Five key takeaways from the Gorton and Denton byelection
The Green party has pulled off a landmark victory in the Gorton and Denton byelection, marking a significant blow to Labour and the leadership of Keir Starmer.Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green party councillor, was elected as the party’s first MP in northern England after overturning Labour’s 13,000-vote majority, while Reform UK finished second and Labour came third in the tightly contested race.What are the key takeaways as the dust settles on the streets of Greater Manchester?The Green party didn’t just sneak a win in Gorton and Denton, it won convincingly, taking almost 41% of the vote and securing a comfortable 4,400 majority.The party’s first victory in a Westminster byelection saw it increase its vote share by 27.5%, which is five times larger than the party has achieved in any byelection since 2010.
Reform was a fairly distant second place, picking up 10,578 votes, while Labour was left languishing in third, with 9,364 votes.The result comes against a backdrop of growing support for the Greens, which have had a surge in membership since Zack Polanski took over as the party’s leader in September last year, rising from about 70,000 to more than 180,000.Sources in the party said they expected that to hit 200,000 soon.According to Politico’s poll of polls, the Greens are polling at 16% nationally, two points behind the Conservatives and Labour, who are both on 18%, and a full 10 points behind Reform, who are on 26%.But given that in September the Greens were on 10%, 21 percentage points behind Reform, supporters will point to significant progress having been made.
The Greens’ choice of candidate was also key – and illuminating.Hannah Spencer, a plumber who has lived in Greater Manchester all her life, was a disarming force.She demonstrated an ability to connect with ordinary voters.Her victory speech focused on wealth distribution, giving working-class people a voice.“Life has changed,” she said.
“Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires.We are being bled dry.”But there was scant focus on traditional “green” policies, such as tackling the climate emergency.That Spencer’s only mention of traditionally green issues was a desire for “clean air” – alongside good schools and a thriving high street – was an indicator of the Greens repositioning themselves as a general leftwing populist party, according to some political commentators.Reform has contested four byelections this parliament – two to Westminster, one to the Senedd and one to Holyrood.
Nigel Farage’s party has only won one of them, a narrow victory in Runcorn, secured after its former Labour MP was convicted for assaulting one of his own constituents.Matt Goodwin was not seen as a good choice of candidate for Gorton and Denton, not least because of his extreme views.Despite making a lot of Manchester being the “city that made him”, his style and narrative contrasted sharply with Spencer’s.But coming second in Gorton and Denton was, by some commentators’ estimation, a good result for Reform UK.The swing it experienced in Gorton and Denton approximately reflects the swing it is experiencing everywhere else in the UK, whereas the Greens significantly outperformed their national polling.
Reform led the field in the predominantly white, working-class Denton half of the constituency, but its virulent anti-immigration message supressed support among the 44% of voters in the Gorton and Denton population who identify as coming from a minority ethnic background.Goodwin said he thought he had “embarrassed Labour” in one of its strongest seats.“I think if we can do this here, we can do this pretty much anywhere,” he said.According to pollsters More in Common, “if Reform made this progress uniformly across the country in a general election, and all else remained equal, they would end up with 229 seats”.Labour won Gorton and Denton with more than 50% of the vote in the 2024 general election.
Its distant third place in this vote will reignite questions about Keir Starmer’s leadership and renew the criticism from those on the left of the party that he has not done enough to impress its progressive base – particularly coming on the back of a similar result last year in the Senedd seat of Caerphilly.“It’s a very disappointing result,” said Starmer.“Incumbent governments quite often get results like that midterm.But I do understand that voters are frustrated.”The prime minister’s decision to block Andy Burnham from running for the seat will also be brought back into focus.
Campaigners on the ground repeatedly said that had the mayor for Greater Manchester run, the seat could have been won.Luke Tryl, from More In Common, said the loss was consequential for Labour because it sent a message to voters about future contests.The party had hoped that the threat of Reform would be enough to unite the progressive vote behind it.“But that argument risks collapsing after last night’s result,” Tryl said.The result also points to Labour’s wider challenges in areas with high proportions of graduates, students and Muslims, said More In Common.
John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, stressed that the result showed a collapse in support among two pillars of Labour’s traditional support: white, working-class voters and minority ethnic people,“The Green party’s historic success in the Gorton and Denton byelection means the future of British politics is now even more uncertain than it was already,” he wrote in a piece for the BBC,The Conservatives did so badly in the election that they lost their £500 deposit,In a statement issued after the party won just 706 votes, the party leader, Kemi Badenoch, said there was “only one sensible candidate standing in Gorton and Denton, their candidate, Charlotte Cadden”,She got 1.
9% of the votes cast, down 6% on the general election, marking only the second time the Conservatives have lost their deposit in a vote, by polling under 5%, since 1962,The next lowest-polling candidate after the Conservatives was the Liberal Democrat, Jackie Pearcey, who got 653 vote and also lost her deposit,She was followed by The Official Monster Raving Looney Party candidate, Sir Oink-a-lot, who polled 159, beating Advance UK’s Nick Buckley by four votes,For the Conservative party, it was the worst byelection result in its history,For Labour, it was a third placing in its 50th safest seat, one it has held for nearly 100 years.
