Greens Crush Labour’s 90-Year Hold, Humiliating Starmer
Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer captured Thursday's Gorton and Denton by-election with 40.7% of the vote, per results declared Friday morning. Nigel Farage's Reform UK finished second with 28.7%, while Labour — the constituency's dominant force since 1935 — collapsed to third place with just 25.4%.
The defeat marks a dramatic reversal for Starmer, whose party swept Gorton and Denton with over half the vote as recently as 2024, riding a 174-seat general election majority — the party's third-largest victory in its history. That political goodwill has since evaporated sharply.
Polling by YouGov now places Starmer's approval rating at -57%, the lowest of any sitting prime minister in recorded history with the sole exception of Conservative Liz Truss. He has drawn sustained fire from the right over his handling of migrant Channel crossings and his crackdown on online "hate speech," while critics across the political spectrum have assailed his inability to address the UK's deepening cost-of-living crisis and his appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States.
Mandelson, who received $75,000 in unexplained payments from Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested this week for allegedly having leaked state secrets to the deceased pedophile.
Reform UK's second-place finish also fell short of expectations for the party, which has surged to become the UK's most popular political force on the back of public frustration over mass immigration, according to an aggregate of opinion polls compiled by Politico. Reform candidate Matt Goodwin attributed part of his underperformance to what he called "Muslim sectarianism," alleging that Muslim voters — who comprise over 30% of Gorton and Denton's population — illegally entered polling booths in groups to cast ballots for the Greens. Accredited poll-watching organization Democracy Volunteers said it observed instances of this "family voting" at 68% of polling stations across the constituency.
The Gorton and Denton result now casts a long shadow over Labour's prospects in England's local elections on May 7, where the party is forecast to shed thousands of council seats.
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the
information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept
any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images,
videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information
contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright
issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
