Gorton and Denton: Starmer humiliated as Labour come third in crushing defeat
The Green Party wrested the formerly safe seat of Gorton and Denton from Labor in a humiliating defeat that will spark new questions about Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership of the party.
The result, in which Labour’s Angeliki Stogia came third, was a major blow to the prime minister’s struggling authority amid devastating approval ratings and growing concerns about the government’s direction.
Councilor and plumber Hannah Spencer received 14,980 votes, while Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin came second with 10,578 votes. Meanwhile, Labor fell to third place with 9,364 votes, down from 18,555 votes in the 2024 general election, where turnout was similarly high.
Conservative candidate Charlotte Cadden received just 706 votes, while the Liberal Democrats received 653 votes.
The victory is the Greens’ first in a parliamentary by-election and comes despite Labor winning Gorton and Denton in 2024 by more than half the vote in the previously safe seat.
It represents the sixth-largest Labor majority to be overturned in a by-election since the Second World War.
The result came after the party’s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, conceded defeat in the early hours of the morning and said Mr Polanski had won “the argument that they were best placed” to keep Reform out of the area.
Labor has previously sought to present itself as the only option for anti-Reform voters, but this loss will now undermine that claim at the next election, instead boosting the Greens’ credibility and weakening Labour’s problematic support base.
Sir Keir’s decision to block potential leadership rival Andy Burnham from entering the contest, triggered by the withdrawal of former Labor MP Andrew Gwynne, is also likely to face renewed scrutiny.
In an emotional victory speech, Ms Spencer said people were “bleeding dry” and “tired of the hard work we do to make other people rich”.
The 34-year-old actor, the fifth MP of the Green Party, praised his party’s “promising campaign” and said, “We have shown that we do not have to accept being enemies to each other.”
Arguing that the Greens had “defeated the parties of billionaire donors”, she said: “I won’t accept this victory tonight without calling out politicians and divisive figures who constantly scapegoat and blame our communities for all the problems in society.”
Welcoming a 27.5 per cent swing from Labor to the Greens, Mr Polanski said: “If we saw a swing like this at the next general election there would be a huge wave of new Green MPs.”
Labor leader Anna Turley said the result was “clearly disappointing” but tried to describe it as a typical challenge faced by ruling parties.
“By-elections are normally difficult for the party of government, and this election was no different”, she said, adding: “We have had thousands of conversations over the last few weeks and we know the majority of voters here did not want the poisonous politics of Nigel Farage and Reform.”
But Reform England leader Nigel Farage said the election result was “a victory for sectarian voting and fraud”.
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This follows a report from election watchdog group Volunteers for Democracy warning of high levels of “family voting” in the by-elections, claiming they witnessed the practice in 68 per cent of 22 polling stations monitored.
“Family voting,” in which two voters meet, collude, or manipulate each other about voting, was made illegal by the Ballot Secrecy Act of 2023.
The organization said it attended 22 of the 45 polling stations in the constituency, spending 30 to 45 minutes at each, and witnessed families voting at 15 of the 22 polling stations observed.
A spokesman for the Conservative Party, which came a distant fourth, said: “Keir Starmer has killed the Labor Party.
“By losing one of Labour’s safest seats in a constituency that has returned Labor MPs for almost a century, Starmer has shown that he no longer has the support of Labor voters and is now a lame duck leader.”
