George Galloway has won the Rochdale by-election. The new MP for the town announced the result as a ‘shifting of the tectonic plates’ in his acceptance speech, but that’s not an accurate way of describing what’s just happened. It’s more like a blip and an unpleasant one at that. No one who hopes for the best out of British politics can look at Rochdale with any joy.
Certainly not celebrating this morning will be the Reform party, who came a shocking sixth, behind even the Liberal Democrats. Richard Tice was campaigning heavily in the constituency himself yesterday, with various Reform figures having talked up the candidate Simon Danczuk’s chances of winning. To get a measly 1,968 votes after all that, barely clinging on to the deposit, is laughable.
This is an ugly result that few who care about this country and its democracy should be cheering about
There is a lot of talk right now about Reform causing the Conservative party a huge headache at the general election.
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