The Green Party won its first parliamentary seat in northern England on Friday, capturing a Manchester-area constituency that had belonged to Labour for nearly a century and finishing ahead of both major parties in a result that underscored the fracturing of Britain’s traditional political order.
Hannah Spencer’s victory in Gorton and Denton pushed Labour into third place, behind Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, in the sharpest sign yet that British voters are abandoning old allegiances. Spencer took 40.7 percent of the vote, with Reform on 28.7 percent and Labour trailing at 25.4 percent.
The outcome dealt a blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had staked personal authority on retaining the seat. He blocked Andy Burnham, the popular Manchester mayor and a potential rival, from standing as the Labour candidate, and made a rare campaign visit to the area this week despite the risk of defeat.
Labour chair Anna Turley called the result “clearly disappointing.”
John Curtice, Britain’s leading pollster, described it as a “seismic moment” that leaves the “future of British politics looking more uncertain than at any stage” since the end of World War Two.
The loss adds to mounting pressure on Starmer, who faced calls to resign earlier this month over his decision to appoint veteran Labour figure Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. Mandelson’s past links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had drawn criticism from some Labour lawmakers.
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Labour won just over half the vote in Gorton and Denton at the 2024 general election, but support has collapsed amid sluggish economic growth, a series of scandals and policy reversals, and Starmer’s personal unpopularity.
While governing parties often lose by-elections—one-off contests to fill vacant parliamentary seats—the scale of Friday’s defeat was unusual. Labour did not just lose; it came third, pushed aside by insurgent forces from both left and right.
Gorton and Denton, which includes the area where the Gallagher brothers of Oasis grew up, was once considered part of Labour’s Red Wall—industrial constituencies across England that seemed impregnable. The seat became vacant after a sitting member of parliament resigned for health reasons.
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Starmer is not expected to face an immediate challenge to his leadership, Labour lawmakers said before the vote. But they warned he could be vulnerable after local and regional elections in May, when the party is expected to perform poorly, including in contests for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
The result illustrated how volatile the British electorate has become, with loyalty to the two main parties eroding and support growing for smaller movements on the political margins.
Five parties, including the Greens, Reform and the Liberal Democrats, are now polling in double digits nationally, threatening the Labour-Conservative duopoly that defined the past century.
The Green Party, which advocates leaving NATO and legalizing recreational drugs, now holds five of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. Friday’s win marked the first time the party has captured a seat in a by-election or in northern England.
Reform UK, which holds only a handful of parliamentary seats, has led national opinion polls for more than a year and is seen as Labour’s main threat at the next general election. But Friday’s contest exposed the party’s difficulties in ethnically diverse urban areas.
Reform candidate Matt Goodwin had previously said millions of British Muslims “are fundamentally opposed to British values and ways of life,” comments that alienated voters in Gorton and Denton, where a substantial Muslim population lives. Farage called the result a “victory for sectarian voting and cheating,” referencing the constituency’s Muslim voters, some of whom have called for greater support for Palestinians in Gaza.
The contest highlighted the contradictions facing Reform—a party that dominates national polling but struggles to convert that support into parliamentary victories in areas where its rhetoric clashes with local demographics.