And it was the sixth largest Labour majority to be overturned at a byelection since the second world war,Activists for both for the Greens and Labour noted a shift among Muslim voters, with many mentioning Starmer’s position on Gaza as a key reason for moving away from the party,With the Greens and Reform taking a combined 68% of the vote, and Labour and the Tories taking 27%, the “duopoly that has long dominated postwar British politics has never looked weaker”, according to Curtice,
PM vows to ‘keep fighting’ after Greens sweep past Labour and Reform to win byelection – as it happened
Keir Starmer has vowed to “keep on fighting” despite Labour’s humiliating defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-election. Speaking to reporters, he acknowledged it was a “disappointing” result and that voters were “frustrated”, but insisted he would carry on. Asked if he had considered resigning, Starmer said: “I came into politics late in life to fight for change for those people who need it. I will keep on fighting for those people for as long as I’ve got breath in my body.”Starmer doubled down on the anti-Green party language he was using during the byelection campaign
Labour MPs demand Starmer change course after humiliating byelection loss
Keir Starmer is facing an ultimatum from his own party to change direction or risk a leadership challenge within months after the Greens humiliated Labour with a historic byelection victory in Gorton and Denton.Overturning a 13,000 Labour majority from the general election, Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green councillor, became the party’s fifth MP on Friday. Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin was second, just ahead of the Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia.The scale of defeat in an area that had returned Labour MPs for nearly a century, and where Starmer’s party still believed it could win even on polling day, plunged his ministers and MPs into renewed despair just weeks after he saw off a challenge to his position.While only a handful of backbenchers called openly for Starmer to depart after the result, even loyal ministers said the surge in the Greens’ fortunes under the leadership of Zack Polanski meant the prime minister had to address an exodus of Labour voters from its left flank
Labour leadership truce holds for now but clock is ticking for Starmer
When Labour’s Scottish leader, Anas Sarwar, urged Keir Starmer to stand down two weeks ago, the prime minister’s closest advisers presented him with a choice: fight, flight or hand over his destiny to his party by calling a leadership contest.The prime minister chose the first option and his Downing Street team sprung into action to contain the threat. At the moment of greatest peril for Starmer, MPs peered over the precipice and didn’t like what they saw.In the fortnight since, not much has changed. Even with Labour’s humiliating defeat in the Gorton and Denton byelection, where it was pushed into third place behind the Greens and Reform UK, the uneasy truce has persisted
Spencer’s victory speech an object lesson in grace while Reform’s man rages | John Crace
It could have been a flash of arrogance. Hubris for the ages. On Thursday morning, when most pundits were still calling the Gorton and Denton byelection a three-way fight that was impossible to call, the Green party sent a note to journalists. Come to the first press conference of Hannah Spencer MP tomorrow. And while you’re about it, stay on to join her for her first constituency surgery
Welsh elections a choice between culture and ignorance, Plaid leader says
The leader of Plaid Cymru has claimed the Welsh parliament elections in May will be a straight fight between his party and Reform UK, which he billed as a choice between “culture or ignorance, humanity or indifference”.Speaking at the party’s biggest ever conference, Rhun ap Iorwerth, the clear favourite to be the next Welsh first minister, said the Gorton and Denton byelection showed Labour and the Tories were “slipping away”, and he promised Plaid had a radical plan to improve Wales’s fortunes.He said that while the Greens had done well to win in Greater Manchester, he was confident voters in Wales looking for a progressive alternative would turn to Plaid.During the leader’s speech in Newport, south-east Wales, ap Iorwerth highlighted plans such as setting up 10 surgical hubs to tackle NHS waiting lists, and making sure every school has a library.He said the party, which is comfortably leading the polls, would reveal a blueprint on Saturday for its first 100 days in power after the Senedd elections
Reform and Tories report ‘family voting’ allegations to watchdog
Reform UK and the Conservatives have asked the elections watchdog to investigate allegations of corrupt voting in the Gorton and Denton byelection as Nigel Farage claimed there had been “cheating”, despite limited evidence of wrongdoing.The reports to the Electoral Commission come after an election observers group, Democracy Volunteers, said they had witnessed “concerningly high levels” of so-called family voting, where one family member dictates how others cast their ballot.One previous election observer for the group said it would be important to know the methodology behind the group’s claim that 12% of observed voters were involved in family voting, given that there was a “grey line” as to what precisely that meant.The group’s report, published as soon as the polls closed on Thursday night, has given impetus to claims by defeated parties of wrongdoing, with Farage part-echoing Donald Trump’s complaints about stolen elections by saying his party was the victim of “sectarian voting and cheating”.Reform’s chair, David Bull, said later this did not mean the outcome of the election had been changed
Seth Meyers on Team Trump’s Iran threats: ‘These guys speak like they’ve been hit on the head’
How to keep free entry to UK museums and galleries | Letters
‘You’re sweet – and I’m old!’: Billy Porter and Sam Morrison on teaming up for a comedy about love and death
‘Seems I’m not dead’: Magda Szubanski says she is in remission after treatment for stage four cancer
Seth Meyers on Trump’s State of the Union address: ‘A vehicle to attack anyone who doesn’t bend the knee’
‘The sky’s the limit’: Newcastle Art Gallery unveils its ‘divisive’ $48m expansion with a blockbuster opening show