Cleckheaton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees,West Yorkshire,England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire,it is situated south of Bradford,east of Brighouse,west of Batley and south-west of Leeds. It is at the centre of the Spen Valley and was the major town in the former borough of Spenborough. Cleckheaton has a history as a mill town and forms part of the Heavy Woollen District.
Kirklees is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire,England. The borough comprises the ten towns of Batley,Birstall,Cleckheaton,Dewsbury,Heckmondwike,Holmfirth,Huddersfield,Meltham,Mirfield and Slaithwaite. It is governed by Kirklees Council. Kirklees had a population of 422,500 in 2011;it is the third-largest metropolitan district in England by area size,behind Doncaster and Leeds.
Batley and Spen is a constituency in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. The current MP is Kim Leadbeater,a Labour politician,elected in a 2021 by-election by a 323-vote margin. The seat has returned Labour MPs since the 1997 general election.
Kevin Denis Brennan is a Welsh Labour politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardiff West since 2001. He served as a Minister of State at both the Department for Business,Innovation and Skills and the Department for Children,Schools and Families from 2009 to 2010. Brennan held several junior ministerial offices from 2006 to 2009 at the Treasury,Cabinet Office and Department for Children,Schools and Families. In opposition,he served in various shadow ministerial positions from 2010 to 2020 as a Shadow Minister for BIS,Education,and Digital,Culture,Media and Sport (DCMS). He has been Shadow Minister for Victims and Sentencing since September 2023.
Heckmondwike Grammar School (HGS) is an 11–18 mixed,grammar school and sixth form with academy status in Heckmondwike,West Yorkshire,England.
Liberty Great Britain or Liberty GB was a minor far-right British nationalist political party founded and led by Paul Weston that described itself as "counter-jihad".
Helen Joanne Cox was a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Batley and Spen from May 2015 until her murder in June 2016. She was a member of the Labour Party.
Paula Michelle Sherriff is a British Labour politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dewsbury from 2015 to 2019.
On 20 October 2016,a by-election was held in the UK parliamentary constituency of Batley and Spen. It was triggered by the murder of the incumbent member of parliament (MP),Jo Cox,on 16 June 2016. The Labour candidate,Tracy Brabin,won with 85.8% of the vote. Four parties with parliamentary representation did not enter candidates,out of respect for Cox. Nine candidates contested against Labour,and none reached the 5% threshold to keep their deposit.
On 16 June 2016,Jo Cox,a British Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament (MP) for Batley and Spen,died after being shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall,West Yorkshire. In November 2016,53-year-old Thomas Alexander Mair was found guilty of her murder and other offences connected to the killing in an act of terrorism. The judge concluded that Mair wanted to advance white supremacy and exclusive nationalism most associated with Nazism and its modern forms. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order.
Jayda Kaleigh Fransen is a British far-right politician and activist who was convicted of religiously aggravated harassment in 2018. Formerly involved with the English Defence League (EDL),she left due to its association with drink-fuelled violence. She then joined the far-right fascist political organisation Britain First. With Paul Golding as leader,Fransen was deputy leader from 2014 to 2019. She became acting leader for six months from December 2016 to June 2017,while Golding was imprisoned in December 2016.
Alison Natalie Kay Lowe is a British Labour politician and deputy mayor of West Yorkshire for Policing and Crime. She was the first black woman Leeds city councillor,serving from 1990 to 2019,and has served as the chief executive of Touchstone,a mental health charity based in Leeds,from 2004 to 2021.
The inaugural West Yorkshire mayoral election was held on Thursday 6 May 2021 to elect the Mayor of West Yorkshire. It took place simultaneously on the same day as other local elections across the United Kingdom,including council elections in each of the five metropolitan boroughs of West Yorkshire.
The Workers Party of Britain (WPB),also called the Workers Party of Great Britain (WPGB) or Workers Party GB,is a socialist political party in the United Kingdom,formed in December 2019 and led by George Galloway,the Member of Parliament for Rochdale since a 2024 by-election.
A by-election was held in the UK parliamentary constituency of Batley and Spen on 1 July 2021,following the resignation of the previous Member of Parliament (MP) Tracy Brabin,who was elected Mayor of West Yorkshire on 10 May. Under the devolution agreement,the position holds the powers and responsibilities of a police and crime commissioner,meaning the occupant of the office cannot simultaneously sit as an MP. The by-election was the fourth of the 58th Parliament,elected in 2019.
Batley and Spen by-election may refer to two by-elections in the UK:
Kim Michele Leadbeater is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Batley and Spen since 2021.
A by-election was held on 3 February 2022 in the parliamentary constituency of Southend West following the murder of the Conservative MP Sir David Amess on 15 October 2021. Amess had been the MP for the constituency since 1997,and previously represented the nearby seat of Basildon from 1983 to 1997. Similarly to the 2016 Batley and Spen by-election—held after Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered—the major opposition parties declined to stand out of respect for Amess. The Conservative candidate Anna Firth won the by-election with 86% of the vote,with a turnout of 24%. No other candidate reached the 5% threshold to save their election deposit.
