2012 Bradford West by-election
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Bradford West constituency | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 50.8% (14.7 pp) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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On 29 March 2012, a by-election was held for the House of Commons constituency of Bradford West. It was unexpectedly won by George Galloway of the Respect Party who defeated the Labour Party candidate by a large margin in a result referred to by Galloway as the "Bradford Spring" (by analogy with the Arab Spring). Galloway said the election result was Bradford's "peaceful democratic uprising" version of the riots which swept through England in August 2011.
The result was such a surprise as to cause the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust to commission a report to study the campaign.