The Green Party has pulled off a stunning victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election, overturning one of Labour Party’s safest seats and dealing a significant blow to Keir Starmer.
Labour had held the constituency until its former MP, Andrew Gwynne, stepped down on health grounds. In a dramatic reversal, the party slumped to third place, behind Reform UK.
Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green councillor, was elected as the party’s first MP in northern England after securing 40.7 per cent of the vote and a majority of 4,402.
Reform UK’s candidate Matt Goodwin finished second on 28.7 per cent (10,578 votes), while Labour trailed on 25.4 per cent (9,364 votes).
In her victory speech, Ms Spencer said voters were being “bled dry” and were “sick of our hard work making other people rich”. The 34-year-old, who becomes the Greens’ fifth MP, praised her party’s “hopeful campaign”, adding: “We have shown that we don’t have to accept being turned against each other.”
How the vote shifted since 2024
At the 2024 general election, the Greens placed third in Gorton and Denton with 13.2 per cent of the vote. Reform UK came second on 14.1 per cent, while Labour secured a comfortable win with 50.8 per cent.
Two years on, the political landscape has been transformed.
Labour’s vote share halved to 25.4 per cent. Reform increased its support by 14.6 percentage points to 28.7 per cent. However, it was the Greens who made the decisive breakthrough, more than tripling their vote share to 40.7 per cent.
The result represents a 26.4-point swing from Labour to the Greens — a landslide by any measure — and marks the sixth largest Labour majority to be overturned at a by-election since the Second World War.
Polls failed to predict scale of swing
Most multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) polls published ahead of polling day suggested Reform and Labour were leading in Gorton and Denton. Such projections rely heavily on national polling trends, demographic modelling and previous election results, factors which may have overstated Reform’s national momentum and Labour’s incumbency advantage.
One of the few constituency-level surveys, conducted by Omnisis and released a week before the vote, put the Greens narrowly ahead for the first time. Even then, the party was projected to win 33 per cent — well short of the eventual outcome.
Other parties suffer heavy losses
Labour was not alone in enduring a bruising night. The Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats both saw their already modest support erode further.
The Conservatives finished fourth with just 1.9 per cent (706 votes), a six-point drop on 2024 and their worst ever performance in a by-election. The Liberal Democrats were fifth on 1.8 per cent (653 votes), down two points.
With neither party reaching the five per cent threshold, both forfeited their £500 deposits.
Among the minor candidates, Sir Oink-a-lot of the Official Monster Raving Looney Party polled 159 votes — four more than Advance UK’s Nick Buckley MBE — in one of the night’s lighter footnotes to an otherwise seismic result.
