By Election: Green Party wins Gorton and Denton by election as Labour slips to third
The Green Party has taken the Gorton and Denton seat in a shock result, the party’s first ever Westminster by-election win, with Hannah Spencer becoming the new MP. The contest, called a by election during weeks of intense speculation, left Reform in second place and Labour pushed into third.
By Election result breakdown
Hannah Spencer, described in coverage as a plumber-turned-politician, won the seat and in her victory speech vowed to fight for people who feel "left behind". Reform finished in second place; Labour’s Angeliki Stogia came third in what had previously been considered a safe Labour seat. Labour had not lost in this area since 1931. The Greens significantly outperformed expectations, an outcome that polling expert John Curtice said leaves British politics more uncertain than ever.
What campaigners and observers said
Election observers said they witnessed "concerningly high" levels of "family voting" at polling stations, a claim the council disputed. One Labour MP reflecting on the campaign said: "The campaign was great. But you can’t have an organisational solution to a leadership problem. " A senior figure on the ‘soft’ left of the Labour Party — a faction associated with figures like the former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner — told reporters: "This must be the end of the McSweeney strategy of alienating our own voters. " To translate, now that Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff and main strategist, has left, Starmer should become more left wing.
Labour leadership and blocking Andy Burnham
The prime minister may well face criticism for the decision, on which he spent personal political capital, to block Andy Burnham from standing. The question of when — and how — the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, would try to return to Westminster had hung over the contest for months. A by-election in the north-west was seen as the ideal opening for him, only for the prime minister to lean on the bureaucratic strictures of the Labour Party to squash Burnham’s ambition of running for Labour in Gorton and Denton.
Three-way tussle and broader patterns
Many in the campaign believed the seat could be a very tight three-way tussle between Labour, Reform and the Green Party. This was the second Westminster by-election since the general election. Reform UK had won the first of those since the general election in Runcorn and Helsby in Cheshire last May, beating Labour by a whisker. That result was the 10th consecutive Westminster by-election where a different party took the seat from the one who had held it until then. Observers have pointed to this pattern as evidence of flux and unpredictability in current politics.
Electoral system and tactical voting
Debate around tactical voting featured heavily. Where Labour, the Green Party and Reform UK were all fighting strongly, commentators warned it was highly plausible that ballots of a majority of voters would be ignored under First Past The Post. The Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election had been scheduled for Thursday 26 February. Critics highlighted the 2024 UK general election as the most disproportional ever, with Labour securing almost two-thirds of MPs from just over one-third of votes, and argued that First Past The Post is struggling to reflect multi-party preferences. The tactical argument — with Labour and the Greens trying to persuade voters they are the only option to "stop Reform" — was central to campaigning. At the same time, observers noted past instances where anti-Reform voters coalesced: Reform fell short in a by-election for the seat of Caerphilly in the Welsh Parliament last autumn when Plaid Cymru persuaded the vast majority of voters who did not want Reform to back them.
Edited by Dulcie Lee, Sam Hancock and Jack Burgess, with political editor Chris Mason in Manchester. Henry Zeffman is listed as chief political correspondent.
It has been a big night for British politics. The Green Party’s first Westminster by-election victory, the blocking of Andy Burnham’s bid, questions over family voting and renewed debate on strategy and the voting system leave parties and commentators assessing what the result means going forward.
