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Polanski says many ex-Labour voters will never return to Starmer’s party, and Greens best party to defeat Reform
Zack Polanksi, the Green party leader, has claimed that the Gorton and Denton result shows that the Labour party has lost some of its old voters for good and that voting Green is now the way to defeat Reform. In a statement he said:
This used to be one of Labour’s safest seats. In this by-election almost half of their 2024 voters abandoned them and many switched to voting Green, meaning they finished 3rd. The Green party saw a record-breaking swing in our direction and more than tripled our vote.
Labour fought a shameful, dirty campaign – spreading lies about Green policies and even faking a tactical voting website. They knew they couldn’t win, but they risked splitting the vote and letting Reform in.
People everywhere will now know that voting Green is the way to defeat Reform. Many ex-Labour voters told our canvassers that they will never go back to a party that supports genocide, fuels racism, and has failed to deliver on its promise to improve life for people across the country.
Key events
Labour MP Jon Trickett says Starmer should ‘reflect on his position’ following byelection defeat
The Labour MP Jon Trickett has said that Keir Starmer should “reflect on his own position”.
Speaking to Times Radio, Trickett said:
My experience is that people are fed up with the fact that we aren’t delivering change. Now, it’s up to Keir Starmer to look in the mirror and make a decision about his own personal future, because obviously it’s important to be a prime minister, but it’s more important to deliver justice and fairness in a society that is really crippled by the lack of fairness and justice. Social equality has gone out the window. People are living in poverty or on the edge of poverty, millions of people. And they’re looking, they look for Labour for change and they haven’t yet seen it …
I think [the byelection result] signals a bigger change in the way that people see the country, its politics and its leaders, and Labour absolutely must reflect on this in a serious way. And that does mean, I’m afraid, that the prime minister needs to reflect on his own position.
When politicians say a leader should reflect on their position, they don’t mean that they should reflect and then conclude that it is right to say.
Trickett is on the left of the PLP, has never been a leading member of the Starmer fan club, and so in some respects these comments are not surprising. Many Labour MPs would say the same in private. But there have not been many Labour MPs saying this publicly.
Plaid Cymru welcomes Gorton and Denton byelection result as evidence ‘old guard’ parties are ‘slipping away’
Steven Morris is a Guardian reporter covering Wales.
The leader of Plaid Cymru, Rhun ap Iorwerth, has said the Gorton and Denton result shows the “old guard are slipping away”. By old guard, he means Labour and the Tories.
Ap Iorwerth is the favourite to become first minister of Wales at the Senedd (Welsh parliament) elections in May, ending 100 years of Labour dominance here, and the party will relish being in the spotlight for two days at their spring conference starting today.
When he speaks at the conference this afternoon, ap Iorwerth will claim the May election is a stark choice between Plaid and Reform UK, which polls suggest are coming second.
He will say:
We offer hope – hope that can overcome people’s fears of other political forces leading Wales down a dark path. Hope that things can get better for our health service, that our elderly relatives won’t have to wait so long for treatment or that the burden of childcare costs on our sons and daughters’ household budgets will be eased.
And hope that, finally, Wales will have a government willing to stand up to Keir Starmer, to Jo Stevens [secretary of state for Wales] and anyone else denying our nation the fairness it deserves.
The Gorton and Denton result has echoes of what happened at the Caerphilly byelection last year when Plaid won, pushing Reform into second place and Labour third.
There have been interesting comments, too, from the leader of the Greens in Wales, Anthony Slaughter, on BBC Wales. Asked if he saw Plaid as rivals or allies, he said: “On this issue in standing up to Reform, we are allies.”
Whether that opens the door for Plaid and the Greens cooperating at the Senedd elections – perhaps in a very loose way – so as not to split the progressive vote remains to be seen.
Heidi Alexander says Britons don’t want Polanski as PM, and Green policies won’t ‘survive contact with national electorate’
Alexander said that, when she heard Hannah Spencer’s victory speech (see 8.29am), she thought it was very similar to what she said when she was elected in 2024.
We are committed to delivering change for this country. We inherited public services that were on their knees, school roofs were collapsing, buildings were crumbling. People couldn’t get an NHS dentist and were having to pull their own teeth out. We saw high streets that are run down.
