The Greens are today celebrating their first ever victory in a UK by-election as the party stunned Labour and Reform to take the Gorton and Denton seat in Greater Manchester.
Hannah Spencer won the vote after securing 14,980 ballots, more than 4,000 ahead of her nearest challenger Reform’s Matt Goodwin.
The Greens’ victory at Gorton and Denton represents the sixth largest Labour majority to be overturned at a by-election since the Second World War.
Leader Zack Polanski predicted a ‘tidal wave’ of Green MPs at the next election with the party claiming they are on course for more than 100 seats if the vote swing in Manchester is replicated across the country.
Reacting to his party’s defeat, Nigel Farage claimed there had been ‘cheating’ after official observers raised the alarm about ‘family voting’ – a major breach of electoral law.
Family voting is where a voter is accompanied by another person into or near polling booths with the intention of influencing their vote.
The Reform UK leader posted on X: ‘This election was a victory for sectarian voting and cheating. Matt Goodwin was a great candidate for us. Roll on the elections on May 7th. It will be goodbye Starmer and goodbye to the Tory party.’
Follow all the latest political reaction from the Gordon and Denton by-election
by James Tapsfield and Greg Heffer
Keir Starmer is on the brink today after a disastrous by-election saw Labour routed by the Greens in one of its safest seats – and pushed into third place behind Reform.
No10 is bracing for a fresh onslaught from the PM’s critics following the worst possible result in Gorton & Denton.
The Greens had never won a by-election – or a seat in the North – but Hannah Spencer romped home with a 4,400 majority.
Labour did not even have the consolation of second place with its candidate, trailing in behind Reform. Nigel Farage complained of ‘cheating’ after reports of ‘family voting’ from independent observers.
Downing Street is hoping Sir Keir can front up the catastrophic outcome by appearing in front of cameras later.
Labour MP: We need answers to take on Reform and Greens
A Labour MP has said his party needs to be ‘brave enough’ to take on the Greens and Reform after the party came third in the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Chris Curtis, the MP for Milton Keynes North, said Hannah Spencer ‘got the right question’, when she asked what does working hard get you after she was elected.
Mr Curtis told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We now have an economic model supported by… governments successively who haven’t been willing to stand up to it. That is on the side of grifters in this country, and not the side of grafters.
And if this Labour Party is going to win the next election, if it’s going to stand up to politicians like Green and Reform – who I don’t believe have the answers to those questions – we need to come up with those answers, and we need to be brave enough to take on the vested interests in order to deliver.
Labour frontbencher admits Greens were better at ‘mobilising anti-Reform vote’
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has conceded the Greens outperformed Labour in urging people in Gorton and Denton to vote against Reform.
Speaking to Sky News, Ms Alexander echoed the views of Lucy Powell who also said Zack Polanski’s party were more effective at getting voters to polling stations to prevent a Reform win.
She said it while it was a ‘difficult and deeply disappointing night’ for Labour, the party should not ‘over-interpret’ the result with governing parties often losing by-elections.
She said:
There is no direct read across from what happens in a by-election to what happens in a subsequent general election.
And just because people in Gorton and Denton voted for a Green MP, it doesn’t automatically follow that they want Zack Polanski to be their prime minister, or for that matter, Nigel Farage, which I think is the greater threat across the country.
by James Tapsfield and Greg Heffer
Nigel Farage lashed out at ‘cheating’ in the Gorton and Denton by-election today after independent observers raised alarm about ‘high levels’ of illegal ‘family voting’.
Reform has warned of ‘dangerous Muslim sectarianism’ in the wake of Democracy Volunteers voicing fears about breaches of electoral law.
The organisation’s watchers flagged worries about ‘family voting’ in the Greater Manchester seat on Thursday. That is where a voter is accompanied by another person into or near polling booths with the intention of influencing their vote.
Tougher legislation, known as the Ballot Secrecy Act, was introduced in 2023 in a bid to clamp down on the practice. That made clear it was an offence.
In a statement issued as polls closed in Gorton and Denton at 10pm on Thursday night, Democracy Volunteers said they had seen ‘the highest levels of family voting at any election in our 10-year history of observing elections in the UK’.
But Manchester City Council insisted ‘no such issues have been reported’.
Polling expert believes Starmer’s chance of surviving May elections have ‘diminished’
Polling expert Sir John Curtice said that ‘nervousness’ about Sir Keir Starmer will be heightened in the Labour Party after it failed to win the Gorton and Denton by-election.
He told BBC Breakfast:
There are two big messages that come out of this. The first, of course, the most immediate, is that the nervousness that already existed inside the Labor Party about Keir Starmer’s ability to turn around his party’s electoral fortunes, that nervousness is now going to be heightened.
Referring to the local elections in May, he continued:
Not that there will be any move against the Prime Minister before May the 7th, but his chances of surviving after May the 7th if the results are bad, have, I think, been diminished.
by Daniel Hannan
This is how democracies unravel.
Long after the Green Party’s victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election has been forgotten, the campaign and the precedent it set will continue to disfigure our politics.
