MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Greens bash PM Starmer and Labour party in a Manchester stronghold

Hannah Spencer said she felt compelled to call out “politicians and divisive figures that constantly scapegoat and blame our communities for all the problems in society”.

The Green Party has comfortably won a by-election for a vacant parliamentary seat, an embarrassing defeat for embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party in one of its former strongholds.

 Results showed the Greens’ Hannah Spencer, a 34-year-old councilor and plumber, had won 40.7% of the vote in Gorton and Denton, a constituency in Greater Manchester considered a secure Labour seat for almost a century.

Likewise the hard-right candidate for the populist, anti-immigration Reform party finished in second place, while Labor which won more than half the vote in Gorton and Denton at the last general election in 2024, finished a bruising third.

The Green Party has positioned itself as an alternative to Labor, arguing that the governing party has moved away from some of the values it once championed. The Greens, and their party leader Zack Polanski, have been vocal in their condemnation of Israel’s war in Gaza and their support for Palestinians.

Political scientist John Curtice called the result a “seismic moment” that signaled that the “future of British politics looks more uncertain than at any stage” since the end of World War II, as reported by Reuters news agency.

In her victory speech, Spencer said she felt compelled to call out “politicians and divisive figures that constantly scapegoat and blame our communities for all the problems in society”.

PM Starmer had personally invested political capital in the outcome by blocking Andy Burnham, the popular Manchester mayor who is widely touted as a potential challenger for the Labour leadership, from standing in the race, and by visiting the constituency before the vote.

Spencer’s victory – the Greens’ first win in a by-election – gives the party its fifth seat in parliament, while the top-polling Reform, which is widely viewed as posing the biggest challenge to the government at the ballot box, has eight.

Both parties, along with the centrist Liberal Democrats, are polling in double digits, presenting a threat to the traditional Labour-Conservative duopoly in British politics.