Labour or Galloway’s latest political vehicle seem that interested in the issues that might concern the rest of the voters who are not followers of Islam. Both Labour and Galloway are heavily promoting issues such as ‘Palestine’, ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘Kashmir’. Labour have put out a leaflet suggesting that the Tories will be too close to the Hindus because of links between Britain and India that the Government has fostered, fake or allegedly fake leaflets have been put out drawing attention to Labour’s support for BLM, Galloway and Leadbetter are accusing each others supporters of ripping down campaign signs and the whole campaign has been mired in communality, intimidation and alleged egg throwing and similar violence.

However for me the key, or rather lowest point,in the campaign was the sight of Leadbetter being bullied and harangued by a Muslim man over the issue of sex education in schools and then seeing her being all but chased down the street by this Muslim man and his pals. I think that when we look back at this campaign we hopefully will look at this incident, where the sister of a murdered MP had to depart from a campaign stop more quickly than should have normally been the case, because of this aggressive Islamic activist. Now I share the concerns that this man has about inappropriate and age inappropriate sex education materials in schools, but the way to campaign against this sort of thing is to use established political processes, not get all shouty at a candidate in the street.

The Batley and Spen byelection is a three horse race with the Tories currently in front with the major fight being between Labour and Galloway. I don’t think that the Lib Dems have much chance here. Normally they would pick up protest votes from those who are cheesed off with both major parties but this is unlikely to occur here. They could be pushed down to fourth place and might even lose their deposit. There are also an awful lot of minor parties taking part in this byelection and they might end up taking votes away from the major parties. A major factor that might make the Lib Dems unpopular in Batley and Spen is the strong Leave vote in the Referendum which was 60%. According to Survation polling the Lib Dems currently stand at 3% with the front runners being the Tories (47%), Labour (41%) and George Galloway’s Workers Party in third place on 6%.

It’s unlikely in my view that Galloway can take the seat going by the numbers at present, but he can and probably will, turn the Islamopandering up to eleven and take lots of votes away from Labour. The only thing in Labour’s favour are postal votes. They will have been sent in much earlier on in the campaigning period and might not be as affected by the convulsions of this campaign than those who are going to vote in person. Voters, especially Islamic voters, might have voted for Labour before Galloway and local Islamic religious and community leaders started stirring the pot and these voters might already be in the bag for Labour. As usual we should not discount the possibility that electoral fraud, especially fraud related to postal voting might be a factor in this contest.

Although I have no great love for the Tories or rather what they’ve morphed into in recent years, I want to see Labour lose this seat. The people of Batley and Spen deserve much better than Labour has either given them or what Labour want to give them. This constituency needs an MP who will represent all of the constituents, not just Muslims and not just those who care about Islamic causes and interests.

Despite this campaign being an utter and complete shitshow, it has done one really important thing. It has shown just how in hock to the ideology of identity politics Labour has become. It has also shown every Christian, Jew, Hindu, Sikh, atheist, agnostic, gay, Buddhist, neo-Pagan in Britain that Labour really doesn’t give a fart about anybody in these groups or even anybody who doesn’t belong to a specific group, all Labour care about is Islam and the votes that pandering to Islam can bring. The Labour party have with their Batley and Spen campaign, shown the entire nation why any thinking voter should not vote Labour.