Skip to main content
Galloway’s challenge to Labour won’t go away quickly
The catastrophic collapse in confidence under Starmer and the decent result for the left-populist Workers Party show's Labour's retreat from principled, working-class politics will cost it dearly well beyond Batley and Spen, argues NICK WRIGHT

THE narrow win for Kim Leadbeater in the Batley and Spen by-election is down — in part — to an impressive Get Out The Vote operation.

It seems that a still-intelligent element in Labour’s apparatus has learnt from the Momentum surge tactics and perhaps, from Stalin’s famous aphorism that once the political line has been determined, organisation decides all.

The party machinery pulled out all the stops — something it will not be able to achieve in every constituency during a general election — and in doing so demonstrated how much more effective Labour’s ground operation could be if the apparatus worked in unity with the membership rather than witch-hunted activists on the left.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire
Immigration / 24 April 2025
24 April 2025

The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all 

ANGER GROWS: Protesters demonstrate in Dover against migrant
Features / 10 April 2025
10 April 2025
The left must confront both far-right bigotry and the undeniable problems the exploitation of migrant workers by the ruling class creates — but there are few lessons from the global left on how to strike this balance, laments NICK WRIGHT
FACING THE RIGHT:
Anti-racist protesters
in Walthamstow, 202
Features / 27 March 2025
27 March 2025
Xenophobic hysteria over the statistically insignificant number of small-boat crossings deliberately conceals how capitalism manipulates population flows for profit — if we can explain that, we’ll beat the right, argues NICK WRIGHT
PREMONITION OF DISASTER: Anonymous photographer, Fallen Stat
Book Review / 18 March 2025
18 March 2025
NICK WRIGHT delicately unpicks the eloquent writings on art of an intellectual pessimist who wears his Marxism lightly
Similar stories
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer poses for a photograph with
Opinion / 10 July 2024
10 July 2024
by Radhika Desai, Alan Freeman and Carlos Martinez
Newly elected Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer gives a speech
Features / 9 July 2024
9 July 2024
Communist Party leader ROBERT GRIFFITHS dissects the election results, looking at all of the political spectrum, from the hard right to the far left, and assesses the political landscape it reveals
Labour leader Keir Starmer speaking at the launch, May 24, 2
Editorial: / 26 May 2024
26 May 2024
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak greets supporters in Teesside cel
Features / 7 May 2024
7 May 2024
After 14 years of Tory rule there's little enthusiasm for Starmer and his menu of reheated Thatcherism, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE