London: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer-led Labour Party was hit with a major ballot box shocker in northern England on Friday as the Left-wing Green Party candidate relegated the governing party to third place after far-right Reform UK.
Hannah Spencer, a 34-year-old plumber by profession and newcomer to politics, hailed her win as a sign that the Greens can unseat other Labour members of Parliament too in future.
Confronted about her campaign’s controversial Urdu language videos and leaflets featuring Starmer with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, the newly-elected MP for Gorton and Denton in Greater Manchester dismissed the allegations that they were “sectarian” in nature.
“I think all of us know what it feels to be shut out of the system that isn’t built for us and I will always go out of my way to try and include people who are struggling to access something,” Spencer said soon after her win.
When asked why her campaign material featured Modi, she was dismissive and sought to distance herself from it.
“I have just been out every day talking to people, listening to people, and when people weren’t able to access information in a way that other people might, we tried to learn from that and tried to give literature and information in a language that they speak,” she said.
However, Labour had accused the Greens of using divisive tactics in a blatant attempt to appeal to the constituency’s significant British Pakistani electorate.
“Racism has no place in our politics, yet once again, we are seeing cynical tactics that risk inflaming community tensions for electoral gain,” Navendu Mishra, Labour MP for nearby Stockport, had said.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski had responded to the allegation by posting the party’s campaign video in Bangla on social media.
“The right wing trolls hated seeing our campaign video in Urdu. So here it is in Bangla instead. I love our party,” he said.
The Gorton and Denton win marks his party’s first byelection victory as the Greens continue to gain momentum alongside a similar upward trajectory for the anti-immigration Reform UK.
Spencer becomes the party’s fifth MP in Parliament, winning by a solid majority of 4,402 to beat Reform UK’s candidate who polled 10,578 votes. Labour, which had not lost an election in the area since 1931, mustered just 9,364 votes.
“It’s a very disappointing result,” admitted Starmer, whose leadership has come under added stress following the outcome.
“Incumbent governments quite often get results like that mid-term, but I do understand that voters are frustrated, they’re impatient for change. And I came into politics late in life, as it happens, to fight for change for those people who need it… And I will keep on fighting for those people as long as I’ve got breath in my body,” he said.
His party’s former deputy prime minister and a contender for the top job, Angela Rayner, said the shock result must be a “wake up call” for Labour.
Labour had won the constituency with a majority of 13,413 in the July 2024 general election, but was thrown into a battle against Polanski-led Greens and Nigel Farage-led Reform UK following the suspension and resignation of incumbent Andrew Gwynne over abusive WhatsApp messages.