Now, I understand that when there’s a byelection and people are looking in their bank account at the end of the month and they’re still struggling to pay their bills and to make ends meet, they feel frustration with the governing party, they feel impatient. And I share that impatience about improving lives for the mainstream majority in this country.
She also insisted that the byelection result did not show there was a “mainstream majority” for making Zack Polanski, or Nigel Farage, PM. She said:
What I cannot accept is that there is a direct read across from the results of this byelection, where people voted for a Green MP in Gorton and Denton, and the outcome of the next general election, because I don’t believe that that result yesterday suggests that there’s a mainstream majority for Zack Polanski being the next prime minister, or for that matter Nigel Farage.
And I don’t think the offer of the Green party will survive contact with the national electorate. Let’s remember that they are a party that are soft on defence.
Heidi Alexander says it’s ‘offensive’ for Unite boss Sharon Graham to claim ministers obsessed with their ‘rich mates’
Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, was asked about Sharon Graham’s “rich mates” jibe in an interview on the Today programme. (See 8.39am.) You could hear the anger in her voice as she replied:
I’m sorry, but I totally find it offensive that I should be told stop listening to your rich mates – of which I don’t have many – because I spend every single weekend of my life knocking on doors in Swindon talking to people who voted for me to be their Labour MP at the last general election.
These are from my colleague Jessica Elgot on the byelection result.
The Green victory in Denton is the result which will have a far
greater effect on Labour than a Reform winThe blithe assumption progressives have nowhere else to go has been proved catastrophically wrong.
Can’t help thinking of this quote from a Labour minister, a year ago… pic.twitter.com/6DXtPJCO8I
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) February 27, 2026
Labour MPs on the ground yesterday said previous Labour voters started going Green very late, and remonstrated with them on the doorstep about potentially letting in a Reform MP. One minister said they were repeatedly told off for not “sorting out” only one option against Reform
Until yesterday, Labour really thought the seat was very winnable according to their own data. In the end it wasn’t even that close. They just never took it seriously that their own past voters would vote tactically for another party.
And this is from Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, and former political editor.
Nick Robinson on BBC fairly said many will dismiss the Gorton & Denton result by pointing to a “large Muslim vote still motivated and angry about what happened in Gaza”. Many are wrong.
It is not just Muslims that are motivated by the treatment of Palestinians, and these voters are not just angry about what happened in Gaza, but about what is happening in Gaza.
Maybe this vote is not as big as the stop the boats lot, but Gaza is still a large part of what is driving the alienation from Labour. Little sign in the foreign office or No 10 of any recognition of this.
Here is Kiran Stacey’s analysis of the byelection result.
And here is an extract.
Hannah Spencer’s victory, with a majority of 4,402 votes over Reform, gives the Greens their fifth Westminster MP – 120 miles away from the next closest Green seat, proving the party can now win outside of its cluster of southern support. She told supporters at the vote count on Friday morning: “To people here in Gorton and Denton who feel left behind and isolated, I see you and I will fight for you.”
The Green party vote share of 41% is four times bigger than their previous best byelection result, and the increase in their vote is five times larger than they have achieved in any byelection since 2010.
Officials for the Greens and Labour said there had been a shift among Muslim voters, with many mentioning Starmer’s positions on Gaza as a key reason for moving away from Labour.
Spencer sought to capitalise on this with a campaign that targeted Muslim voters, including with videos in Urdu, in an echo of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign in New York. “I can’t and won’t accept this victory tonight without calling out the politicians and divisive figures who constantly scapegoat and blame our communities for all the problems in society,” she said from the count. “My Muslim friends and neighbours are just like me: human.”
Mainstream, a new centre-left Labour group backed by Andy Burnham, has issued a statement saying that the byelection result was an “absolute disaster” and the party needs a “fundamental reset”.
In a statement, its interim council said:
The Gorton and Denton result is an absolute disaster for Labour. Clearly, we now risk no longer being seen as the natural home for progressive voters.
This loss was avoidable. Angeliki [Stogia, the Labour candidate], members and our party staff worked tirelessly, but our leader and sections of the NEC blocked the one candidate who could have won it for us. That decision now looks like a catastrophic error.
