Greens win key UK by-election — as Starmer’s Labour slumps to third

LONDON — The Green Party triumphed in the Gorton and Denton by-election Friday to snatch a once-safe Labour seat from Keir Starmer’s governing party.

Hannah Spencer, a plumber and local councillor who pitched a populist cost-of-living message, will be the party’s newest MP having seen off both Labour and Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK. She received 14,980 votes (40.6 percent) — racking up a majority of 4,402, and helping to push Labour into third place less than two years after Keir Starmer’s party triumphed nationwide.

Matt Goodwin, an academic-turned-Substacker who ran for Reform UK, received 10,578 votes (28.7 percent), sharply improving Reform’s result on 2024 but not doing enough to take the insurgent party over the line. Angeliki Stogia, standing for Labour, bagged just 9,364 votes (25.4 percent.)

The result represents a serious blow from the left for Starmer, who is battling tumbling poll ratings and major concerns over his leadership from his own MPs. The Green vote climbed 27.4 percentage points on 2024’s result, while Reform UK’s climbed by 14.6 percentage points.

By contrast, Labour’s share of the vote tumbled 25.4 percentage points on 2024’s general election result.

The turnout was 47.62 percent, slightly down from 47.8 percent at the general election.

“Working hard used to get you something,” Spencer said in a victory speech that majored on cost-of-living concerns and attacks on billionaires. “It got you a house, a nice life, holidays, it got you somewhere. But now working hard, what does that get you?”

Brits, she argued, “can’t put food on the table, can’t get their kids school uniforms, can’t put their heating on, can’t live off the pension they worked hard to save for, can’t even begin to dream about ever having a holiday.”

She added: “Instead of working for a nice life… we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry.”

It marks the second by-election defeat for Labour since Starmer took office, and makes the prime minister’s position in his own party more vulnerable. Labour had held the seat with one exception since 1906.

The contest was called after former minister Andrew Gwynne resigned from parliament last month over ill health.

Labour Party Chair Anna Turley called the result “deeply disappointing,” but said “by-elections are normally difficult for the party of government, and this election was no different.”

“We know the majority of voters here did not want the poisonous politics of Nigel Farage and Reform,” Turley argued, as she attacked “the politics of anger and easy answers” of both the Greens and Reform.

This developing story is being updated.