Nigel Farage and Matt Goodwin (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage has insisted that Reform’s candidate would have won last week’s by-election if only British citizens had voted Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin came second to the Green Party’s Hannah Spencer in the Gorton and Denton by-election, with Labour in third.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Mr Farage said: “I’m absolutely convinced that amongst British-born voters, Matthew Goodwin came first in that election last week. Of that, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever.” Reform UK leader and Clacton MP Mr Farage has since said his party would limit voting in national elections to British citizens and remove the right from residents with Commonwealth citizenship.
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Mr Farage’s belief that allowing Commonwealth citizens to vote “undermines national sovereignty” and leads to elections being fought over international rather than domestic issues is behind the plan to remove their right to vote in national polls, Reform UK has said.
Asked if he was worried that the policy could be seen as an effort to cut out voters unlikely to support his party, Nigel Farage said that many other “normal” countries already do this.
He said: “I do believe for national elections they should be they should be voted on by British voters only, absolutely.
“Otherwise, we get a really, very, very perverse influence on our politics, where people are voting more about Gaza than they are about Gorton.”
Reform UK Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said many other countries including the US and Japan already limit voting rights to citizens.
Mr Farage added: “We just want to be a normal country and normal countries protect their borders, protect their democratic systems, know what works and what doesn’t.”
Reform also wants to restrict postal voting.
Currently, anyone eligible to vote in UK elections can choose to do so by post but under Reform UK’s plans this would be limited to the elderly, disabled, serving armed forces personnel and those working overseas during an election.
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Mr Farage warned on Monday of the “mass harvesting” of postal ballots.
“I don’t trust the postal voting system. I don’t trust the electoral register,” he said.
The Reform UK leader has complained about postal voting in the past, including when Ukip lost the Oldham West and Royton by-election in 2015 and when his Brexit Party lost the Peterborough by-election in 2019.
Reform UK MP Richard Tice questioned the validity of postal ballots when his party’s candidate lost the Rochdale by-election in 2024, stressing the result should act as a “serious wake-up call” to the electorate and those in power.
In none of those cases was postal voting fraud ever proved and none resulted in any convictions.
Reform has also asked police to investigate allegations of election fraud after reports of “family voting” – an illegal practice where two voters use one polling booth and potentially direct each other on voting.
Election observer group Democracy Volunteers warned it had witnessed “concerningly high levels” of family voting in Gorton and Denton.
Commenting on Nigel Farage’s plans, a Green Party spokesman said: “This is dangerous, racist nonsense from a party who were well beaten, seeking to delegitimise the election, Donald Trump-style.
“In a democracy, everyone’s vote is equal and we attracted voters from across all communities, in all areas, including from those who said they were originally going to vote Reform.
“Farage has no idea who did and didn’t vote for him.
“And, as he said, he always knew they were going to lose. ‘If you don’t like the results of an election, change the electorate’ is the refrain of sore losers and anti-democrats through the ages.”
Nigel Farage Insists Reform Would Have Won Crunch By-Election If Only UK Citizens Voted
Nigel Farage has insisted that Reform UK would have won the closely watched Gorton and Denton by-election if only British citizens had been allowed to vote, reigniting a heated debate over who should have the right to participate in UK parliamentary elections.
The Reform UK leader made the claim after his party’s candidate, Matt Goodwin, finished second behind Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer in the Greater Manchester constituency.
Farage’s assertion was not based on an official analysis of voters’ citizenship. Because British elections use a secret ballot, the nationality of individual voters and how they voted are not publicly recorded. Farage nevertheless said he was convinced that Goodwin had received the most support among British-born voters.
“I’m absolutely convinced that amongst British-born voters, Matthew Goodwin came first in that election,” Farage said at a Westminster press conference. “Of that, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever.”
The statement immediately became part of a wider Reform campaign to change Britain’s electoral rules.
The party proposed restricting voting in parliamentary elections to British citizens, while also limiting postal voting to certain groups. Reform argued that the changes would strengthen national sovereignty and confidence in the electoral system.
Critics, however, questioned the evidential basis for Farage’s claim about the Gorton and Denton result and argued that changing the electorate after an election defeat raised serious democratic questions.
What actually happened in Gorton and Denton?
The official result provides a clear starting point.
The by-election was held on February 26, 2026, after the seat became vacant. Hannah Spencer won for the Green Party with 14,980 votes, representing 40.7% of the vote.
Reform’s Matt Goodwin finished second with 10,578 votes, or 28.7%, while Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia came third with 9,364 votes, or 25.4%.
Spencer therefore won by 4,402 votes. Turnout was 47.5%, with an electorate of 77,501.
The result was significant for several reasons.
The Greens secured their first Westminster by-election victory in the north of England, while Reform more than doubled the party’s vote share compared with the 2024 general election in the constituency.
Labour, meanwhile, fell from first place to third.
But none of the official results records the citizenship of individual voters.
That makes Farage’s claim about how British-born voters behaved impossible to verify from the published ballot data.
Why Farage made the claim
Farage linked his argument to Reform’s proposed changes to the franchise.
The party said parliamentary elections should be decided by British citizens rather than qualifying Commonwealth citizens who are currently legally entitled to vote.
Under Britain’s existing rules, qualifying Commonwealth citizens can vote in UK parliamentary elections if they meet the relevant eligibility and registration requirements.
Farage argued that this arrangement creates what he described as an undesirable influence on British politics.
At the press conference, he said allowing Commonwealth citizens to vote could result in elections being influenced by international issues rather than domestic concerns. He specifically referred to the war in Gaza and suggested that voters could be motivated by foreign-policy questions rather than local issues.
Reform’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick defended the proposed change by pointing out that several countries restrict national voting rights to citizens.
