‘A pollster’s nightmare’: stakes are high in three-way fight for Gorton and Denton | Byelections

As Nigel Farage cut the ribbon at Reform UK’s by-election headquarters in Greater Manchester this week, Labor candidate Angeliki Stogia sat in tears in a nearby cafe.

Politicians don’t usually show their feelings, but for Stogia, who came to the UK from Greece as a student in 1995, this is personal. “I’m furious,” he said of Farage’s party. “I’m very, very angry. How dare they come here and spread this division?”

His voice breaking, he added: “For them, this is a show. For me, this is my community. This is my people.”

Westminster by-elections are usually doldrums, but the battle for Gorton and Denton is one of the most unpredictable and high-stakes contests of recent years. Labor is battling both Reform England and the Green party to retain a 13,000-vote majority following the retirement last month of Andrew Gwynne, who resigned following the “despicable” Trigger Me Timbers WhatsApp scandal.

Starmer’s government is in crisis over Peter Mandelson’s links to Jeffrey Epstein, and the defeat on February 26 is likely to lead to fresh calls for the prime minister’s resignation.

Labor has dominated these parts of south-east Manchester for decades. But with less than three weeks until election day, the Green party is the bookies’ favourite.

Stogia, dodging a strong wind in Denton this week, accused the Greens of “lying” to the public by publishing a “misleading” picture in their leaflet suggesting only they could defeat Reform UK.

He said he was concerned that such tight competition would only benefit Reformation. A split vote on the left in last year’s Runcorn and Helsby by-elections allowed Farage’s party to win by six votes.

“I’m very disappointed with what they came up with because we lost by six votes in Runcorn,” the Labor councilor said. “It was the progressive side that lost by six votes.

“I worry we’re going to lose this. Every Green vote will make Reformation very happy.”

Prof Robert Ford, of the University of Manchester, said the key to understanding this by-election was that for every vote on the Farage-friendly Denton side, there were two votes on the larger, more diverse and left-leaning Manchester side.

In 2024, almost 80 percent of voters supported a party on the left. So the only realistic way for Reform UK to win is for the Green Party to split Labour’s votes.

Zack Polanski’s party has a huge task: The constituency has no councilors and is 14,000 votes behind Labor in 2024. Campaigners had to ask for help hiding banners and posters in local barracks.

But what they lack in resources they make up for with enthusiasm. In a windswept Morrisons car park, an army of volunteers dressed in rainproof jackets and walking boots gathered to distribute some of the daily 40,000 leaflets. They traveled as far as Birmingham, Barnsley and Belper and by the afternoon all the postings were gone.

Their candidate, 34-year-old plumber Hannah Spencer, is approaching something of a local celebrity. Originally from Bolton, Spencer joined the Green party just three years ago and quickly became a councilor and rising star in the mold of the party’s new eco-populist leader.

Now four rescuers are walking the streets with their hounds; He talks about the cost of living, housing and crime rather than clean energy and carbon emissions.

Spencer contrasts markedly with UK Reform candidate Matt Goodwin, the academic-turned-UK News polemicist. online S.he has been called “Reform’s worst nightmare” and “the crook versus the crook.” On Thursday, Goodwin posed for a photo with Farage while Spencer took time off from campaigning to train as a plasterer.

“He was brought here by bus,” he said of Goodwin. “He is just a TV presenter who wants to further his career and I have proven that I will work.”

Spencer, who appeared in the Guardian As one of Glastonbury’s best dressed 13 years ago, she had to get used to the overnight attention. Social media trolls call her a “fake plumber” and falsely claim she is married to an ultra-rich financier. “I wish,” he laughed. “I can’t even get the message back.”

A “very, very angry” man had to be escorted away by a security guard this week after he shouted “fake plumber” at the party’s Denton campaign headquarters. “I’m not allowed to go anywhere by myself anymore,” he said. “This is surreal.”

While Labor notes Spencer’s popularity, it is adamant that only it can defeat Reformation. But it is clear that the Greens, who have never had an MP in the north of East Anglia, are now an electoral force in Labour’s backyard. Other parties also stand aside.

George Galloway’s Labor Party, which won 10% of the vote in this seat in 2024, has encouraged supporters to support the Greens, as has Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party. Campaign group Muslim Vote also backs Spencer.

Sources close to Galloway said the 71-year-old former Labor MP was prepared to contest the byelection if Andy Burnham was chosen as Labour’s candidate, his eighth bid since 2010.

Galloway was sacked when Starmer’s allies blocked the mayor of Greater Manchester from standing and his team decided not to field a candidate after a series of meetings with Green party officials.

Around 28 per cent of voters identify as Muslim, according to the latest census, but this rises to at least half the population in the former Labor strongholds of Longsight and Levenshulme.

Lucy Powell, Labor deputy leader and MP for neighboring Manchester Central, said it was “lazy” to suggest that the pro-Palestinian Labor party’s votes would simply shift to the Greens.

He said anger over Gaza was not as “loud” against Labor as it would be in 2024. “I went to the mosque the other day [and] I was treated like a Hollywood star. “Two years ago, people would turn their backs on me,” he said.

Behind his till at Mount Auto Parts in Longsight, Ghulam Ghaus pondered his most pressing problems – Gaza, inflation and local crime – and then pointed outside: “Everything is terrible.”

Ghaus, 73, is a local Labor member and plans to vote for the party on February 26 out of familiarity (he knows councillors) rather than enthusiasm. “The Green party has good policies but they’re not very well known; you only see them on election day,” he said.

Down the street, Catherine O’Connor, 66, said friends told her to vote Reform but she wasn’t a fan of strict immigration policies. “We are a multicultural country; we should get along with each other,” he said. “I have a cute Asian neighbor and they bring food around every holiday. It’s really sweet and I send them a thank you card.”

O’Connor, a retired cleaner who usually votes Labor, said he would switch to the Green party this time: “That’s not very good Starmer, is it?”

Alf Warrender, 62, opened his front door to Spencer in Denton last week and politely told him he would vote Reform. From where? “Gwynnes,” he said, referring to his wife Allison, a resigned MP and Labor councillor. “We were deceived by the Labor Party”

Warrender, a retired transport manager, said he was a Greens sympathizer but thought it was a wasted vote. He thought that Reformation England was the only party that could oust Labor.

“I’d vote for the Greens if I thought the Greens would get in,” he said, and picked up the “Hannah the Plumber” pamphlet. “I’m not a fan of reform, but I’m not a fan of Labor.”

His wife Jo, a charity worker, was already planning to vote for Spencer – she was “absolutely disgusted” by the Trigger Me Timbers scandal – and hung a Green party poster on their windshield. “We know where things are going in this house, right?” her husband joked.

The only thing certain about this election is in question According to Ford, it was a “poller’s nightmare.” “Three parties can win, and each can now tell a plausible story about how they can do it,” he said.

Back at Cafe Plus in Denton, Stogia made one final plea before rushing to his next event: “I want people to give me a chance. Give me a chance. I’m fighting at every level. I’m fighting lies. I’m fighting at the national level. It feels positive, but we’ve got a fight on our hands.”