Not even the sweetest biscuit can make this by-election less toxic.
![](https://unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/tanya-100x100.png)
Batley and Spen, the latest by-election Labour might lose, takes the narrative on from Hartlepool: from alienation to conflagration.
This constituency is a collection of towns and villages south of Leeds, known once for a thriving textile industry. Batley is the major town, made of blackened stone. It has fine Victorian buildings — as ever in the North, you see past glory — amid decline. The Fox’s biscuit factory looms like a drawing from a child’s story book. The Prime Minister, ever soothed near food, toured it last week with his candidate Ryan Stephenson, a councillor in Leeds, who is willing to be interviewed by a biscuit, but usually refuses to meet journalists.
It is self-seeking and short-sighted: a mistake. There is a vacuum to be filled because Tory and Labour are a functional absence. I come upon them only through campaigning literature on lamp posts and under foot: it floats around the constituency like tumbleweed. Party leaders come for photo opportunities so there is evidence for posterity that they exist. Press officers rarely respond, even to requests for information. So, others come to fill the void. Their complaints are superficially rational — opposition is easy — but they are here not to soothe but to ignite. George Galloway, a charismatic, wants to exploit the racism British Muslims face because major parties will not grapple with it. Laurence Fox is here too, offering support to the teacher at Batley Grammar whose use of an image of the prophet Mohammed led to protests at the school, and the teacher choosing exile from the town. It is astonishing to see Fox and Galloway on the same platform but, as self-defined mavericks, perhaps it is not so strange.
Last week, the Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater, a well-being coach and personal trainer, was harassed in the street by a Muslim anti LGTBQ activist, demanding that she condemn LGBTQ education in schools. (Leadbeater is gay.) “The colour of blood is what you are,” he said. Now she has police protection. Labour sources say Galloway supporters are repeatedly driving past the campaign office; once they crowded in to harass them. Labour activists, including Muslims, were pelted with eggs and one was beaten. In white areas, fake Labour leaflets are circulated, saying, “Labour supports taking the knee”, and “The Labour Party believes that it is high time that white people acknowledged their privilege”. Labour itself published a leaflet showing Boris Johnson shaking hands with India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the caption: “the risk of voting for anyone but Labour is clear”. Labour Friends of India asked for its withdrawal.
It is a co-incidence, or perhaps, worse, an omen, that this is the constituency whose Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered in 2016 by a white supremacist outside, of all places, a public library. Leadbeater is Cox’s sister. I wonder if it is another mistake from a Labour Party that embraced centralisation, a wound that took too long to show itself: the wrong candidate in the wrong place. Many Labour supporters feel unseen by the party they once embraced as family. Is it seemly to emphasise family ties, through a woman who only joined the party this year? What happened to Jo Cox is a tragedy, but her sister’s candidacy is still morbid nepotism, and it is unpopular with some voters. It takes politics further away from them, and into someone’s else’s personal narrative. “I can’t vote for someone who jumped on a bandwagon,” says one former Labour voter, “the sister of someone quite good.”
Batley is superficially sleepy. The once bustling market has declined; the police station has gone. Most commercial activity is sucked into a vast supermarket, with the now mandatory support for a foodbank in the window. (More than a third of children live in poverty in Yorkshire, and most of them are in working families.)
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe“the teacher at Batley Grammar whose use of an image of the prophet Mohammed led to protests at the school, and the teacher choosing exile from the town”
Is that what happened? He chose exile?
Typical of this journalist, sorry to say.
Indeed!
I’m American, and so unfamiliar with this series of events. Did he face death threats from adherents of the Religion of Peace? That seems to be their Standard Operating Practice..
Exactly – he used an image of the prophet in a religious studies lesson. The peacefuls them barracked the school and ruined his career
OK, thanks.
His career was wrecked by the cowardice of his school and his colleagues, who didn’t defend him.
She could I suppose have meant exile rather than death
This article is worth bookmarking as a textbook example of what Orwell called ‘protective stupidity’. It is not that Tanya Gold is stupid, but she is cowardly and conformist, she knows that if she steps outside the bounds of what can be said and thought in establishment liberal circles those lucrative gigs with the Guardian and others would dry up. Therefore certain questions must not be asked and certain lines of thought must not be followed. Though there is plenty of straightforward reporting here, there are also little nuggets of Gold’s three monkeys’ ideology buried in there which ultimately make it worthless
As a couple of people have pointed out – the unfortunate teacher in Batley did not choose to go into exile, he was driven out in fear of life by a mob of violent bigots. However, Tanya follows the party line – the only reason he won’t go back to his job is because he chooses not to. I’ve no doubt this will be the line followed by the equally gutless headteacher if there is any legal comeback. What Gold has written is not precisely a lie – if someone points a gun at me and demands my wallet I will probably choose to hand it over – but it is a vile and deliberate distortion of the truth.
