BBC Breakfast

Labour MP Shabana Mahmood, the party's new election co-ordinator, says: "It's a fantastic result for the Labour Party and a richly deserved win for our superb, brilliant and brave candidate".

She says this was a "collective effort from across the whole of the Labour movement" and it was an election where "local issues were at the heart of it".

"Kim is a local woman," she states, adding that she was the only candidate who was eligible to vote in the by-election herself as she lives there.

She says the party faced "abuse on the doorsteps", and some campaigners were "egged". She says that George Galloway, the former Labour and Respect MP, had been seeking to "sow division" in the constituency.

She adds that she hopes that "grumblings" around Keir Starmer's leadership now stop.

"We are making progress in some parts of the country, and we are facing a challenge in some parts of the country," she finishes.

Brendan Cox, the widower of former MP Jo Cox, who represented Batley and Spen until her murder in 2016, tweeted his reaction to the news.

In his first tweet responding to the news, he simply tweeted "More in common" a reference to the phrase Jo Cox used to use.

During her time in Parliament, she said she believed there was "more in common than that which divides us".

BBC Breakfast

Kim Leadbeater tells BBC Breakfast it has been an "emotional" campaign for her "for lots of reasons".

The seat of Batley and Spen was previously held by her sister Jo Cox, who was murdered in the constituency in 2016.

"If I can be half the MP that Jo was then I know that I’ll do her proud and I’ll do my family proud," she says.

Leadbeater says she has conducted a "very positive campaign" and "focused very much on the good people of Batley and Spen" despite seeing "some nastiness".

"There are some divisions that need to be healed but I think if anyone can achieve that then I can," she says.

When asked why the margin was so narrow and why Labour lost votes, she says: “It was very close but we’re under no illusion in the Labour Party that we’ve had two really tough election defeats in recent years and we’ve got some work to do.”

She adds: “We’ve got to reconnect with some of our voters."

Labour breathes a mighty sigh of reliefpublished at 07:20 British Summer Time 2 July 2021

07:20 BST 2 July 2021

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

Labour has held the seat of Batley and Spen since 1997, so a victory might well sound like it was expected. Actually, there was an expectation Labour would lose and there were a number of factors working against them.

One was the fact that the Labour Party has struggled in by-elections recently and lost Hartlepool, for example.

There was the fact that George Galloway stood here and he took 8,000 votes from traditional Labour voters in the Asian community, which is fairly sizeable in Batley and Spen.

So all the expectation really in Westminster was that the Tories would sneak through the middle and win this seat – that hasn’t happened.

It means that Labour are breathing a mighty sigh of relief this morning.

I suspect the biggest sigh of relief will be from Sir Keir Starmer, because if the Labour leader had seen another by-election loss today then he would have been in real trouble.

There would have been a lot of talk about leadership challenges, about the future of the party and about whether he had any prospect of really winning power at any stage if he was losing these by-elections halfway through a Conservative term.

The fact that hasn’t happened means his supporters are in a pretty good mood this morning and they’re saying this shows that some of the questions being asked of him over the last few weeks have been a bit over-hyped and that he can win.

The constituency is going to get a visitor this morning - Labour leader Keir Starmer will be heading to Batley and Spen to celebrate Labour holding the seat in the by-election.

He's also tweeted his congratulations:

Kim Leadbeater has said that the "vast majority of conversations" in the Batley and Spen by-election were about local issues.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Leadbeater said that although "sometimes national issues came up", "most conversations weren't about the Labour leadership" and that they were instead about people's "day-to-day lives".

She also said that the fact she was "born and bred" in the area had been "really important to people".

Image source, PA Media

Kim Leadbeater is the new Labour MP for the constituency, winning the seat with a majority of just 323 seats.

She's the sister of the former MP for the seat Jo Cox, who was murdered in 2016.

When she was selected, she said: "I'm a proud Yorkshirewoman and have lived in Batley and Spen all my life. I have a deep understanding of the area, its people and some of the challenges it faces."

Tracy Brabin followed Ms Cox as MP for the seat in 2016, but stood down after she was recently elected as West Yorkshire's first regional mayor, triggering the by-election.

Welcome to our coverage of the by-election result from Batley and Spen, where Labour held onto the seat in yesterday's hotly-contested by-election.

Kim Leadbeater is the new Labour MP - she beat her closest rival by just 323 votes.

Tory candidate Ryan Stephenson came second with 12,973, and former Labour and Respect MP George Galloway third with 8,264 votes.