We need an immediate and fundamental reset now.
Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham tells Starmer to stop listening to ‘rich mates’ and govern as ‘real Labour’
Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, has issued a statement saying that the byelection result shows why Keir Starmer should “stop listening to [his] rich mates” and start governing as ‘real Labour”. She says:
If Labour needed any further wake up calls – this is clearly one. Labour need to now ditch the gimmicks and get back to being Labour – not new, not one that plays games, but real Labour.
Workers and families are hurting. We have a cost of living crisis largely being ignored and investment in jobs for the here-and-now being blocked by a Treasury that doesn’t seem to understand the basics of what is needed to build Britain.
Stop listening your rich mates and start listening to everyday people.
At the time of the last election Unite was an outlier among the Labour-affiliated unions because Graham was not fully supportive of Keir Starmer in the way other general secretaries were. But now Unison’s new general secretary, Andrea Egan, is making the arguments that Graham has making for some time (see 6.50am), and some Labour MPs are also becoming increasingly vocal in calling for a shift to the left.
‘We’re working to line pockets of billionaires’ – Hannah Spencer’s victory speech
Hannah Spencer, the new Green MP for Gorton and Denton, is getting a lot of praise for her victory speech. We have covered extracts from it earlier, but here is a fuller version.
I didn’t grow up wanting to be a politician. I am a plumber.
I am no different to every single person here in this constituency. I work hard. That is what we do.
Except things have changed a lot over the last few decades, because working hard used to get me something.
It got you a house, a nice life, holidays, it got you somewhere.
But now, working hard, what does that get you?
Because life has changed. Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry.
People in their thousands told me, on the doorstep and at the ballot box, that what we are sick of is being let down and looked down on.
That we are sick of our hard work making other people rich …
I won’t accept this victory tonight without calling out politicians and divisive figures who constantly scapegoat and blame our communities for all the problems in society.
My Muslim friends and neighbours are just like me, human.
Now, to my customers, I’m sorry, but I think I might have to cancel the work that you haven’t booked in, because I’m heading to parliament.
And when I get there, I will make space for everyone doing jobs like mine,
We will finally get a seat at the table.
We can demand better without hating each other.
We ran a hopeful campaign backed by thousands of volunteers and activists.
We defeated the parties of billionaire donors.
Because this is Manchester. We do things differently here.
Reform UK chair David Bull says his party accepts legitimacy of byelection result – after Farage earlier alleged ‘cheating’
David Bull, the Reform UK chair, told the Today programme that his party was not contesting the legitimacy of the byelection result.
In a statement issued soon after the result was announced, Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, described the Green party win as “a victory for sectarian voting and cheating”. (See 5.09am.)
Asked what Farage was referring to, Bull complained that the Greens had distributed election leaflets in Urdu. He said they included “false statements” about his party, and he questioned whether this was good for “community cohesiveness”.
He also referred to the statement issued by the group Democracy Volunteers last night claiming they had witnessed incidents of “family voting” at polling stations – individuals being accompanied into the polling booth by a family member, raising concerns they were being told how to vote. Bull said this was illegal and should be “stamped out”.
But, asked if he thought this family voting issue could have affected the result, Bull replied:
If I’m being candid, probably not.
And, asked if Reform UK was challenging the legitimacy of the election result, he replied:
No. And I think it’s really important that we stand back and look at all of this with cool, clear heads. We’ve all been up all night, and so any rash decision would be a bad decision, in my humble opinion.
When it was put to him that Hannah Spencer, the new Green MP, focused on cost of living issues in her victory speech, echoing some of the things Reform UK was saying, Bull accepted this point. But he also claimed these were not the issues the Greens were actually campaigning on.
Heidi Alexander urges Labour not to ‘over-interpret result’ and says party can recover from this defeat
Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, has been giving interviews on behalf of the government this morning. Speaking to Times Radio, she urged colleagues in her party not to “over-interpret the result”.
She said:
There is not a direct read-across from what happens in by elections, where there are some quite unique dynamics at play, and then what happens in a general election.