Perhaps an even more striking example of Gold’s indifference to the truth is her casual acceptance of the following ‘One woman says her five-year nephew saw a tabloid headline, and said: “Auntie, look, we are terrorists. It says there”. Any decent journalist would have called this out as bullsh!t, similar to little Archie’s first words being ‘Grandma Diana’
Instead we’re expected to believe that a five year old can not only read a headline, they can understand what a terrorist is and come up with the analysis that a tabloid is accusing all Muslims of terrorism. One might also ask when this headline dates from. We have mercifully, not had any major terrorist attacks recently, the only terrorism related story (which has been heavily played down) is that the people at Manchester Arena died in part because fools like Gold who screech about Islamophobia have managed to convince people who were supposed to protect the public that anyone suspecting a Muslim of not being entirely virtuous is, by definition, an Islamophobe. Still better that children are blown to pieces than that metropolitan liberals are forced to confront reality.
Deep down, Gold knows all this, she knows that things that don’t add up and that there are grotesque inconsistencies in the narrative she promotes but like the deluded cultists in ‘When Prophecy Fails’ she has devoted her life to a set of absurd beliefs and, without them, she would have to confront the world as it is.Until she can find the strength to look at her own views with honesty and clear sightedness she will remain, like the rest of the liberal left, morally and intellectually bankrupt
Exactly right. You can read this kind of carp in The Guardian for free.
Carp are indeed a close cousin of the Gold fish !
Wonder what her background is?
Exactly. My immediate thought was my 5 year old grandson couldn’t read that.
Spot on. As soon as you see the byline is that of Tanya “Comedy” Gold, you know exactly what to expect.
Superb analysis. Gold’s article is essentially fake news.
The teacher choosing exile? Like Uighurs choosing to go into Chinese concentration camps. A cowardly and contemptible comment from a cowardly and contemptible ‘journalist’
Fake Labour leaflets are circulated, saying, “Labour supports taking the knee”, and “The Labour Party believes that it is high time that white people acknowledged their privilege”.
Fake but not untrue.
LOL, indeed. How does anyone claim to know these are fake?
Good Lord, I find myself agreeing with George Galloway on s*xual politics: “Why is everyone clapping? Should I announce what I like s*xually? … the personal [he mourns] became substituted for what united all of us – whoever we slept with.”
Gorgeous George often says very sensible things. It’s a strange old world
Does he? LIke what?
Can’t remember off hand, but he has. He sometimes shafts woke sensibilities. The Beast of Bolsover was a bit of the same.
He’s fairly sensible on gender. But he is outside the media bubble.
Murdered by a white supremacist? Really? Stop regurgitating rubbish.
“There’s nowt for kids to do”. Not “nought”.
Statements like this feel like hearing from an adult who still believes in Santa Claus.
It was at that point i finally stopped reading this somewhat partisan piece
“ In white areas, fake Labour leaflets are circulated, saying, “Labour supports taking the knee”, and “The Labour Party believes that it is high time that white people acknowledged their privilege”.
Those leaflets may be fake but the general sentiment isn’t. If Labour doesn’t expunge all “white privilege” and gender ideologies from its central platforms then that kind of thing is fair game and they will lose most of their working class constituencies.
‘…a well-being coach and personal trainer..’ – this, and the odd fact that the Labour candidate has only been a party member for a year, must surely mean the LP have no interest whatsoever in winning this election, nor any loyalty to their own local party members. I expect this sort of ‘shite’ from the Conservatives, but it does indeed show that there is no real moral or organisational difference between our two major political parties any more.
This writer is so full of herself, that it is tedious reading her articles
These people are, Purser says, “dislocated. Atomised. Individualised.”
Really? Tha understands nowt lad.
Sorry, but that Labour activist is saying disgusting things, all riding on the “Islamophobia” bandwagon in a constituency perhaps largely assumed to be driven by a bloc Muslim vote. If that reflects Labour’s view of people desperately and painfully trying to voice legitimate cultural fears, they surely deserve to lose.
Another poundshop ‘Wigan Pier’ article. At least Orwell actually lived it or immersed himself before he put pen to paper.
and Orwell had human compassion and genuine anger not sophistry. Having said that, I think the author writes very well as an impartial observer of an absurd and tragic situation but she should check her bias if she wants to truly depict the absurd. I enjoy her writing though
Poor Jo Cox. She used to say that we were united by more than divides us. Everyone agrees with her and then (unlike Jo herself) does the opposite.
