Keir Starmer “Humiliated” by Green By-Election Victory
Keir Starmer suffered a major electoral setback after the Green Party overturned Labour’s long-standing majority in Gorton and Denton, pushing the governing party into third place behind both the Greens and Reform UK.
Hannah Spencer, a local councillor and plumber, won the Greater Manchester constituency with 14,980 votes, taking 40.7 per cent of the vote and a majority of 4,402. Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin finished second with 10,578 votes, while Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia received 9,364 votes. The result gave the Greens their first-ever parliamentary by-election victory and their first MP representing a constituency in northern England.
The result was particularly striking because Gorton and Denton had been a Labour stronghold for generations. At the 2024 general election, Labour’s Andrew Gwynne won 50.8 per cent of the vote and a majority of 13,413. Two years later, Labour’s share had fallen to 25.4 per cent, leaving the party in third place.
Starmer described the result as “very disappointing” and said he understood the frustration expressed by voters. He nevertheless pledged to continue pursuing the changes promised by Labour at the 2024 general election and said he would fight political “extremes” on both the right and left.
A historic Green victory
For the Green Party, the result represented a significant milestone.
Hannah Spencer secured more than 40 per cent of the vote, comfortably ahead of Reform and Labour. The Greens had previously won 13.2 per cent in the constituency at the 2024 general election, meaning their vote share more than tripled.
Spencer’s victory also made her the Green Party’s first MP in northern England. Her campaign had presented her as a local candidate with a background outside professional politics. Her occupation as a plumber became a prominent part of her campaign identity.
Following the result, Spencer said the campaign demonstrated that voters could support an alternative to the established parties. She also criticised what she described as divisive political campaigning and argued that communities should not be blamed for wider social problems.
The Greens’ national leader, Zack Polanski, interpreted the result as evidence that his party could compete for parliamentary seats beyond its existing areas of representation. Reuters reported that Polanski said the party wanted to secure at least 30 seats and potentially as many as 50 at the next general election. Those were party ambitions rather than an independent forecast of future election results.
Labour’s fall from first to third
The most striking feature of the result for Labour was not simply that it lost the seat, but that it finished third.
The official figures show the scale of the change:
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Vote share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hannah Spencer | Green Party | 14,980 | 40.69% |
| Matt Goodwin | Reform UK | 10,578 | 28.73% |
| Angeliki Stogia | Labour | 9,364 | 25.44% |
| Charlotte Cadden | Conservative | 706 | 1.92% |
| Jackie Pearcey | Liberal Democrats | 653 | 1.77% |
The remaining candidates all received fewer than 200 votes. Turnout was approximately 47.6 per cent, with more than 36,800 votes cast.
Compared with 2024, Labour’s vote share fell by roughly 25 percentage points. Reform increased its share substantially, while the Greens recorded the largest increase of any major party.
The figures therefore point to a fragmented contest rather than a straightforward transfer of Labour votes to a single challenger.
Both Reform and the Greens gained support, while Labour lost ground to each.
Why Gorton and Denton mattered
The constituency has deep Labour roots.
The previous Gorton seat had been represented by Labour for decades, and the current constituency was created from the former Gorton and Denton areas. Labour’s majority in 2024 exceeded 13,000 votes.
The Greens’ victory therefore overturned one of Labour’s substantial majorities at a by-election.
According to analysis published after the contest, it was the sixth-largest Labour majority overturned at a parliamentary by-election since the Second World War.
The result also followed another significant by-election defeat for Labour. In Runcorn and Helsby, Reform UK had previously taken a Labour seat, demonstrating that Labour was facing challenges from different directions.
Gorton and Denton was different because the winning challenger came from the left of Labour rather than the right.
That distinction matters when interpreting the political message of the result.
A Reform victory would have provided evidence of pressure on Labour from the right. Instead, the Greens won, while Reform still finished ahead of Labour.
The combined vote of Reform and the Greens accounted for almost 70 per cent of the total.
The Andy Burnham controversy
The contest was also shaped by the question of who would represent Labour.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham had been widely discussed as a potential Labour candidate after Andrew Gwynne resigned as the constituency’s MP.
However, Labour’s National Executive Committee blocked Burnham from seeking the nomination.
The party said the decision was intended to avoid a mayoral by-election in Greater Manchester and to preserve campaign resources ahead of local and devolved elections.
The decision generated criticism from some Labour figures and became a major issue during the Gorton and Denton campaign.
After the result, questions were again raised about whether Labour should have selected Burnham.
Starmer defended the decision, saying Labour had an “excellent candidate” in Angeliki Stogia.
There is no single measure capable of determining how much the candidate-selection dispute affected the final result. By-election campaigns involve multiple factors, including candidate recognition, local issues, national political sentiment, turnout and tactical voting.
Nevertheless, the controversy provided a backdrop to an already difficult contest for Labour.
Reform UK finishes second
Reform UK also emerged from the election with a substantially larger vote share than it had achieved in 2024.
Matt Goodwin received 10,578 votes, or 28.7 per cent.
