LABOUR had a simple message for the voters of Gorton and Denton: Only we can defeat Reform here.
The trouble was, it was neither true nor convincing.
Keir Starmer’s premiership hangs by a thread but that is not news. What this by-election disaster throws into doubt is whether Labour can still claim to be a mainstream party after the next General Election.
In a political career defined by an air of arrogant detachment, the PM saw fit to write to his troops after their drubbing in Manchester to lay the blame at the feet of none other than George Galloway .
That’s right, had Gorgeous George not gallantly stepped aside and backed the Greens, Labour might have clung on or, their preferred option for narrative purposes, come second to Reform.
It was the surreal end to a surreal campaign. Against Hannah Spencer, the charismatic and down-to-earth plumber that the Greens had picked, and against Reform UK’s odious but fairly high profile academic turned pundit Matt Goodwin, Labour decided to pick an absolute nobody.
This was by design. Starmer had specifically intervened to prevent Andy Burnham, perhaps one of the most popular figures in the Labour Party, from standing.
The party then ran one of the most bizarre campaigns I can recall. They claimed, in spite of all the evidence, that the Greens weren’t in the running. Labour asked voters to ignore reality and view this contest as a straight fight between them and Reform.
This startling mistruth was demonstrated perfectly when Labour backbencher Chris Curtis was openly laughed at by Robert Peston on television when he tried to paint the contest as a two-horse race.
To this end, Labour’s campaign was focused not on taking on Reform but instead on desperate attempts to discredit the Greens.
READ MORE: Who are Democracy Volunteers? Group claiming family voting in Manchester by-election
Their efforts, listless at best, seemed to revolve around an unceasing stream of letters – on pompously letterheaded paper – from Lucy Powell to Zack Polanski.
But strangest of all was that they really seemed to believe they would, that they could, win. They couldn’t.
Sources excitedly briefed the press that they had broken records in the number of voters spoken to on polling day as part of their get the vote out strategy. They posted videos to social media of candidate Angeliki Stogia dancing ecstatically to a remix of Life in a Northern Town with the caption: “POV: You’ve just been on the doors and everyone said they are voting Labour.”
— Aidan James (@mcandidate) February 27, 2026
They sent Starmer up to Gorton and Denton for a photo op as a show of strength with yet more fevered briefing that they were playing to win.
In the end, they were playing for second place and lost to Reform, finishing with just over 9000 votes.
Labour’ behaviour in this election was euphemistically described as “dirty tricks”. In more honest terms, it was disgraceful.
READ MORE: Gorton and Denton by-election results – see full breakdown in charts and graphs
The party, quite happy to have specifically target Muslim voters in the past, accused the Greens of a “shameful attempt to manipulate” the community by having the temerity to make a campaign video in Urdu, featuring Spencer gamely saying a few words in the national language of Pakistan.
Furious that the Greens had highlighted their prevarication on Gaza since the beginning of the genocide, a Cabinet minister complained to The Times that their opponents were “raising the salience” of the issue and “whipping up hatred”. If the polls are anything to go by, the public’s hatred of Labour is pretty well whipped up without any help from politicians.
Labour’s contempt for voters only became more apparent when they produced a leaflet which gave the appearance of offering “tactical voting” advice from an organisation which did not exist . And they still face questions whether they commissioned a van to parade an attack ad on the Greens past a polling station. Police are investigating and Labour so far refused to comment.
The political vacuum that is Starmer’s Labour Party was left only with smears and lies about the Green Party as their last resort. They found themselves a virtual irrelevance in the eyes of Gorton and Denton’s electorate.
Starmer’s letter to Labour MPs was revealing of his own anxieties. Sure, he argued, they’d pulled off a big win against an unpopular Government. But they can’t replicate it at a General Election.
READ MORE: Labour reported to police over 'green madness attack ad van'
In reality, that threat is more pressing for the Labour Party. Once a mighty campaigning machine, with a solid base of activists and bags of union money, Labour’s efforts seemed reduced to their payroll base of MPs and councillors.
The famous “ground game” which handed them victory in the Hamilton by-election last year has evaporated. They were absorbed by a fantasy, deluded about what remains of their base after years of purges and coming on 20 months of directionless governance in Westminster.
If Labour really are serious about beating Reform, the question they must be asking themselves in seats across the UK at the next election is whether it is responsible for them to stand against left and centre-left opponents like the Greens or the SNP.
Starmer once said that parties who lost elections “deserve to”, adding: “You don’t look at the electorate and ask, ‘What were you thinking?’ You look at yourself and ask, ‘What were we doing?’”
If I may be so bold I would recommend the Prime Minister took his own advice.
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