Labour has been ousted in the Gorton and Denton by-election in what was billed as a crucial vote of public confidence in Sir Keir Starmer. Zack Polanski’s Green Party emerged victorious in the hotly contested race, taking in 14,980 votes and overhauling Labour’s mammoth majority in the seat.Hannah Spencer narrowly defeated Reform UK candidate and former academic Matt Goodwin to become the newest face in the House of Commons.She told crowds early on Friday morning that she could not accept the victory without “calling out the politicians and divisive figures who constantly scapegoat and blame our communities for all the problems in society”.
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But she vowed her party did things “differently” in Manchester – and claimed the Greens could replicate the result across the country.Ms Spencer also vented at politicians for “scapegoating” the Muslim community as she addressed the crowd.The by-election sweeper told Muslim voters that they had more in common with white working-class communities than believed.Thursday’s vote marked only the second time ever that Labour has come third in a by-election in a Labour-held seat after Mitcham and Morden in 1982.And after the result, Labour’s chairwoman Anna Turley said: “This result is clearly disappointing. By-elections are normally difficult for the party of government, and this election was no different.””We have had thousands of conversations over the last few weeks and we know the majority of voters here did not want the poisonous politics of Nigel Farage and Reform,” Ms Turley raged.Labour’s Angeliki Stogia received just 9,364 votes – almost exactly half the party’s 2024 total of 18,555.Reform’s Matt Goodwin took home 10,578 votes, and on Friday, he was asked by GB News what went wrong.”Sectarianism. That’s what happened,” he said. “We more than doubled our vote. We’re in Labour’s backyard. We’re a second political force in this seat. We have planted a flag in northern England.”An election monitoring group raised the alarm on Thursday over what it called “unprecedented” levels of family voting at the ballot box.Democracy Volunteers said its observers attended 22 of the constituency’s 45 polling stations and witnessed family voting in 15 of them.The crucial by-election was sparked after ex-Labour minister Andrew Gwynne finally resigned as the MP for Gorton and Denton, claiming health grounds were his reason for stepping down.It was was widely speculated that the resignation would pave the way for Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to stand as Labour’s candidate in the seat so he could launch a bid to unhorse the PM as leader.However, the Prime Minister’s allies on the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) blocked the Mayor from standing after eight of the NEC’s ten members – including Sir Keir himself – voted against him contesting the seat.Just one committee member was in favour, the party’s deputy leader Lucy Powell, while the NEC chairman, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, abstained.Labour insisted the party’s decision to deny him permission from standing was to “avoid an unnecessary mayoral election, which would use substantial amounts of taxpayers’ money and resources”.Mr Burnham said he was “disappointed” by the decision, but insisted he would press on in his role as Greater Manchester Mayor with “full focus”.Before the final result was announced, the Greens had predicted a “seismic moment” was about to hit British politics.While Electoral Calculus founder Martin Baxter said the election marked the “death of the old model of British politics”.But in the lead-up to the poll, Mr Polanski’s party drew widespread criticism after it published videos of campaigns entirely in Urdu and Bengali – official languages in Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of India.The video also included images of Sir Keir shaking hands with Indian PM Narendra Modi and then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy alongside Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.It featured a backdrop of scenes of devastation in Gaza with the word “Labour” in the background.The Greens were accused of attempting to fan the flames of sectarianism into British politics throughout their campaign, with campaigners seen waving Pakistani and Palestinian flags on the streets the night before the vote.At Labour headquarters on election night, party sources began finger-pointing before the result of the vote even emerged.One insider told Sky News: “I think we have lost,” saying many young Muslim voters in the constituency had switched over to Zack Polanski’s party.The source blamed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s “hardline rhetoric” for the defeat – and specifically her policy to double the time before people are granted indefinite leave to remain, a bid to block the so-called “Boriswave” of migrants.Shortly after polls closed, an election monitoring group raised alarm over what it called “unprecedented” levels of family voting taking place across Gorton and Denton.Family voting is where relatives enter polling booths together and influence each other’s choices, has been observed by Democracy Volunteers, an election watchdog.It was made a criminal offence in Britain under the Ballot Secrecy Act 2023.Democracy Volunteers said its observers attended 22 of the constituency’s 45 polling stations and witnessed family voting in 15 of them.Across a sample of 545 voters, the group recorded 32 incidents in total, including nine cases at a single polling station.John Ault, the watchdog’s director, said the scale of the problem was the highest recorded in its 10-year history of monitoring UK elections and had prompted the rare decision to publish its findings on polling day.Manchester City Council hit back at the group, with a spokesman for the council’s acting returning officer insisting that “no such issues have been reported today”.An explosive statement from the authority read: “If Democracy Volunteers were so concerned about alleged issues they could and should have raised them with us during polling hours so that immediate action could be taken.”
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