And whilst people in Gorton and Denton yesterday may have voted for a Green member of parliament, that doesn’t then mean that a majority of people in this country want to vote for Zack Polanski to be their prime minister, or for that matter, for Nigel Farage to be their prime minister …
We shouldn’t over-interpret this result, and just because we had the result that we did last night, doesn’t mean to say … that the party can’t recover from this.
Polanski rejects claim Greens were being sectarian in using picture of Starmer with Modi in byelection leaflet
In the Today interview, Nick Robinson put it to Zack Polanski that the Greens distributing leaflets showing Keir Starmer with the Indian PM Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, in a constituency with a large Muslim population, could be seen as sectarianism.
Polanski did not accept that. He said that he was one of only five Jewish people to lead a British political party, and he said he took antisemitism as seriously as Islamaphobia. He said the party was making a point about Modi’s human rights record.
When it was put to him that it was Starmer’s job to have good relations with with other foreign leaders, Polanski claimed that Starmer was going beyond that, and he accused him of having “cosy relationships” with leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu.
Polanski says Gorton and Denton win shows there are now ‘no no-go areas’ for Greens
Zack Polanski, the Green leader, has been interview by Nick Robinson on the Today programme.
Polanski said Gorton and Denton was his party’s 127th target seat. He said there were now “no no-go areas” for the Greens.
Q: Hannah Spencer in her victory speech talked about people who work hard but do not get rewarded. How would you change that?
Polanski says he would distribute wealth more fairly.
People are really struggling. And we know the biggest problem at the heart of all of this is inequality.
We’re living through decades where rich people have got richer and richer, and the gap has got wider than ever before. So it’s time to redistribute that wealth and power.
So, for instance, we’ve been proposing a wealth tax, but also we want to look more widely at things like making sure that students aren’t saddled with debt for decades and decades.
When Robinson put it to him that a wealth tax would just lead to wealthy people leaving the country, Polanski said that the Greens were proposing a 1% tax on assets of £10m or more, or 2% on £1bn or more.
He said Switzerland has a wealth tax and “is literally famous for having wealthy people in it”.
Labour MP says result ‘catastrophic’ and Starmer should revert to Corbynite agenda that won him party leadership
The Labour MP Karl Turner has described the Gorton and Denton byelection result as “catastrophic” for his party in an interview on the Today programme. Turner is not a regular leftwing critic of the party’s leadership, like Richard Burgon (see 7.03am), but he has recently become very outspoken because he is leading the fight against the plan to restrict jury trials.
Here are some extracts from his interview.
It’s catastrophic isn’t it? That’s the truth. It couldn’t be any worse. Having the greens in Manchester is the worst result we could have expected or we wanted.
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He said Labour would be wrong to write this off as a standard, mid-term defeat for a governing party.
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He said that he agreed with the Unison leader Andrea Egan’s argument about Labour needing to be more leftwing. (See 6.50am.) Asked about her comments, he said:
The reality is we can’t possibly out-rightwing Reform on immigration and we can’t out-leftwing the Greens on progressive policy. That’s our problem.
If we started to be Labour, we might sort of have a bit of a chance.
Asked what that would look like, he replied:
It looks like socialism to me … that’s what I think it looks like. I’ll tell you what it isn’t; it’s not doing away with juries in criminal proceedings. That’s the type of stuff we’re doing without rolling the pitch that takes Labour MPs by surprise, puts us in a position where we have to vote against our own government without any discussion. That’s the stuff that’s been happening. It’s got to stop.
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He said Starmer needed to “get a grip”. He did not call for a new leader. He said, if you look at alternative candidates, “there’s a problem with everybody”.
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But he said that Starmer should pursue leftwing policies, like a wealth tax. When it was put to him that voters rejected these ideas when Jeremy Corbyn was leader, Turner said that was because Corbyn was leader. When it was put to him that he seemed to be calling for “Corbyn’s policy, but Starmer in charge”, Turner replied:
That’s what we were promised. That is what [Morgan McSweeney] set Stamer up to be. He was going to be the Jeremy Corbyn, but the electable version; 25 minutes after he was got elected as leader. Labour MPs are cheesed off not just because of what’s happened in the last 18 months of a Labour government, [but] because of the last four years.
Here is a Guardian graphic showing how the vote share changed in the byelection.
