Arya News - Progressive Greens win closely watched election in one-time Labour stronghold, while right-wing Reform comes second.
A candidate for the United Kingdom’s left-wing Green Party has comfortably won a closely-watched election for a vacant parliamentary seat, delivering an embarrassing defeat for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party in one of its former strongholds.
Results announced Friday showed the Greens’ Hannah Spencer, a 34-year-old councillor and plumber, had won 40.7 percent of the vote in the by-election in Gorton and Denton , a constituency in Greater Manchester that has been considered a secure Labour seat for almost a century.
In an outcome that analysts said pointed to the fracturing of the UK’s traditional two-party politics, the hard-right candidate for the populist, anti-immigration Reform finished in second place.
Labour, which had won more than half the vote in Gorton and Denton at the last general election in 2024, finished a bruising third.
The Green Party has positioned itself as an alternative to Labour, arguing that the governing party has moved away from some of the values it once championed.
The Greens, and their party leader Zack Polanski, have been vocal in their condemnation of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and their support for Palestinians. Many Labour voters have been infuriated by the government’s ongoing diplomatic support for Israel through the carnage it has wrought in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Political scientist John Curtice called the result a “seismic moment” that signalled that the “future of British politics looks more uncertain than at any stage” since the end of World War II, the Reuters news agency reported.
The result was “clearly disappointing”, said Labour Party chair Anna Turley.
In her victory speech, Spencer said she felt compelled to call out “politicians and divisive figures who constantly scapegoat and blame our communities for all the problems in society”.
Starmer’s woes continue
The loss of what had been considered a safe seat, in the country’s biggest electoral test in nearly a year, adds to the mounting pressure on the embattled Starmer.
The British leader has faced calls for his resignation amid Labour’s nose-diving popularity and ongoing turmoil, including the arrest of Peter Mandelson , who Starmer had appointed ambassador to the US last year, following revelations surrounding his links to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein .
Starmer had personally invested political capital in the outcome by blocking Andy Burnham, the popular Manchester mayor who is widely touted as a potential challenger for the Labour leadership, from standing in the race, and by visiting the constituency before the vote.
Duopoly challenged
Spencer’s victory – the Greens’ first win in a by-election – gives the party its fifth seat in parliament, while the top-polling Reform, which is widely viewed as posing the biggest challenge to the government at the ballot box, has eight.
Both parties, along with the centrist Liberal Democrats, are polling in double digits, presenting a threat to the traditional Labour-Conservative duopoly in British politics.
Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-immigration Reform, claimed on X, without evidence, that the Greens’ win was “a victory for sectarian voting and cheating”, and welcomed forthcoming local elections in May.
“It will be goodbye Starmer and goodbye to the Tory party,” he said.
A Greens spokesperson dismissed Farage’s comments as “an attempt to undermine the democratic result” that was “straight out of the Trump playbook”.
The contest was triggered after former Labour MP Andrew Gwynne stood down for health reasons.