The Green party has pulled off a landmark victory in the Gorton and Denton byelection in a significant blow to 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.
Labour came third in the tightly contested race, 5,616 votes behind the Greens , while Reform UK finished second with 10,578 votes. The result represents a 25.3% drop in Labour’s vote compared to 2024.
The Greens’ victory in a Labour stronghold its first ever in a Westminster byelection establishes the party as a serious political force and a credible anti-Reform alternative.
It will deepen concerns among Labour MPs that Starmer’s party is haemorrhaging voters on the left in an effort to thwart the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform.
The result will also prompt further scrutiny of the prime minister’s decision to block Andy Burnham from standing as the Labour candidate in a city where he enjoys significant public support.
It is the first time in nearly 100 years that the Gorton area of Manchester has not been represented by a Labour MP.
The byelection was triggered by the resignation of Andrew Gwynne on health grounds in January. The former MP was under investigation by parliament for offensive messages he sent in a WhatsApp group of local Labour figures.
On polling day Labour insiders had seemed more confident as polling showed they were virtually neck-and-neck with the Greens. They hoped voters might stick with Labour rather than back an insurgent party and risk a Reform win.
However, the Greens’ energetic campaign – Spencer found near-instant local fame as “Hannah the plumber” while thousands of volunteers travelled from across the UK to support her – was enough to secure victory.
Labour sources said the party had not been forgiven by many of its Muslim voters for its stance on Gaza – an issue capitalised on by the Greens in the Manchester side of the constituency.
“Gaza has not been forgotten or forgiven,” said a Labour councillor in the constituency. “Lots of us are now worried for our seats”.
Within three hours of polls closing at 10pm, Labour was unofficially conceding defeat. A party source said: “Early signs at the count indicate the Greens have been able to turn out support in a way they wouldn’t be able to replicate at a general election.”
By 2.45am, Labour’s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, had confirmed defeat to journalists at the count in Manchester Central convention complex.
She said: “What is really clear is there is a big majority in this constituency that hasn’t voted for Reform and on the day, the Greens have managed to win that argument that they were the best placed to do that. I’m not sure whether that would totally translate to a general election – we will have to see.”
Powell, who was the only member of Labour’s ruling body to back Burnham’s bid for the seat in a vote last month, said Starmer was “resolute in his job” when asked about the prime minister’s future.
She said: “Keir has been dealing with some very big global headwinds in recent weeks and months … and it’s a tough job being prime minister. I know that Keir is the right person for that job and he does that job really well. This is about politics as well – we’ve got to get our politics clearer so people know that we are on their side, we are standing up for them.”
Turnout in the closely watched seat was 47.6%, fractionally lower than in the 2024 general election.
Labour had sought to pitch the byelection as a choice between “unity and hope” or the “toxic division” of Reform, whose candidate, Matt Goodwin, was a surprise choice in a seat where about 28% of the population is Muslim.
Goodwin, an academic turned GB News presenter, has called for a policy to tackle “the Islamisation of British society” and claimed that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British.
Starmer’s party dispatched a cast of cabinet ministers to Gorton and Denton in an attempt to shore up Labour support, however the prime minister was notably absent in the seat until this week.
The Labour leader had faced weeks of damaging headlines over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite knowing the former minister had maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after the child sex offender’s financier’s arrest.
Starmer also faced intense criticism from Labour MPs over the decision by his allies to prevent Burnham from standing as the candidate in Gorton and Denton in what was seen as an attempt to head off a leadership challenge.
While Reform is ahead in the national polls, the Green party was the more confident going into election day.
A constituency poll had Zack Polanski’s party four percentage points ahead of Reform – albeit based on a relatively small sample – while activists from across the country had swarmed the seat to support Spencer, 34.
On a visit to the constituency on Monday, Starmer described the contest as a “battle of values”. Greens was “in effect, a vote for Reform” – a sign that Labour acknowledged it was leaking votes to Polanski’s party.
Asked if he would take the blame if Labour lost the seat, Starmer said: “This is a very important constituency, a very important byelection.”
The closely fought contest became mired in accusations of dodgy polls and dirty tricks.
Labour and the Greens traded barbs repeatedly in a sign that the byelection would be won or lost as a result of the battle on the left, with Reform potentially standing to benefit from a split vote.
Reform, meanwhile, was hauled before the high court on Wednesday over letters purporting to be from a “concerned neighbour” that failed to carry the party’s political imprint as required by electoral law. Farage’s party blamed an error at its printing supplier, which accepted responsibility.
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