The Green Party has won its first ever parliamentary by-election, taking one of Labour’s safest seats in a result that will send shockwaves through Westminster and beyond. Hannah Spencer, a councillor and plumber from Manchester, won Gorton and Denton with 14,980 votes and a majority of 4,402 over Reform UK.
Labour finished third. That sentence alone tells you the scale of the catastrophe for Keir Starmer. The party’s candidate, Angeliki Stogia, received 9,364 votes, down from 18,555 at the 2024 general election. That is nearly half their vote evaporating in a constituency Labour has held for almost a century.
Polling analyst Professor Sir John Curtice said that if the 26.2 per cent swing applied nationally, Labour would lose 399 seats. The Greens had never previously won more than 10 per cent in a by-election. They have now won one by 12 points.
The timing could not be worse for Starmer. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has already called on him to step down, saying “too many mistakes” have been made at the top. The Scottish Labour conference is taking place in Paisley this weekend. The Prime Minister is not attending.
Spencer’s victory speech was direct and effective. “I didn’t grow up wanting to be a politician, I’m a plumber,” she said. “Working hard used to get you something. It got you a house, a nice life, holidays. But now working hard, what does that get you? Because talk to anyone here and they will tell you, the people work hard but can’t put food on the table.”
The Conservatives came a very distant fourth with just 706 votes, losing their deposit. Reform’s Matt Goodwin blamed tactical voting for his defeat. Whatever the explanations, the result confirms something most people already suspected: the two party system is fracturing in ways that nobody quite knows how to fix.