Sir Keir Starmer has grown accustomed to waking up to grim headlines, but the Gorton and Denton by-election must rank among his worst mornings.
The Labour Party – who received more than 50 per cent of the votes in the constituency 18 months ago – slumped to third place. The Green Party, who ran an effective ground campaign that appealed to the constituency’s diverse and younger demographics, romped home. Climate – the Green Party’s notional raison d’etre – barely featured. Reform UK, meanwhile, secured more than 28 per cent of the vote in a seat that would, in any normal general election campaign, be far from their list of top targets.
The question now is how Starmer responds.
The power of Labour moderates has already been on the wane in recent weeks, as evidenced by the resignations of key advisers such as the Prime Minister’s centrist Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, and more recently Matt Pound, who has served as Rachel Reeves’ Political Secretary in government having previously run the Labour right pressure group, Labour First, in opposition. Both resignations are emblematic of the continuing fallout from the Peter Mandelson affair, which has more broadly heartened the Labour left and reignited accusations of New Labour “sleaze”.
Following the by-election, the temptation for Starmer will be to lean into such arguments and tack further to the left to stave off a notional Green threat. Leadership rivals such as Ed Miliband, Andy Burnham, and Angela Rayner - who have all already called for a move away from pragmatism and towards “values” - will feel equally emboldened, using the Gorton and Denton result to argue the government has lost its way.
But such an analysis would be a misreading. As is often the case in by-elections, the result is more complicated and harder to extrapolate nationally than may first appear. Despite the Green Party’s triumph, the Gorton and Denton result shows it is Reform UK that continues to represent an existential threat to the Labour Party’s electoral prospects.
The contest came about after the resignation of a Labour incumbent who was found to have been abusing his constituents in a private WhatsApp group – an inauspicious place to begin any by-election. Similarly, there were damaging machinations to block Andy Burnham from contesting the seat before the campaign was even underway. As if that were not enough, just three weeks before polling day, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar publicly called for the Prime Minister to resign in the coup that never was.
Then there is the question of issues and voter concerns. Miliband will surely use the Green Party surge as evidence voters back his net zero zealotry, but the reality is that the environment barely featured in a campaign heavily centred on the Israel-Palestine conflict and wider geopolitical trends. In her victory speech, the Green Party’s Hannah Spencer made only a passing reference to “litter, fly-tipping” and “dirty air”.
Equally, any suggestion the result proves the Reform UK bandwagon is stalling would be premature. Nigel Farage’s party more than doubled its vote share on the last general election and pushed Labour comfortably into third place. Crucially, the voters Labour needs to hold its gains from 2024 flocked to Reform UK in alarming numbers. And this was achieved despite Reform UK selecting a controversial candidate singularly unsuited to the constituency.
Whether Starmer recognises this or listens to those demanding change, it is clear his leadership is increasingly perilous. While this by=election result is unlikely to be a catalyst in itself for a coup, it reinforces the sense the Prime Minister is living on borrowed time until May’s devolved and local elections.
On the basis of this result, those elections will be nothing short of a calamity for the Labour Party. But if Starmer learns the wrong lessons from Gorton and Denton, they could be even worse.