Reform UK party leader Richard Tice has criticised establishment candidates in Thursday’s by-election in Batley and Spen for failing to adequately defend the teacher forced into hiding after receiving death threats for showing a picture of the Muslim prophet Mohammed to his pupils.
On Thursday, Labour’s Kim Leadbeater won the Batley and Spen seat in the north of England by a slim margin of 323 votes, despite earlier polls predicting a six per cent lead for the Conservative Party, meaning that the hotly-contested seat, which had been a Labour stronghold since 1997, was featured prominently in the media leading up to the by-election.
Batley has been in the news in recent months for other reasons, however, following the suspension of a young male teacher from Batley Grammar School for showing a cartoon of Mohammed to his class during a lesson on blasphemy. The teacher also received death threats, forcing him and his young family into hiding and under police protection.
While the school cleared him of wrongdoing, he has been unable to return to work over fears for his life.
Speaking to talkRADIO on Friday morning, Richard Tice said that according to his sources in the area, the Conservative candidate for Batley, Ryan Stephenson, lost the election because he was “hardly ever seen” on the campaign trail “and wouldn’t be out there door-knocking”.
“Most importantly of all, he didn’t have the courage to stand up and support and defend the teacher at Batley Grammar School,” Mr Tice accused, adding that none of the other candidates had, either.
Notably, Ms Leadbeater — who at one point was hounded on the campaign trail over whether she would stand with Muslim parents against “LGBT indoctrination” in schools — failed to defend the teacher, instead telling the BBC on Wednesday that what had happened at Batley Grammar School “has been resolved” and that “apologies have been made for any offence that was caused”.
Asked whether the teacher should return to work, Leadbeater gave little encouragement, saying: “I think that has to be a decision for the teacher… I would imagine he’d probably appreciate having the time and the privacy to do that.”
For his part, Mr Stephenson did respond to the BBC in the same interview that it was “completely unacceptable the way the teacher has been dealt with” — but others still sought to criticise the Conservative candidate for his apparent lack of a more robust and unprompted intervention.
Reclaim Party leader and actor Laurence Fox quote-tweeted Stephenson’s response to the election result on Friday, saying: “There is a teacher in hiding with his partner and four young kids who may be pleased he isn’t going to be represented by someone who has displayed such cowardice in the face of a mob. You should have stood up for his family if you wished to represent them. Good riddance.”
Comedienne Abi Roberts wrote: “If the Conservatives had a bloody back bone and had stood up for the poor teacher and freedom of expression, then Batley & Spen would feel much happier this morning. As would we all.”
Former Brexit Party MEP and journalist Martin Daubney said: “Batley And Spen fact: if the Tories had shown guts & stuck up for the Batley Grammar School teacher living in fear under death threats, they would have won the seat. But they kept their heads down, hoping Labour & Galloway would cancel each other out. It utterly failed.”
Leave campaigner Darren Grimes called the responses of the big political parties “utterly abysmal, even with a teacher still hiding! They wax lyrical about tolerance & acceptance yet refuse to speak up for a teacher hiding for showing a sodding cartoon.”
Liberal journalist Dan Hodges likewise remarked late last week that “in Batley, a good teacher and a good neighbour has been disappeared. And nobody cares.”
Mr Hodges wrote in the Daily Mail that “this act of erasure has been greeted not by a righteous outcry, but a conspiracy of silence”, criticising both Labour and Tory candidates for what he described as a lack of interaction with the issue less than a week before the by-election in the constituency where a teacher had been “disappeared”.
“Hiding not in the way our spineless politicians are hiding, but literally in fear of the splintering of a door or shattering of a window that means they are about to be added to the roll of horror that includes the staff of Charlie Hebdo and the French teacher Samuel Paty.
“This week a new MP will be elected for this constituency. At which point the parties will decamp, those of us in the media will pack up, and the town of Batley will move on.
“Except for one man. A teacher – a good teacher. A neighbour – a good neighbour. Who has been disappeared by his own community. And his own country,” Hodges concluded.