UK prime minister stresses his mandate for change after local kicking at the hands of left-wingers.
LONDON — Keir Starmer insisted he would “keep on fighting” Friday after his governing party slumped to a third-place finish at the hands of the left-wing Greens in a crucial election test.
The prime minister — whose leadership was under pressure even before the dire result in the Gorton and Denton by-election — told broadcasters he would continue to “fight against the extremes in politics on the right and the left, parties who want to tear our country apart.”
He stressed his own mandate for office, and cautioned against a leftward tilt in the face of defeat. “The Labour Party is the only party that can unite our country and our communities,” he said.
Starmer’s comments come after the Green Party triumphed in the battle for the the Gorton and Denton parliamentary seat early Friday, snatching a once-safe Labour seat from Starmer’s party and prompting fresh questions about his strategy for staying in power.
Hannah Spencer, a plumber and local councillor who pitched a populist cost-of-living message, will be the party’s newest member of parliament having seen off both Labour and Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK in the local race.
She bagged 14,980 votes (40.6 percent) — racking up a majority of 4,402 in one of Labour’s safest seats, and helping to push the governing party into third place less than two years after Starmer’s party triumphed nationwide.
Matt Goodwin, an academic-turned-Substacker who ran for Reform UK, received 10,578 votes (28.7 percent), sharply improving Reform’s result on 2024 but not doing enough to take the insurgent Farage-led party over the line. Angeliki Stogia, standing for Labour, bagged just 9,364 votes (25.4 percent).
The result represents a serious blow from the left for Starmer, who is battling tumbling poll ratings and major concerns over his leadership from his own MPs. The Green vote climbed 27.4 percentage points on 2024’s result, while Reform UK’s climbed by 14.6 percentage points.
By contrast, Labour’s share of the vote tumbled 25.4 percentage points on 2024’s general election result.
The turnout was 47.62 percent, slightly down from 47.8 percent at the general election.
‘Deeply disappointing’
It marks the second by-election defeat for Labour since Starmer took office, and makes the prime minister’s position in his own party more vulnerable, even if an immediate challenge seems unlikely ahead of wider local elections in May. Labour had held the seat with one exception since 1906.
Pressed on the result, Starmer said he had entered politics to “fight for change for those people need it. The people who need an NHS that works for them, to be able to doctors appointment when they need it, to get the money they need in their pockets to pay their bills, and to have a decent and better life.
“And I will keep on fighting for those people as long as I’ve got breath in my body.”
The contest in Gorton was called after former minister Andrew Gwynne quit parliament over ill health. It saw Labour high command move to block Andy Burnham, a potential Starmer rival from the party’s center-left, from running for the seat.
Labour Party Chair Anna Turley called the result “deeply disappointing,” but said “by-elections are normally difficult for the party of government, and this election was no different.”
British political scientist John Curtice told the BBC that Labour was now “losing votes in both directions” and that the Gorton and Denton result gives “a very clear affirmation of the potential risk that the Greens can pose — particularly actually in Labour constituencies with two characteristics.”
“One, yes, plenty of Muslims, as in Gordon and Denton, but also, more generally, in constituencies with relatively large numbers of younger people,” he said.
Curtice added: “This is going to be up with those [past by-elections] in the history books and in our political memory — this is a seismic event.”
Reform meanwhile zeroed in on the Greens’ repeated campaigning on the war in Gaza to accuse the party of stoking “sectarianism” in a seat with a diverse population. Speaking to the BBC after the count, Goodwin said he had been beaten by “a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives.”
Reform had, however, delivered a bloody nose to Labour in their “sixth safest seat,” Goodwin argued. “I think if we can do this here, we can do this pretty much anywhere.”
‘Look in the mirror’
Starmer is already facing calls to shift leftward in response to the result, in contrast with a years-long strategy that has tried to meet the challenge of Farage on the right. Left-wing Labour MP Jon Trickett told Times Radio Friday it was now “up to Keir Starmer to look in the mirror and make a decision about his own personal future,” as he urged a focus on “justice and fairness in a society that is really crippled by the lack of fairness and justice.”
Angela Rayner, Starmer’s former deputy who is seen as a future leadership contender, said: “This result must be a wake up call. It’s time to really listen — and to reflect. Voters want the change that we promised — and they voted for.”
But Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, sent out to bat for the government on the morning media round, after a “difficult and deeply disappointing night” insisted the Greens’ offer would not “survive contact with the national electorate.”
This developing story is being updated.