Green Party wins historic UK election in key defeat for Labour

MANCHESTER, England (CN) — The Green Party delivered a historic upset in a special election Thursday, with voters in northern England handing the party victory in an area the ruling Labour Party had held for nearly a century.

Hannah Spencer, 34, a plumber and recently-qualified plasterer, will now take a seat in Parliament after winning 41% of the vote in Gorton and Denton, southeast Manchester, ahead of the right-wing anti-immigration party Reform UK with 29% and the center-left Labour with 25%.

The result wiped out Labour’s 13,000-vote majority in an area the party had controlled since 1931, putting further pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The win gives the Greens five lawmakers in Parliament and marks the party’s first-ever by-election victory and first parliamentary seat in northern England.

Voters headed to polling stations throughout a rain-drenched day in one of the country’s most unpredictable by-elections in recent years.

Starmer vowed to keep on fighting “for as long as I’ve got breath in my body,” despite the “very disappointing result.”

A working-class woman heads to Parliament

Spencer, who was born in the area, told supporters she never expected a political career.

“I didn’t grow up wanting to be a politician,” Spencer said in her victory speech.

She framed the result as a protest from working people who are suffering from the cost of living.

“I don’t think it’s extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life,” she said. “Things have changed a lot over the last few decades, because working hard used to get you something. But now, working hard, what does that get you?”

Spencer said many residents told her they struggle to afford food, heating and school uniforms despite steady employment.

“Because life has changed. Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry,” she said.

Gorton and Denton, long considered safe Labour territory in the U.K.’s “second city” of Greater Manchester, has deep working-class roots tied to manufacturing and public sector employment.

Speaking after the result, Greens leader Zac Polanski said voters were looking beyond Britain’s two dominant parties.

“I think people are really ready for an alternative to the Labour government and they are rejecting what I see as the divisive politics of Reform,” he said.

Labour faces internal backlash

The defeat triggered immediate criticism within Starmer’s governing Labour Party.

Party strategists had spent much of the past year focusing on countering Reform from the right, which has gained momentum in polls and local council elections, and largely overlooking the Greens to the left.

Starmer campaigned in the district alongside Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, a prominent and popular Labour figure who was blocked from running in the contest.

The prime minister warned voters that backing the Greens risked splitting the vote and helping Reform.

Instead, Labour finished third.

Richard Burgon, a Labour lawmaker on the party’s left, said responsibility for the loss “lies squarely with Keir Starmer and his clique.”

He said: “They put factional interests over having the candidate best placed to win, Andy Burnham.”

He added that if Labour wants to stop Reform’s rise, it must return to policies such as a wealth tax, public ownership of energy and water and what he called an ethical foreign policy.

“And it means ditching the approach of trying to ape Reform and kicking the left, that has alienated so many people who have voted Labour previously,” he said.

Labor unions aligned with the party also warned the result signals deeper trouble.

The Fire Brigades Union said Labour’s traditional voter base is “collapsing before our eyes,” adding that without a change in direction the government could face heavy losses in May elections.

UNISON, the country’s largest trade union and the biggest public service union in Europe representing 1.3 million members, was equally critical.

Its General Secretary Andrea Egan said, “The Greens won because Labour under Starmer has abandoned progressive values, imitating the far-right instead of taking the fight to them. If the government wants to survive it needs to stand up for workers and defend our fundamental values.”

Reform campaign hit by racism controversy

The result also halted momentum for Reform, which had hoped to convert rising national support into a parliamentary breakthrough.

The Reform candidate, former academic, right-wing activist and TV presenter Matt Goodwin, criticized the result. “What you saw was a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives that came together to dominate the constituency,” he said.

During the campaign, one of Reform’s senior organizers in the race, campaign manager Adam Mitula, was suspended after reports surfaced of racist and antisemitic social media posts.

Evidence published during the race showed Mitula using a racial slur targeting Black people, making derogatory remarks about Jewish women and agreeing with a Holocaust denier’s claim that Nazi killings of Jewish people had been exaggerated.

Mitula said his comments were taken out of context.

Courthouse News reporter James Francis Whitehead is based in England.

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