Labour Win Oldham West And Royton By-Election

Mr Corbyn hailed the result as proof of how “strong” his party was across the country, while Ken Livingstone claimed that it was “because of” the Labour leader’s new direction for the party.

“No doubt, there is a white working class disaffected vote there which is what UKIP is picking up, but given that 30 per cent of people (in the constituency) are ethnic minorities, inevitably there is a limit to what (UKIP) could hope to achieve”, Curtice said. I’m commenting on the state of modern Britain, post mass immigration.

Mr Farage’s claim – which relied on an anecdote from a report in the Guardian from a street in Oldham, where everyone was reportedly voting Labour despite residents not being able to speak English, and not having heard of Jeremy Corbyn – was that “the electoral process is now dead in those areas”.

The by-election follows the death of long-serving Labour ex-minister Michael Meacher.

This is what enabled the party to emerge as the main opposition in more than 40 Labour seats and also more than 70 Conservative ones, although nearly all of these were safely held by one of the two main parties.

He supported Blairite Liz Kendall in the summer leadership election, not Corbyn, and as leader of Oldham borough council has championed business-friendly policies. “Serious questions need to be asked”.

“If Ukip makes claims, they should demonstrate evidence to back it up”. Listen to the good folk of Oldham who have given the Labour leader their solid endorsement. In response, Watson said: “I am grateful for that, because to actually use an issue of such importance to try and divide the Labour party is reprehensible”. “That doesn’t seem to be consistent with modern liberal democracy”.

The Electoral Commission published the advice in January 2014, naming 16 local authority areas (out of just over 400 across the United Kingdom as a whole) where there appears to be a greater risk of cases of alleged electoral fraud being reported, including Birmingham, Bradford, Oldham, Slough, and Tower Hamlets.

But their prophecies of doom were blown apart by a 7 per cent swing to Labour that left Ukip trailing by over 10,000.

The result is a bitter disappointment for UKIP, which had looked on popular horror at Corbyn’s extremism and links with terrorists to give it a greatly increased vote or even the seat.

Mr McMahon said: “My sole focus has always been on what is best for Oldham, I want to make our town a better place for my sons to grow up in and make it somewhere they can be proud of, my priority will always be Oldham”.

The angry MEP added: “We’ve had problems in Tower Halmets with this, we’ve had problems in Birmingham”.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: “It shows the way we’ve driven the Tories back on tax credits, on police cuts, on their whole austerity agenda and narrative”. ‘The hard work starts now’.

The race was tipped to be a close contest between Labour and UKIP – but Labour held the seat and increased its share of the vote significantly since May’s election.

In an email to Labour members on Thursday, Mr Corbyn and Mr Watson called for debate over the party’s direction to be carried out in a ” more civil and more respectful” way.

Although Labour has a majority of more than 14,000 in Oldham West and Royton, the odds have been tumbling on a win for Ukip. It is only possible to assume many former Tory voters did not see UKIP as a kind of ideological half-way house, but went all the way to Labour.

The first by-election test is a nerve wracking moment for any new party leader.

Tory candidate James Daly was third with 2,596 votes, while the Lib Dems lost their deposit after Jane Brophy only managed to secure 1,024 votes.