In the 2024 general election, Reform had received 14.1 per cent in the constituency. Its share therefore increased by more than 14 percentage points.
Reform did not win the seat, but its second-place finish was significant because Labour had previously enjoyed such a large majority.
The result also demonstrated that Reform’s challenge was not limited to traditionally Conservative areas.
The party’s support in Gorton and Denton came despite the Greens ultimately attracting the largest share of the anti-Labour vote.
For Labour strategists, that creates a complicated electoral picture. The party was losing votes to Reform while simultaneously facing competition from the Greens.
Starmer’s response
Starmer’s immediate reaction was measured.
He called the result “very disappointing” and acknowledged that voters were angry.
But he rejected the idea that the by-election should determine the government’s entire political direction.
The prime minister argued that governments can suffer defeats in by-elections and said Labour would continue working to deliver the changes promised in its 2024 manifesto.
He also said he would fight political “extremes” on both sides of the political spectrum.
Reuters reported that the defeat came after weeks of political turmoil and renewed pressure on Starmer’s leadership.
That context helps explain why the result attracted such considerable national attention.
A by-election changes only one parliamentary seat, but a defeat in a previously safe constituency can become a focus for wider arguments about a government’s popularity and political strategy.
A warning from Labour’s left
The Green victory also generated debate within Labour about the party’s relationship with voters who believe it has moved away from traditional progressive positions.
The Greens campaigned heavily on issues including living standards, public services and opposition to policies they associated with austerity or insufficient government intervention.
Their victory provided the party with an opportunity to argue that Labour could lose support from voters who might previously have regarded it as their natural political home.
The Guardian reported that some Labour MPs were concerned the party’s strategy of concentrating on the threat from Reform could alienate voters on the left.
However, the by-election alone cannot establish that explanation.
Voters in a by-election may behave differently from voters at a general election, particularly when turnout is lower and local candidates play a larger role.
The Gorton and Denton contest also featured an unusually strong Green campaign and a competitive Reform campaign, producing a three-way race that did not resemble the two-party contests of previous decades.
The changing electoral map
The result is another indication of how Britain’s electoral landscape has become more fragmented.
In 2024, Labour won Gorton and Denton with more than half the vote.
In 2026, three parties each received more than a quarter of the vote, with the Greens taking first place.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were both below 2 per cent.
That distribution is highly unusual for a constituency that had recently been dominated by Labour.
It also illustrates why traditional assumptions about “safe seats” have become less reliable in an increasingly competitive multi-party environment.
The Greens’ victory does not automatically demonstrate that the same result will occur in other constituencies. Likewise, Reform’s second-place finish does not establish how the party will perform nationally.
Each by-election has its own candidates, campaign dynamics and electorate.
What the result means for the Greens
For the Greens, the immediate achievement is straightforward: they now have another parliamentary platform and their first MP from northern England.
Hannah Spencer’s 4,402-vote majority gives the party representation in a constituency that Labour had represented for generations.
Polanski has said the party intends to use the result as a springboard for a broader electoral campaign.
But the next challenge will be maintaining that support beyond a single by-election.
The party’s 2024 vote in Gorton and Denton was only 13.2 per cent. Its 2026 result was 40.7 per cent.
That scale of movement shows how dramatically circumstances can change between elections, but it also means the Greens will face questions about whether they can reproduce that performance elsewhere.
What it means for Starmer
For Starmer, the Gorton and Denton result is unquestionably a significant electoral setback in numerical terms.
Labour went from a 13,413-vote majority in 2024 to third place in 2026.
But the political interpretation is more complicated than the headline alone suggests.
The Greens won the seat, Reform finished second, and Labour lost support to both. The outcome therefore reflects pressure on Labour from two different directions rather than a single nationwide political movement.
The prime minister’s response was to acknowledge the disappointment while insisting that he would continue with his programme.
The coming political debate will focus on whether Labour changes its strategy in response to the result, particularly on the issues that have allowed the Greens and Reform to attract voters who previously supported the governing party.
A result that will be closely examined
The Gorton and Denton by-election has already become an important reference point in Britain’s political debate.
The Greens secured their first parliamentary by-election victory.
Reform finished second and substantially increased its share of the vote.
Labour fell from first to third in a constituency where it had previously enjoyed a majority of more than 13,000.
For Starmer, the immediate message was clear in the official numbers: Labour’s support had fallen sharply in a seat that had previously been considered highly secure.
Whether that result becomes a temporary by-election shock or part of a longer-term transformation cannot be established from one contest.
What can be established is that Gorton and Denton has demonstrated the growing competitiveness of Britain’s multi-party politics. The Greens have shown they can win a Westminster by-election, Reform has shown it can challenge strongly in a traditionally Labour area, and Labour has been forced to confront a result in which it finished behind both.
For Starmer and the Labour Party, the task now is to respond to those numbers while continuing to govern nationally. For the Greens and Reform, the challenge is to determine whether the support demonstrated in Gorton and Denton can be sustained in other constituencies.
The by-election has changed the political representation of Gorton and Denton. Its wider significance will depend on what Britain’s parties and voters do next.