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George Galloway has won the Rochdale by-election for the Worker’s Party of Britain, overturning a Labour majority of 9,668.
Mr Galloway has now won his fourth seat in parliament since 1987, having previously held seats for the Labour party and the Respect party.
Mr Galloway won the seat with a 39.7 per cent majority, receiving 12,335 votes.
In second place came independent candidate David Tulley, who won 6,638 votes and 21.3 per cent of the vote share.
The win is the climax to a highly chaotic by-election, marked by death threats, vandalism and candidates wearing stab vests.
(Getty Images)
Mr Galloway based much of his campaign on the conflict in Gaza, attacking the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s refusal to back a ceasefire in the region.
In Mr Galloway’s victory speech, he addressed Sir Keir Starmer directly, stating: “Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza. You will pay a high price for your role in this.”
He added: “Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside and they both got well and truly spanked tonight.”
The election was called following the death of Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd.
Sir Tony had held the seat since 2017 and it was widely anticipated that the party would retain it. However, Labour were forced to withdraw support from their candidate, Azhar Ali, after it was revealed that he had suggested that Israel was complicit in the massacre of its own people on 7 October.
His name could not be removed from ballot papers but it meant that the Labour party had no candidate in the race.
Mr Ali finished in fourth place with just 2,402 votes – 7.7 per cent of the overall vote share.
The result is likely to place more pressure on Sir Keir to moderate his position on the Gaza conflict, as Mr Galloway’s win fans speculation that left-wing challengers could peel off the Labour vote in constituencies across the country.