Rochdale by-election – live: Result imminent with George Galloway favourite in contest overshadowed by Gaza

A crowd is gathering to hear the results of the count.

George Galloway – the expected front runner – has still not arrived.

Reporters and campaigners are now gathering in the atrium as the result is anticipated in the next fifteen minutes or so.

We are still awaiting the arrival of the likely winner, George Galloway of the Workers Party.

A crowd is growing outside the count as spectators await the arrival of the George Galloway.

Mr Galloway has not yet appeared at the count, despite the fact that his party are widely tipped to win the seat.

The result is expected somewhere around 2am.

The candidate for the Monster Raving Loony party, Ravin Rodent Subortna, has arrived at the count.

As an MP, he would campaign for the introduction of a 99p coin to save on change and call for all roundabouts to have fairground carousels in the middle.

Among his other policies is a plan for all new-build housing to have hedgehog homes included to help eradicate homelessness for hedgehogs, and making sure hedgehogs had lollipop signs to help them cross the road.

He says he is aiming to win “zero votes” because “that would be fair to give everybody else a chance”.

Reform UK leader Richard Tice has called the Rochdale by-election a “shameful contest” that is “characteristic of a failed state”.

In a statement posted to social media site X, Mr Tice said the Reform UK party’s candidate and campaign team has been subject to “menacing behaviour”, “racist abuse” and “daily intimidation”, as he attacked the fairness of the campaign.

The leader of the right-wing challenger party said the results of the by-election “should act as a stark wake up call to those in power – and the entire electorate”.

The turnout for today’s by-election in Rochdale is 39.7 per cent.

That is slightly higher than the turnout in the recent by-elections of both Wellingborough and Kingswood, which were 38 and 37 per cent respectively.

The suspended Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, who had once been the favourite to win in Rochdale is nowhere to be seen.

The party withdrew support from Mr Ali after it was revealed that he had repeated an anti-Israel conspiracy theory at a local Labour meeting.

He remained on the ballot paper and has been seen out and about campaigning over the past few days.

But tonight Mr Ali is still a no-show, despite claiming earlier that he was still “hoping” for a positive result.

Mr Ali was widely thought to be in the running for first or second place, but his chances seem to be fading as Workers Party candidate George Galloway is widely tipped to win the election.

The Workers Party of Britain candidate is now expected to win the Rochdale by-election – clinching what would be his fourth parliamentary seat since 1987.

He is a highly divisive figure, having previously been ejected from the Labour party for comments made about the Iraq war.

He is a staunch critic of Israel, and has based much of his Rochdale campaign around the conflict in Gaza. Election of the man who once sat down for a chat with Saddam Hussein would be controversial.

Read Archie Mitchell’s profile of Mr Galloway: