UK’s anti-Israel Green Party wins special parliamentary election, taking seat long held by Labour

Manchester race won by Hannah Spencer whose Greens, led by Jewish politician Zack Polanski, accuse Israel of genocide and support arms embargo; hard-right Reform takes 2nd place

LONDON — The UK’s Green Party won a special parliamentary election in England on Friday, a big boost for the small hard-left faction and a blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Starmer’s center-left Labour Party, which held the seat in Greater Manchester for nearly a century, was relegated to third place behind the hard-right Reform UK.

Greens candidate Hannah Spencer was declared the winner of the contest in Gorton and Denton early Friday, garnering 14,980 votes. Reform’s Matthew Goodwin got 10,578 votes. Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia received 9,364.

“For people here in Gorton and Denton who feel left behind and isolated: I see you and I will fight for you,” said Spencer, who is a plumber and local councilor, in her victory speech.

She apologized to her plumbing customers, saying she would have to cancel some appointments because “I’m heading to Parliament.”

The Greens’ environmentalist and hard-left platform includes anti-Israel policies, including supporting a complete arms embargo on Israel, an end to intelligence sharing with Jerusalem, and a lifting of the ban on the Palestine Action group, which was proscribed after members stormed a military base. That ban was recently struck down in court.

At its annual conference last September, the Greens reaffirmed their support for the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, passed a motion branding Israel an “apartheid state,” and accused it of perpetrating a “genocide” — a charge Israel firmly denies.

The party’s leader, Zack Polanski, has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, called for the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a warrant from the International Criminal Court, and condemned Israel’s “horrendous and illegal” airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites and ballistic missile program during the June 2025 war.

He is Jewish and grew up in a home he described as “very Zionist,” but has said that Israel “changed,” and that he is now “certainly not a Zionist.”

More broadly, the election result illustrated the increasingly fragmented political landscape in Britain, which was dominated for much of its modern history by the Labour and Conservative parties. The Gorton and Denton constituency in Greater Manchester elected Labour lawmakers for decades, but Starmer’s government has seen its popularity plunge since it won office in July 2024.

Labour’s share of the vote was halved from the 2024 national election, when it won the area easily. Spencer won by an unexpectedly wide margin to give the Greens their fifth seat in the 650-seat House of Commons.

The Green Party beat not just Labour, which holds 404 House of Commons seats, but the anti-immigration Reform UK, led by the veteran hard-right politician Nigel Farage, which holds eight seats but has topped national opinion polls for months.

The outcome of the election, triggered by the resignation of the area’s former Labour lawmaker, had been hard to call, in a diverse area that has traditional working-class neighborhoods — once strongly Labour, now tilting toward Reform — as well as large numbers of university students and Muslim residents.

Many of them feel disillusioned by Labour’s centrist shift under Starmer and the government’s perceived slowness at criticizing Israel’s conduct in war in Gaza — fertile ground for the Green Party.

Under “eco-populist” Polanski, the Greens have expanded beyond environmental concerns to focus on issues including the cost of living and the legalization of drugs, as well as opposition to Israel.

Setbacks for Starmer

Starmer has endured a string of setbacks since he led Labour to a landslide election victory in July 2024. He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living.

The next national election does not have to be held until 2029, meaning the main threat to Starmer comes from within his own party, whose lawmakers are considering whether to ditch him for a new leader.

Starmer had a narrow escape earlier this month as party discontent spiked after revelations about the relationship between sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Mandelson, the veteran Labour politician appointed by Starmer in 2024 to be UK ambassador to Washington.

Starmer will also now face questions about why the party blocked Andy Burnham, the popular Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, from running in the by-election. Burnham is widely seen as a potential leadership rival to Starmer.

 Robert Philpot contributed to this report.