By Kiran Stacey and Hannah Kuchler
Labour suffered a humiliating by-election defeat in Bradford West after a late surge by George Galloway, the leftwing Respect party member and former Labour MP.
In a result he dubbed the “Bradford Spring”, Mr Galloway secured 18,341 votes, pushing Imran Hussein of Labour into second with 8,201 votes. The anti-war politician’s party won just over 1,000 votes the last time the seat was contested in 2010.
“Labour has been hit by a tidal wave in a seat it held for many decades in a city it dominated for 100 years,” said Mr Galloway.
The by-election, called after Labour MP Marsha Singh resigned due to ill health, was “the most sensational result in British by-election history bar none”, said Mr Galloway. The Labour party had held the seat since 1974.
Respect pulled ahead of the other parties after Conservative support collapsed. Jackie Whiteley, Conservative candidate, came third with 2,746 votes. Tory party strategists blamed the furore over George Osborne’s Budget two weeks ago for the poor performance.
But the result will come as more of a blow for Labour and will renew questions about the leadership of Ed Miliband. The official opposition party previously viewed the constituency as a safe seat, holding it by over 6,000 votes just two years ago.
Mr Galloway ran on a campaign focused on his opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which won him a lot of support among Bradford’s large Muslim community.
But Salma Yaqoob, the leader of the Respect party, said the people of Bradford West had also abandoned Labour because they felt it was not providing a real alternative to the coalition government’s public spending cuts.
“The three main parties are not connecting with the people. We have austerity from the Conservatives, austerity supported by the Lib Dems and austerity light from Labour,” she told the BBC’s Today programme.
Ms Yaqoob advocated investment rather than cuts, saying the signs of turnround in the US economy had come without austerity.
Harriet Harman, deputy leader of the Labour party, was keen to stress that the party’s problem was “particular” to Bradford. Labour had maintained support until last week, when the “bandwagon effect” took over, she told the Today programme.
She said the party had not taken the constituency for granted and would try now to rebuild the strong links Labour still had with the local community.
Mr Galloway returns to parliament after a two-year hiatus, having unsuccessfully contested the east London seat of Poplar and Limehouse in 2010.
He is a divisive and controversial figure, having previously praised Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator, and subsequently worked for Press TV, the Iranian state broadcaster.
One of Mr Galloway’s first messages after declaring victory on Twitter read: “Long live Iraq. Long live Palestine, free, Arab, dignified.”