When she was attacked, her only defender was an old white veteran, who was wounded himself.
She’d have despised him, I imagine.
Tanya says ‘Palestine is a paradigm for the Muslims of Batley’s perceived helplessness . One woman says ‘we’re not your servants anymore ‘
Tanya is secretly glad about that . She’s happy that white working class cleaners are two a penny in Cornwall and there aren’t Muslim youths ogling naked female flesh on the beaches .
But wherein lies their ‘helplessness’ ? It’s the local white people who have seen their ancestral locale colonised by aggressive and hostile migrants egged on by middle class progressive Guardian journalists like Tanya
And in any comparison between the situation in Palestine and Batley she should ask herself who are the incoming settlers and who are the native inhabitants .
What would Tanya prefer:
1) A party that has promoted able male and female politicians (including many of immigrant descent) to Cabinet positions of real power and influence or
2) One whose comfort zone is gender politics, race baiting, quotas and the UK’s wing of the Kashmir skirmish re-enactment society?
The article rings true. Depressing because accurate.
Britain, depressed and aimless though it is, now is showing signs of becoming an active volcano.
Pray ! Because nothing else is going to work.
“The article rings true.” No it doesn’t, I am sorry to say. Classic case of journalist up from the smoke looking for semi-facts to suit a pre-formed narrative.
There is no doubt Jo Cox’s murderer was far right so it is a fair bet that he was a white supremacist as well.
In no way, shape or form am I a Labour supporter and I am certainly no wokeflake. However, I am perturbed at the unpleasant comments sometimes directed towards her.
As for Galloway, there is no gainsaying how objectionable and obnoxious he is, whether he makes pertinent points at times or not.
Regarding Labour, they are manifestly failing in their political and possibly constitutional duty in their abject failure to offer meaningful opposition to a government that is authoritarian, capricious as well as a prime minister who is inept, mendacious, pusillanimous and chronically indecisive. And it does seem odd to me that I have juxtaposed a premier and government in a seemingly contradictory way but that is the madness of it.
You are as bad as Ms Gold – you make assumptions on half truths and presume no-one can use Google. Mair was mentally ill, he tried to make an appointment with a mental health expert in the days leading up to the murder, unfortunately she was fully booked. If she hadn’t been maybe Jo Cox would still be here. But Ms Cox was too busy virtue signalling to notice one of her constituents was mentally ill and about to be evicted from the council house he had always lived in with his grandmother. As he said – put Britain first, but Labour don’t and until they do they will continue to lose.
So it was her fault then? Got it.
She should have been looking to help him stay in his home rather than with her husband, Irishman Brendan Cox , be always campaigning to bring in more Syrian ‘refugees’ .
So yes her brand of labour woke politics triggered a man with mental health issues about to lose his home .
She is certainly a hero in parts of Kensington and Islington but I doubt she’s unequivocally worshipped in Batley
1) What does the fact her husband is Irish have to do with anything?
2) I think we can safely assume that many of those responsible for Islamist atrocities have had “mental health issues” (horrible phrase by the way) and perhaps have had their own grievances. Does that excuse what they have done?
3) Her killer undoubtedly, for whatever reason, had demonstrated an obsession with far right ideas.
4) I did not share very many of Jo Cox’s views at all but equally, I do not like the timbre of some of the comments about her on here at all either. Some of those responsible are, in their own way, just as bad as anything on the wokosphere.
1) Cox supposedly had free access to Gordon Brown’s Downing St in his (and his wife’s) mission to bring the next generation of Manchester bombers to live in the UK . Would prefer he were in cahoots with his Taoiseach to bring a few plane and boatloads of ‘refugees’ to live in Ireland .We already have their ‘travellers’ to deal with , do we need their woke activists as well ? With Brendon Cox’s record of sexual misconduct/abuse not surprising he and his wife met when working for save the children and oxfam .
2)The Coxes had a mission to bring Muslim ideologues (with or without mental health issues ) to the UK .Perhaps Mrs Cox should have concentrated on her constituents
3)One man’s interest is another’s obsession. Perhaps his politics as well as his mental health issues were a reaction to his circumstances .
OK, so again an entirely uncontroversial post from me that does not break any rules is visible for a few hours and is then “subject to approval” I am wondering if a certain poster has flagged mine up as simply an act of spite.
Using an iPhone the flag up sometimes comes on unintentionally , and seems impossible to cancel . No idea if that happened to your post though . More often on other boards this happens . I have never flagged up any post on purpose