Sir John Curtice says the Greens’ victory has made the future of British politics more unpredictable than ever before
The Green Party’s landmark victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election has made the outlook for British politics even more unpredictable than before.
Until now, the party had never won more than 10% of the vote in a parliamentary by-election, a figure they achieved in the Somerton and Frome by-election in 2023. Now, Hannah Spencer has made history as the first Green candidate to win a parliamentary by-election.
Spencer not only won, but she also performed well, significantly exceeding poll expectations.
Instead of winning by a narrow margin, the party secured 40.7% of the vote, enough to put them 12 points ahead of second-placed Reform. This was 27.5 points more than the party’s share in 2024.
Labour, which hadn’t lost an election in this area since 1931, came in third. The party’s 25.4% vote was nearly half of the 50.8% it received in 2024 and was the 13th-largest drop in support for the party in a by-election ever.
Meanwhile, the Conservative Party lost its deposit with just 1.9% of the vote, its worst-ever by-election result.
Apart from the peculiar circumstances of the 2024 Rochdale by-election, when Labour withdrew its candidate, allowing George Galloway to defeat an independent candidate who came in second, this is the first time neither Labour nor the Conservatives have been among the top two parties in a by-election contest.
With both parties receiving 20% or less of the vote in polls, the Conservative-Labour duopoly, which has long dominated post-war British politics, has never looked so vulnerable.
The Conservative Party is struggling to cope with the challenge posed by Reform, and now, on the other hand, the Labour Party’s traditional position as the main party of the left in British politics is clearly under threat from the Greens.
Undoubtedly, this result will raise new questions among Labour MPs about whether Sir Keir Starmer should remain Prime Minister.
Yet, it would be wrong to assume that the Gorton and Denton results merely reflect disappointment with him and his government’s leadership ahead of the 2024 election.
Instead, this by-election confirmed the message for the 2024 election: two key pillars of the Labour Party’s traditional electoral coalition have been shattered.
Labour once relied on Gorton and Denton as a source of support from, first, less affluent working-class voters and, second, voters from minority backgrounds, both of which are particularly high in this constituency and, until recently, were strongholds of Labour support nationwide.
However, Labour’s remaining strength among working-class voters across Britain vanished in the 2019 general election—and they failed to recover in 2024. Now, Reform is particularly successful in appealing to such voters.
And according to two polls that correctly predicted a close three-way contest at the ballot box, Nigel Farage’s party led in the predominantly white working-class part of the Denton constituency.
Meanwhile, in 2024, Labour suffered significant losses in seats with a large Muslim population, largely due to its initial stance on Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The Greens were often among the clear gainers. In fact, in Gorton and Denton alone, the Labour vote fell by 16 points in the last election.
Now, helped by George Galloway’s Workers’ Party’s decision not to contest a seat where it had received 10% of the vote in the general election, the Greens managed to make inroads among many Muslim voters in the Gorton part of the constituency.
Combined with the party’s strength among young voters, this formed the basis of the party’s success.
After winning Runcorn by a narrow margin last year, Reform suffered a bitter defeat this time.
The truth is, winning this contest was never going to be easy for the party. Its deep-seated antipathy towards immigration and its suspicion of diversity policies ensure that it enjoys very little support among ethnic minority voters.
The appeal its stance has among the constituency’s few white working-class voters is insufficient to mitigate this loss.
With around 29% of the vote, the party’s 15-point increase in support was significantly smaller than its 21-point increase in Runcorn, where, despite having a much smaller minority community, the Conservative vote was also significantly larger, which the party could potentially attract.
The result in Gorton and Denton certainly highlights some of the limits of Reform’s appeal. While the party’s lead over Labour in opinion polls has narrowed slightly in recent weeks, it would be wrong to interpret this result as evidence that the party’s hopes have now diminished significantly.
And all eyes will now be on whether the Greens’ success in Gorton and Denton gives them a boost in national polls, just weeks before the devolved and local elections on May 7.