The party therefore presented its proposal as a question of how the national electorate should be defined, rather than simply as a response to one by-election.
The secret-ballot problem
One of the central difficulties with Farage’s claim is that there is no public record showing how particular categories of voters behaved in Gorton and Denton.
Voting is secret.
The official count records the total votes received by each candidate, but it does not identify which votes were cast by British citizens, Commonwealth citizens, people born in Britain or people born overseas.
That means there is no official dataset demonstrating that Goodwin won among British-born voters.
The Green Party’s Hannah Spencer rejected Farage’s argument and said that everyone who was legally entitled to vote had an equal vote.
She also argued that Farage could not know how individual voters had voted because of the secret ballot.
The distinction is important.
Farage’s statement was a political assertion about an alternative hypothetical electorate. It was not a recount, an official statistical analysis or an established finding about the nationality of voters.
The separate controversy over “family voting”
The argument about voter eligibility became intertwined with another dispute following the election.
Reform reported allegations of “family voting” to Greater Manchester Police and the Electoral Commission after election observers reported seeing situations in which more than one person appeared to enter a polling booth or look at another voter’s ballot.
Family voting can be unlawful if one person attempts to influence another person’s vote or breaches the secrecy of the ballot.
The Electoral Commission said it took the allegations seriously and was working with the returning officer and Greater Manchester Police to review the concerns.
Reform used the reports to argue that the election raised wider questions about electoral integrity.
However, family voting allegations and Farage’s claim about British-born voters are two separate issues.
The first concerns whether any voters improperly influenced one another.
The second concerns the hypothetical outcome if the electorate had been defined differently.
Neither establishes the other.
Police later found no evidence of criminality
The subsequent police investigation became particularly important.
Greater Manchester Police later said its investigation had found no evidence of an intention to influence or prevent anyone from voting.
The police reviewed accounts from election observers who had reported potentially suspicious behaviour. According to the findings, observers had not alleged verbal instructions or physical conduct demonstrating that one person was directing another on how to vote.
That finding does not mean every concern about election procedures is irrelevant.
It does mean that the available police investigation did not establish criminal conduct capable of overturning the election.
The official result therefore remained unchanged.
Spencer remained the elected MP, with a majority of 4,402 votes.
Reform’s proposed changes to voting rights
Farage’s comments were accompanied by a broader electoral reform programme.
Reform said it would restrict parliamentary voting rights to British citizens, with Irish citizens continuing to retain voting rights under the party’s clarified position.
The party also proposed major restrictions on postal voting.
Under the proposal, postal voting would be reserved largely for elderly and disabled people, serving armed forces personnel and people working overseas during elections.
Farage argued that the current system was vulnerable to what he called “mass harvesting” of postal ballots and said he did not trust the existing postal voting system or electoral register.
However, reporting on previous Reform complaints about postal voting found that fraud had not been proved in the elections cited by the party.
Electoral Commission data also did not show evidence of large-scale electoral fraud across the UK.
That distinction matters when assessing the policy proposal.
There is a difference between identifying safeguards that could be strengthened and establishing that widespread fraud has occurred.
A major change to the British franchise
If Reform’s proposal were enacted, it would represent a significant change to Britain’s electoral system.
Qualifying Commonwealth citizens currently form part of the electorate under rules that reflect the country’s historical constitutional relationships.
Removing those rights would mean that a group currently entitled to participate in parliamentary elections would no longer be able to do so.
Farage argues that national political decisions should be made by British citizens.
Opponents argue that lawful residents who meet existing requirements should not lose their voting rights simply because of their nationality.
The disagreement therefore goes beyond Gorton and Denton.
It concerns the basic question of who constitutes the electorate for a UK parliamentary election.
The political significance of the result
The Gorton and Denton contest also demonstrated the increasingly fragmented nature of British politics.
The Greens won 40.7%, Reform received 28.7% and Labour 25.4%.
No single party dominated the contest.
For Reform, the result showed that the party could become a major challenger in traditionally Labour areas. For the Greens, it represented a breakthrough victory. For Labour, it was a substantial loss of support compared with the 2024 general election.
The subsequent argument over voting rights therefore became part of a much larger struggle between the parties over the meaning of the result.
Farage sought to argue that the official result did not accurately reflect the preferences of British-born voters.
The Greens rejected that interpretation and defended the legitimacy of the electorate that participated.
The official election result itself, however, remains straightforward: Spencer won the seat by 4,402 votes.
What the dispute ultimately shows
Farage’s claim has become one of the most controversial aspects of the aftermath of the Gorton and Denton by-election.
His statement that Goodwin would have won if only British citizens had voted cannot be independently verified from the published result because individual voters’ citizenship and choices are confidential.
What can be verified is that Reform finished second, the Greens won the seat, and subsequent police investigation found no evidence of criminal intent in the alleged family-voting incidents.
The controversy nevertheless has political consequences because Reform has turned it into a wider campaign for changes to Britain’s electoral system.
The party wants parliamentary voting rights to be restricted according to citizenship and wants postal voting to be available only in limited circumstances.
Whether those proposals gain parliamentary support is a separate question from what happened in Gorton and Denton.
The by-election itself was decided under the rules that were in force at the time, and those rules produced a Green Party victory with a majority of 4,402.
Farage’s argument instead asks voters to consider a different hypothetical: what the result might have been under an electorate defined according to Reform’s proposed rules.
That hypothetical has become central to the political debate, but it should not be confused with an alternative official result.
For now, the established facts remain the same. Hannah Spencer won the seat, Matt Goodwin finished second, Labour came third, and the police investigation did not establish criminal interference with the vote.
The larger argument over who should vote in Britain’s parliamentary elections, and how ballots should be cast, is now part of Reform UK’s wider political programme.