And so, Labour survives in Batley and Spen. Botched efforts to capitalize on England’s Euros enthusiasm aside — “Labour is coming home,” apparently — the result is clearly a shot in the arm for the party’s beleaguered leadership. Written off as lost by commentators, MPs, and staffers in recent weeks, retaining the seat is a rare piece of good news and offers a window of opportunity to stop the slide of the past six months.

But, beneath the surface, there are plenty of reasons to be worried about the result. Labour’s margin in Batley and Spen has fallen from 3,525 in 2019 — a result we were told was the worst imaginable for the party — to just 323. In fact, its vote has fallen from 29,844 just four years ago to 13,296 today. The mortar that once attached this particular brick to the “red wall” has disintegrated.

More worryingly for the party, there are plenty of reasons to believe that the factors which led to the narrow victory in Batley and Spen could not be repeated on a national level. There is a consensus that Labour’s Get Out the Vote operation was crucial in delivering the result — but the party’s activist base is dwindling, with CLPs across the country reporting declining numbers of members engaged on a regular basis. In a general election, or even a national campaign of local elections, these cannot be funneled into one constituency for a concentrated period of time.