The fact that he was a Remainer should simply be irrelevant. He's accepted that we've left but recognises that current Trade Agreement is utterly unsatisfactory and needs to be sorted. Brexit, as expressed by Johnson, has toxified all public debate and nobody dares say Boo to it for fear of being treated as an 'Enemy of the People.
It was almost certainly a factor at Hartlepool. Batley & Spen is a different socio economic group and doesn't have the big vote for the Brexit Party that Hartlepool had. A candidate for the Heavy Woollen District Independents did very well though.
I can't find a record of the majority being anywhere near 16k except in the wholly exceptional circumstances of the 2016 by-election when Jo Cox had been murdered. In it's current iteration it's been held by both parties with a run in Tory hands until 1997.
The presence of the poisonous snake George Galloway who has, at best, failed to discourage hotheads and may well be elevating the LGBT issue to his own ends is another factor.
Starmer though needs to get out and about so that people know who he is and that his background, whilst in Surrey, is neither public school nor posh. Somebody in Batley was quoted as saying he's not Harold Wilson. Wilson was Grammar School, University, Civil Service Economist, politics. Starmer's career pattern was similar except he was a lawyer not an economist.
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