GEORGE Galloway is someone my late father would have called an “awfy man”, which doesn't mean quite what it says.

The phrase combines exasperation with a degree of respect. Whatever you think of his politics you can't help admiring Mr Galloway for his sheer gallusness – and his energy at 66.

After his decisive rejection in the South of Scotland region in the Scottish Parliament last month, where he received only 1.5% of the vote, the former Respect MP didn't retire to the wilderness. Instead he has popped up in Batley and Spen as a Workers Party of Britain candidate in this week's by-election, determined to destroy the leader of his other former party, Sir Keir Starmer.

It looks like he might succeed.

Campaign posters depict him in an old-fashioned boxer's pose, fists up, above the legend, “Starmer Out”, positively inviting accusations of toxic masculinity from #metoo. He doesn't care. Mr Galloway revels in being anti-woke, and personal. He says Sir Keir has “no personality” and is “so wooden the birds are trying to nest in him”.

Labour, in response, has mounted a ferocious personal campaign against Mr Galloway on the Batley streets and on social media portraying him as a far right, transphobic demagogue; an associate of Donald Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon. He is even labelled “fascist” by Labour activists on Twitter, who allegedly recycled a Photoshopped image of him holding a gun at a family gathering. All of which is most unwise because Mr Galloway, a former Labour MP who has always been on the political left, has won hundreds of thousands of pounds from defamation actions over similar false allegations.

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After he parted company with Labour in 2003 over the Iraq War, Mr Galloway won a sensational by-election victory for anti-war Respect in Bethnal and Bow in 2005. Then in 2012 he won the Labour seat of Bradford West, just down the road from Batley and Spen. Yet he is most unlikely to win here. So why the Labour fury, which has only served to give him free publicity? Well, Mr Galloway is a remarkable street politician and a formidable public speaker and he is certainly capable of denying Labour a majority. He only needs to take 1,800 votes tomorrow.

A recent Survation poll suggested Labour was anyway trailing the Conservatives in this Yorkshire seat, where the Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a far right terrorist in 2016. Her sister, Kim Leadbeater is standing for Labour and looked on paper to be a shoo-in, on the sympathy vote if nothing else. But Batley has turned into an identitarian nightmare.

The Herald: Kim Leadbeater on the campaign trail with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, rightKim Leadbeater on the campaign trail with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, right

Ms Leadbeater, who is gay, was verbally assaulted by anti-LGBT activists outside a mosque in the constituency last week, and homophobic messages have been circulating on WhatsApp. This is a sensitive subject in the constituency, where 20% of the population is Muslim and where a teacher at Batley Grammar was viciously attacked recently for showing a cartoon of the Prophet in a lesson about free speech. Homosexuality is illegal in many Muslim countries and condemned in Koranic texts like the Hadith.

Mr Galloway is not in any way hostile to or prejudiced against gay people and has condemned the activists who barracked Ms Leadbeater as “troublemakers from outside the constituency”. However, he has made a number of comments critical of Labour's policy of allowing natal men to self-identify as women, condemning the party's “infatuation with unscientific trans theories”. He strenuously denies accusations that he is a “transphobe”.

Mr Galloway says he is mainly campaigning on local issues, like potholes in the roads and the closure of the local police station. But he has also relentlessly criticised Ms Leadbeater and Sir Keir for not speaking out in support of the Palestinian people and against the recent Israeli bombing in Gaza. There have been claims, from within the Labour campaign itself, that Sir Keir is suffering a “backlash” because his wife is Jewish and because his campaign against anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has ignored Islamophobia.

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Labour is the party of multiculturalism, LGBT, BLM and has embraced identity politics with enthusiasm. But the racial and gender identities don't always see eye to eye. Ms Leadbeater's campaign has also been criticised by Labour Friends of India over a leaflet exploiting Muslim grievances over human rights violations in Kashmir by the Hindu government of Narendra Modi. If this is a culture war, it has many fronts. Labour expects non-white people to vote for them as a matter of course, but there are signs that Labour's Muslim Wall is now crumbling, rather like its white working class support in the North of England.

But it's really all about Sir Keir. Mr Galloway has tapped into a widespread disenchantment in Batley with the Labour leader, not just amongst Muslims. Faked leaflets have been circulated in the constituency showing Sir Keir taking the knee and promising action on “white privilege”. But when confronted with these forgeries, many Labour activists find it hard to see anything wrong with them. Ms Leadbeater comes from the same cadre of progressives who now dominate Labour in London and assiduously promote trans politics and Black Lives Matter.

The Herald: Sir Keir StarmerSir Keir Starmer

Sir Keir is trying to distance himself from Batley, but he can't distance himself from the result. If Labour loses tomorrow it will be a genuine crisis, not just for its leader. For an official opposition party to lose three by-elections in a row is almost unheard of. The party hasn't recovered from the pain of losing Hartlepool last month and losing its deposit in Amersham. Sir Keir is under intense pressure from the left of the party and from outspoken columnists, like the Guardian's Owen Jones, who say that if Jeremy Corbyn had performed as badly as he has, the Labour right would be calling for regime change.

The Labour right are in despair and grandees like Lord Adonis are talking about bringing back Tony Blair. That is inconceivable. But Sir Keir could face a challenge, perhaps from his deputy, Angela Rayner, who some believe would be more attractive to working class voters. If so, George Galloway may feel his job is done.

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