Gorton and Denton byelection underway in key test for Keir Starmer

by · UPI

Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Voters in the southeast Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton were headed to the polls on Thursday to elect a new member of parliament in a key test for Britain's ruling Labour Party that could determine the future of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Labour MP Andrew Gwynne won the historically safe Labour seat by a 13,000-vote margin in the 2024 general election but the byelection, triggered by his resignation due to ill-health, has the party facing a serious threat from the Greens, on the left, and from Nigel Farage's Reform UK, on the right.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski said the party was leveling pegging with Reform to win the seat, saying that Labour would have to "search their conscience" if their strategy of trying to scare off voters from voting Green by claiming it would split the Labour vote backfired.

Labour has been telling left-minded voters that the only way to defeat Reform was to vote Labour and that voting for the Greens was "in-effect, a vote for Reform," but Polanski said Labour was "way, way behind" both rivals and warned that a Green win could spell the end for Starmer's leadership.

Related

"I don't think Labour are in this race at all -- they've known that for a long time. The Labour party know that the Green Party are on track to win this election and I think that they're doing everything they can to try and split the vote. My biggest fear is a scenario where Reform win by a handful of votes because Labour took a small percentage of the vote but it was just enough to stop the Green party from winning," Polanski said.

Speaking ahead of the opening of polling stations at 7 a.m. local time, Starmer sought to cast the election as a choice between "unity or division."

"Driving down the cost of living with Labour or driving a wedge between communities under Reform. Moving forwards together, or opening up anger and division that holds our country back," said Starmer.

"Matthew Goodwin [the Reform candidate] thinks people who aren't White can't be English and wants women who choose not to have children to pay more tax. Vote Labour in Gorton and Denton today to send him and his toxic politics packing," he added.

Policy-wise, Labour has been going after the Greens' legalization position on drugs.

On a visit to the constituency on Monday, Starmer called the policy "disgusting" and warned the area's parks and playgrounds used by children would become "crack dens."

Drug laws, are in fact, reserved to parliament in London, meaning the Greens increasing its MP numbers from four to five in a 650-seat house would not result in drugs being legalized.

Labour was set to go all out on Thursday, dispatching more than 1,000 party activists to Gorton and Denton to try to get the vote out.

Reform leader Farage, on a visit on Wednesday, told voters to vote Reform if they were unhappy with Starmer's leadership.

"The Prime Minister is panicking and knows he has broken his promises to the British people. Vote Reform to ditch Starmer," he said.

The Labour tactics criticized by Polanski have previously played out in exactly the way he described, seeing it lose last May's Runcorn and Helsby election to Reform by just six votes and the Caerphilly byelection in October to the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru party.

One of the problems for Starmer is that he blocked shoo-in Andy Burnham, Manchester's popular mayor and Labour Party veteran, from running, with the party instead selecting Greece-born Angeliki Stogia, a councillor from another suburb of south Manchester, as its candidate.

The move, which Starmer and the leadership justified due to the fact that allowing Burnham to run would trigger a costly mayoral contest in the city to replace Burnham, who is less than two years into his four-year term, could come back to bite Starmer if Stogia loses.

Critics have suggested Starmer was afraid Burnham could end up challenging him for the leadership of the party, and the prime ministership if he succeeded in re-entering parliament.

A slide away from Labour could place further pressure on Starmer ahead of elections for 134 of England's 317 local councils in May. Council seats are also being elected to London's 32 boroughs, 32 metropolitan areas, six county councils, 18 regional authorities and 48 district councils.

Historic February moments through the years

Former South African president Nelson Mandela speaks to reporters outside of the White House in Washington on October 21, 1999. Mandela was famously released from prison in South Africa on February 11, 1990. Photo by Joel Rennich/UPI | License Photo