George Galloway to apply to have by-election result set aside after “false statement”

George Galloway, who came third in the contest, said he would apply to have the result set aside by the courts. Speaking outside the count, he said his election effort had been damaged by a “false statement” that he had laughed while Labour’s Kim Leadbeater was abused on the campaign trail. “The whole election campaign was dominated by lazy and false tropes about our campaign, about the thousands of people that voted for us, about their motives for doing so, in a way which defamed them as much as it defamed me,” he said.