‘Our own people hate us’: Labour given byelection wake-up call after 13,000-vote majority disappears | Byelections

FFrom the start of the Gorton and Denton by-elections, Labor strategists were desperate to say the party was on track to win, but the party’s crushing defeat by the Greens made this look ridiculous in hindsight.

Labour’s general secretary, Hollie Ridley, sent a note to No 10 at the end of January saying it was “clearly a two-horse race” with Reform UK, with only 3% of voters saying they would remain loyal to the Greens.

Later in the contest, cabinet ministers were deployed to tell journalists that things “looked good” in the data and that this was Labour’s biggest ever “polling out” operation to secure victory.

This misplaced optimism was mostly designed to make Gorton and Denton voters think that voting Labor was their best chance of defeating Reform UK’s breakaway candidate, Matt Goodwin. It was a strategy built after Labor felt burned by Plaid Cymru winning the Welsh parliament by-election in Caerphilly and began to position itself as the leading party to stop Reformation.

But polls and betting markets were telling a different story, and news on the ground suggested voters were in no mood to listen to Labour.

Voters have repeatedly expressed disappointment with the government’s performance and Labour’s decision to block the standing of Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham; and beyond the general chaos created by the Peter Mandelson scandal.

Meanwhile, the Greens were playing blind. While Labor tried to portray them as “extremist” and “soft on drugs”, Zack Polanski’s party chose local plumber Hannah Spencer as its candidate, and her spirited campaign appeared to send voters a positive message of hope and change.

Signs of the Green party’s confidence came just four hours after polls opened on Thursday, when reporters were given extensive details of Spencer’s victory lap – including afternoon karaoke and iftar time at the mosque.

Meanwhile, Labor could only pray for bad weather. “It’s been raining for hours and now it’s cleared up,” moaned a Labor councilor at 8pm. They hoped a wet Manchester would reduce turnout and prevent a surge in Greens and Reform UK.

Labour’s first public admission of despair came at 10pm, as the polls closed. Andrew Western, MP and the party’s political leader in the campaign, released a statement saying by-elections were “always difficult for incumbent governments” and criticized the “anger and easy answers” from Reform and the Greens.

After all, the byelection billed as one of the most unpredictable elections in recent years wasn’t even a close one, with Labor coming in third place behind the Greens and Reform.

By 1am Labor was conceding defeat. A source said the party “was able to gain support it could not replicate in the general election”. A Green Party spokesman, hovering around the edges of the hall where the counting was taking place, said: “My on-the-record response to this is one word: desperate.”

At an arts center in Manchester, the Greens were already celebrating. The party’s deputy leader, Mothin Ali, was seen crowd surfing among enthusiastic activists three and a half hours before the results were announced.

A Labor aide tried to drum up applause for her candidate Angeliki Stogia when she arrived at the counter at 3.30am, arm in arm with deputy leader Lucy Powell, but it was impossible to hide the gloom in the camp at this point.

Although Labor and the Greens have become increasingly testy, many in Starmer’s party have been quietly impressed by the Greens’ campaign, particularly their focus on 34-year-old concerned trades candidate “Hannah the Plumber”.

Spencer’s face has been nearly impossible to avoid at Gorton and Denton over the past four weeks. He was everywhere, on billboards, on social media and on the streets, and still found time to devote one day a week to a plastering course at university.

“It was ludicrous to claim that the Greens were extremists when their candidate seemed like a normal, likable person. It made even us look like we didn’t believe what we were saying,” said one Labor MP, who does not like repeating offensive remarks about the Greens, calling them as bad as Reform.

This did not stop Starmer repeating the same speeches, which proved ineffective, about the Greens wanting to weaken NATO and drug laws. When he appeared on mid-morning television, he appeared to be deaf in the clip, further infuriating Labor MPs.

One MP said Starmer was “unfortunately not even close to getting it”, while another said Number 10 was not really dealing with the issue of “how unpopular we are: our own people hate us”.

Reform, meanwhile, argued that a byelection was always an uphill battle in such a mixed district that combined progressive students with traditional white working-class voters and a sizeable Muslim population. In light of this, the party’s choice of candidate appeared to be a mistake after choosing Goodwin, an academic who refuses to reject the argument that British-born people of minority ethnicity are not necessarily British.

Goodwin arrived for the count at 3.50am and told reporters in a brief meeting: “I think what you are seeing is the emergence of a dangerous sectarianism in British politics.

“The Greens are riding a very dangerous wave,” he said. “I am very worried about the direction of the country and I think many people will be watching this by-election and they will feel the same way as I do, which is a source of deep concern about where Britain is heading.”

Nigel Farage’s party wasted no time in claiming the election was affected by “family voting” – more than one person entering the voting booth, increasing the risk of votes being swayed by suppression – after observers expressed concern that this was happening more frequently than usual. They were quick to report “electoral fraud” and said it “raises serious questions about the integrity of the democratic process in Muslim-majority areas.”

As the left bleeds away on the right in seats like Gorton and areas like Runcorn where Reform won last year, labor strategists are now wondering how to repair their fractured coalition.

MPs were also taking different messages from the results; some wanted a shift to the left and a “more Labour” approach, as well as a change of leader to Burnham or Angela Rayner. The Mainstream Group, which backs Burnham, said it wanted to see a “fundamental reset”, while Sharon Graham, general secretary of left-wing union Unite, offered clear advice: “Stop listening to your rich friends and start listening to ordinary people.”

Others were quick to point out that the problem is not a shift to the right or left, but a lack of action to tackle the cost of living and stimulate growth. Labor MP Chris Curtis, from the party’s “growth group”, said the result was “a wake-up call that we need to hear as a party” and that there was a broken system that “rewards people who play games and punishes people who vaccinate”.

A former No 10 aide said Labor still needed to look at the big picture of a national election, as opposed to a by-election where the stakes were lower, as it would be easier for Starmer to position his party as the sole force to stop Reformation. He said: “Overall, Gorton and Caerphilly have proven that there is a large base of people who want to prevent Farage from gaining power at all costs.”

But another former Labor communications chief said it would be foolish to be encouraged by the outcome: “Reform will weaponise all divisions and only benefit from divisions on the left. This is nothing short of cruel.”