LONDON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- Britain's main opposition Labour Party retained a House of Commons (the lower house of the British Parliament) seat in the West Yorkshire constituency after winning the by-election in Batley and Spen by a narrow margin on Friday.
Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater received 13,296 votes, a majority of just 323 votes over Conservative candidate Ryan Stephenson. George Galloway, leader of the British Workers Party, came third with 8,264 votes.
Leadbeater is the sister of Jo Cox, the area's former Labour member of parliament who was murdered by a rightwing extremist in 2016.
After Cox's murder, a close friend Tracy Brabin, a television soap opera star, won the seat for Labour. Thursday's by-election was called after Brabin resigned following her election in May as the first directly elected mayor of West Yorkshire.
The result of the Batley and Spen by-election came as a huge relief for Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party.
Political commentators and major opinion polls had predicted a second loss for his party following a historic defeat in Hartlepool, which could spark a battle for Starmer to hang on to his job.
Labour lost the north England seat of Hartlepool to the Conservatives in May, a parliamentary seat Labour had held since the 1970s.