We are Balkanising our country, moving beyond citizenship as our primary political identifier and instead relating to one another as members of antagonistic tribes whose territories happen to overlap.
The Green Party’s behaviour in the run-up to yesterday’s by-election should place that party beyond the parameters of democratic decency.
Read Daniel Hannan’s column here:
Greens hit back at Farage ‘cheating’ claims
The Green Party say Nigel Farage’s claims of ‘sectarian voting and cheating’ were an attempt to undermine a democratic result in the Gorton and Denton by-election.
The Reform leader claimed there had been ‘cheating’ after official observers in Gorton and Denton raised the alarm about ‘family voting’.
Family voting is where a voter is accompanied by another person into or near polling booths with the intention of influencing their vote.
A Greens spokesperson said:
This is an attempt to undermine the democratic result and is straight out of the Trump playbook.
We’ve just won a historic by-election by a comfortable margin. We’ve shown the country that Greens can beat Reform, despite their big business donations.
Who is Hannah Spencer? The Green MP for Manchester and Gorton
Hannah Spencer, a 34-year-old plumber and trainee plasterer, was unveiled as the Green’s candidate for the Gorton and Denton by-election in January.
During an internal Green Party election last year Ms Spencer set out her stall on a series of controversial policies – including making clear she believes ‘sex work should not be criminalised’.
The prospective MP also criticised last year’s Supreme Court biological sex ruling and suggested that proposed guidance to protect women-only spaces is ‘possibly illegal’.
In her victory speech an emotional Ms Spencer said she didn’t grow up wanting to be a politician, adding ‘I am a plumber.’
She told the crowd:
I am no different to every single person here in this constituency. I work hard. That is what we do.
Except things have changed a lot over the last few decades, because working hard used to get me something.
It got you a house, a nice life, holidays, it got you somewhere. But now, working hard, what does that get you?”
Because life has changed. Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry.
Reform’s Matt Goodwin claims ‘dangerous Muslim sectarianism’ has emerged
Reform’s Matt Goodwin has vowed to stand again for the party at the next election after he was defeated in the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Reacting to the result, the former academic and GB News presenter said a ‘dangerous Muslim sectarianism’ had emerged following the result.
I think the progressives were told how to vote, and I think what you saw was a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives that came together to dominate a constituency. And many people in this country will look at Gorton and Denton and be appalled by what they see.
He also said Reform had ’embarrassed Labour in one of their strongest seats’.
‘What on earth is this Labour Party doing?’: MP brands Greens win a ‘catastrophe’
A Labour MP has branded the Greens win in Gorton and Denton a ‘catastrophe’ as he called on his own party to listen to backbenchers and the public in the wake of the defeat.
Karl Turner, MP for Kingston upon Hull East, said the win marked the ‘worst result the Labour Party could have ever had’ in an interview with Times Radio this morning.
He said:
So we are in a position where we can’t out-Left-wing the Greens, we tried to out-Right-wing Reform on immigration, other such matters. My message to Keir, the Prime Minister, is this. Why don’t we try to be Labour?
For crying out loud. Start listening to Labour MPs, start listening to people who knock the doors, who’ve been doing it forever. That’s the truth of where we are. What on earth is this Labour Party doing? What on earth has the Labour Party come to? We’ve now got the Greens in Manchester, it’s a catastrophe.
Key numbers and milestones as Greens make history in Gorton and Denton
The Greens have made history with their victory at Gorton and Denton which has marked a number of milestones for the party led by Zack Polanski
It is the first time the party has won a by-election for a seat in Commons
The result gives the Greens their first-ever parliamentary seat in the north of England
It is also the first time in nearly 100 years that the Gorton area of Manchester will not have been represented by a Labour MP
Labour’s share of the vote in Gorton and Denton almost halved, falling from 50.7% in 2024 to 25.4% in the by-election, a drop of 25.3 percentage points
By contrast, the Greens increased their vote share in Gorton and Denton from 13.2% in 2024 to 40.7%
Hannah Spencer’s win for the Greens means the party will now have five MPs in the House of Commons, its highest ever number
She joins Sian Berry in Brighton Pavilion; Carla Denyer, MP for Bristol Central; Ellie Chowns in North Herefordshire and Adrian Ramsay, MP for Waveney Valley
The turnout at Gorton and Denton, after adjusting for spoiled ballot papers, was 47.5%
Starmer faces fresh leadership crisis after surviving Mandelson scandal
Sir Keir Starmer is being branded a ‘lame duck leader’ by his opponents, having barely survived a Labour coup attempt a fortnight ago.
The indignity will be especially personal as Sir Keir made a campaign visit to Gorton and Denton on Monday – although he was carefully kept away from ordinary voters.
As the party staged a massive get-out-the-vote drive yesterday the premier was giving a speech in Newcastle, where schoolchildren were pictured struggling to stay awake.
Sir Keir’s premiership is already reeling from the Peter Mandelson scandal, with Labour MPs increasingly mutinous over their party’s dire poll ratings.
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Greens on course for more than 100 seats at next election after winning Gorton and Denton by-election, Zack Polanski claims: Live updates and reaction
