Pro-Gaza UK Greens stun Labour and Reform UK to win Gorton and Denton by-election

The Green Party has won the Gorton and Denton by-election, marking a sensational swing against Labour and fending off Reform's populist right challenge, in one of the biggest humiliations for Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government.

Zack Polanski's Greens were able to turn the constituency around from a Labour majority of over 13,000, overtaking previous runners-up Reform to claim victory with 14,980 votes, a 41 percent share. In the end, Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin came in second with 10,578 votes, while Labour was left trailing in third with just 9,364, nearly cutting its vote in half from the 18,555 it secured at the last election.

The Greens' victory comes after a by-election campaign so razor-thin that it left pollsters unable to call it. In contrast to the campaign, the final result could not have been clearer.

Finishing her speech, Spencer referenced a line from 24 Hour Party People, a film about Manchester’s vibrant 1980s music scene, saying: "We defeated the parties of billionaire donors, because this is Manchester – we do things differently here."

As much as this was the Greens’ victory, it was also a rout for the Labour Party. In a further humiliation, it came just days after Starmer visited the constituency and claimed it was a contest between Labour and Reform, a prediction that proved catastrophically wrong.

On the night of the count, as early as 1am, three hours before the final result, Labour appeared to be carrying out damage control, claiming the Greens would be "unable to replicate" the by-election swing in a general election.

But Labour may not have to wait that long, with May’s local elections now likely to see the party suffer a serious bruising, and Starmer's own future as prime minister looking increasingly precarious.

Questions are also likely to be asked about the decision to block Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham from running as the Labour candidate. Burnham is a popular figure in Manchester with a proven track record, and blocking him is likely to reflect poorly on Starmer.

For the Greens, however, it was a night of unreserved celebration.

At the campaign volunteers' watch party, held in an old theatre-turned-arts centre, the mood shifted from cautious optimism to elation. By 2am, a spontaneous conga line made its way around the theatre, followed by the beginnings of a dabke as “Ana Dammi Falastini” by Mohammed Assaf played. At one point in the evening, Greens deputy leader Mothin Ali even crowd-surfed.

Gaza has been a difficult issue for Labour since before it entered government, and the Greens made no secret of throwing their weight behind the Palestinian cause throughout the campaign.

Ultimately, it proved to be an issue where principle and pragmatism intersected, as the Greens sought to win votes from Gorton and Denton’s large Muslim community as well as traditional Labour voters furious with the government's reaction to the Gaza crisis.

At the party, Green volunteers were left blown away by the result. Volunteer David Ari had travelled all the way from Copenhagen, where he previously moved from the UK, to help out with the campaign.

"I would be devastated if we wake up tomorrow and see a party who thinks that people who look like me cannot be British win. I couldn't accept not having done my part in preventing that," he told The New Arab.

"I saw how inspiring Hannah was and I went I cannot let this opportunity go, to actually support a case for hope and a case for things we want to believe in rather than a case of just being against something else."

Meanwhile, campaigner Laura-Louise Fairley, who is hopeful of running for the Greens in Hackney, shared what the victory meant to her.

"As incredible as it is that we’ve got a fifth Green MP, what matters to me more than anything right now is that Hannah Spencer is the MP," she said. “As a woman and as the mother of a little girl, somebody aspiring to represent my community, I look at Hannah and I listen to her talk I felt such an overwhelming sense of hope and joy."

In her victory speech at the count, Spencer leaned into the worsening cost of living crisis, which has been a source of popular anger against the Labour government, saying that the old promise of working hard to secure a good life no longer applies, and placing the blame squarely on the ultra-rich.

"Instead of working for a nice life, we're working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry," she said.

Spencer will now join the four other Green MPs in Parliament, the most the party has ever had.

Green Party leader Polanski also appeared after the result was announced, telling assembled volunteers: “We have shown what winning looks like. We have shown that when we come together, when we’re organised, when we have each other’s backs, and when we have solidarity, we are unstoppable.”

Polanski also highlighted that the seat had been considered an unlikely target for the Greens. At the next general election, the party may set its sights on other seats in the city, such as neighbouring Manchester Withington, with its large student population, where the Greens came second to Labour with a much smaller margin than the one they have just overturned in Gorton and Denton.

Labour had positioned itself as a counter to Reform UK through right-wing anti-immigration policies and a tough stance against Palestinian activism, but Thursday night showed that the governing party now faces a very real threat from the left.