Well, that’s certainly gone and upset the parliamentary applecart!
In the end, the margin of Hannah Spencer’s victory was much bigger than we’d imagined possible (more than 4000 votes) as Labour’s vote completely crumbled.
This is huge for the Green Party – Gorton and Denton wasn’t even a target seat – and a massive boost to all its campaigns already underway for local elections in England, as well as for the Senedd in Wales and the Scottish Parliament.
And I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more from Hannah Spencer – one of her new constituents described her to me as “the Angela Rayner of the Green Party!” Her acceptance speech is well worth listening to:
Three quick reflections:
- It’s true that voters in Gorton and Denton didn’t hear much from the Greens about climate change or the environment. For me, that was the right call, at this particular time, given the priorities in this particular seat. But the Green Party already wins hands down on all these issues anyway.
- It would have been a very different story if Andy Burnham had been Labour’s candidate — I believe he would certainly have won. Another of Keir Starmer’s self-inflicted wounds.
- Finally, the ongoing genocide in Gaza was a massive issue – and not just for the 30% of voters in Gordon and Denton who are Muslims.
Keir Starmer – Yvette Cooper – David Lammy – Shabana Mahmoud: their complicity in the destruction of Palestine gets clearer and clearer for all to see. This obscene moral failure will continue to haemorrhage votes away from Labour until it changes its position.
It knows it has nothing to fear on that score from the Tories, Reform or the Lib Dems. But it certainly does from the Greens.
