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Labour’s Gorton & Denton defeat: Another political earthquake

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The Greens Party's victory in the Gorton & Denton by-election is yet another seismic shift in the landscape of British politics, and a sign of the polarisation and instability to come. We welcome this humiliating blow for Starmer’s Labour – but the Greens' reformism offers no way out of the crisis.

George Galloway’s win in the Rochdale by-election. The victory of several pro-Palestine independent candidates in the 2024 general election. Last year’s local election results. Plaid Cymru’s capture of Caerphilly in last October’s Senedd by-election.

For a number of years now, one shock after another has shaken and fragmented the landscape of British politics.

Former Labour strongholds have come crumbling down. Previously ‘safe’ seats have been seized by insurgent outfits. And, in turn, the two-party system that has dominated in Westminster for the last century has begun to collapse.

The Green Party’s victory in yesterday’s by-election in Gorton & Denton – the Greater Manchester constituency that has been held by Labour since 1931 – can now be added to this list of political upsets.

This win for Green leader Zack Polanski and his party marks “a seismic moment in British politics”, in the words of the Financial Times: yet another electoral tremor, heralding further political earthquakes and social explosions in the months and years ahead.

Crushing defeat

Above all, the result in Gorton & Denton represents a crushing defeat for Starmer’s Labour.

The party had not lost an election in the area in almost 100 years. Yet Labour was relegated into third place in yesterday’s by-election, behind the Greens and Reform UK.

In 2024, Labour comfortably won the seat with over 50 percent of the vote. Yesterday, by contrast, Starmer’s loathsome party saw its support fall to around half this level.

At the same time, the Greens beat even the most optimistic of polling predictions, gaining over 40 percent of the vote – 12 percentage points ahead of second-placed Reform.

This represents a mammoth 27 percent swing compared to their voter share in the same constituency at the last general election.

Disenchantment on the doorstep

Labour’s bruising defeat exposes what was already apparent to everyone: that Starmer and his government are rightly despised.

The residents of Gorton & Denton made this clear with their rejection of Labour at the polls yesterday, as well as in conversations on the streets in the run-up to the vote.

The struggle to make ends meet; a feeling of being left behind; a sense of neglect and betrayal; the genocide in Gaza; a burning anger towards the entire political establishment: all of this – and more – was cited by disenchanted voters as reasons for why they were thinking of choosing the Greens, Reform, or even ‘none of the above’ over Labour in this contest.

 

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Indeed, with turnout at 48 percent, it is notable that over half of voters chose to stay at home, sceptical of all the political parties on offer in this contest.

Starmer has ignored all of this since gaining the keys to Number 10, in his desperation to prove himself a reliable representative of the ruling class. But he has done so at his peril.

Starmer out!

All the chickens are now coming home to roost for Britain’s hapless and hated Prime Minister. Voters despise the Labour leader. Yet the capitalists do not fully trust him either – and no doubt they will be weighing up their options in light of this latest blow to Starmer.

Labour MPs are fearful of opening up a Pandora’s Box of political pandemonium by launching a leadership struggle, as this could precipitate an early general election.

If anything, the Greens’ victory in Gorton & Denton demonstrates how vulnerable these careerists are to losing their seats en masse at the next general election. Many of them will therefore cling to the status quo for as long as possible, and may decide not to make a move against Starmer right now.

In turn, however, disgruntled backbenchers will put increasing pressure on the Labour leaders to tack left, in order to avoid being routed by the Greens. This will make it even more difficult for Starmer and co. to carry out the cuts that the bosses and bankers are demanding.

At a certain point, therefore, the ruling class may decide that they have had enough of this political paralysis, and will turn on Starmer. Or Labour MPs may get in there first, with opportunists like Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting already manoeuvring themselves into position, ready to replace their party’s beleaguered leader.

Rather than being a spectator to this unfolding process, the left and the labour movement should organise and mobilise in order to put the working class in the driving seat, by launching a mass campaign of militant action, including coordinated strikes and protests.

The call must be: Starmer out! Kick out all these capitalist cretins! And down with their whole rotten system!

‘Lesser-evil’

Up until now, trade union leaders and influential left-wingers have brought up fears about Reform when it comes to justifying their support for Starmer and Labour.

Yes, this Labour government is abhorrent: attacking welfare to pay for warfare; grovelling towards Trump; and appointing members of the Epstein class to the highest positions in the land. But better the devil you know, the argument goes.

The left ‘leaders’ effectively say to their supporters: “Starmer and his ministers may be bastards, intent on outflanking Reform to the right on questions like migration or ‘law and order’. But at least they’re ‘our’ bastards! Would you rather have Nigel Farage and his motley band of racists, reprobates, and Tory rejects in power?!”

The Greens’ victory in Gorton & Denton completely upends this apology for Starmer’s Labour, however. It has now been shown that workers and youth do not have to hold their noses and vote for Labour as the supposed ‘lesser evil’, in order to keep out Farage’s Reform.

Instead, the Greens have firmly established themselves as a viable electoral option on the left, capable of defeating both Starmer and Farage: two equally undesirable prospects, as far as most workers and young people are concerned.

Political polarisation

This paves the way for further dramatic shifts in British politics.

According to the latest polls, the Greens are now the first choice amongst voters under 65. For the youngest generation, those aged 18-24 years-old, support for Polanski’s party rises to 46 percent.

Due to the political calculus that comes with Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, however, growing backing for the Greens has not yet translated into major parliamentary gains.

This could all now change quite rapidly. The Greens will no longer be seen as a wasted ‘protest’ vote, but as the main political vehicle for left-wing demands; the best-placed challengers to Farage and Reform.

Having suffered from tactical voting until now, then, the Green Party is set to benefit from it.

This will give rise to a further political polarisation in Britain, and in turn to an acceleration in the collapse of the old ‘centre ground’; to the death of the Tory-Labour duopoly in Westminster; and to ever more uncertainty, instability, and turbulence.

Class demands and divides

The Greens’ win in Gorton & Denton shows not only that Starmer’s Labour and Farage’s Reform can be beaten, but also points the way forward as to how this can and should be replicated in the battles to come.

The Green Party and its candidate, Hannah Spencer, were at their strongest when emphasising class politics and class demands: talking about the cost of living, or attacking the super-rich.

“We are working to line the pockets of billionaires, we are being bled dry,” correctly asserted Spencer, a 34-year-old (now former) plumber, in her victory speech, for example.

The party’s campaign was weakest, meanwhile, when it retreated into woolly, liberal, moralistic platitudes about choosing ‘hope not hate’ and ‘valuing diversity’.

Far from winning over disillusioned working-class voters, such hollow rhetoric only plays into the ‘culture war’ – precisely at the time when workers and youth are seeing the reality of capitalism’s class divide in all its grotesque horror with the global Epstein scandal.

End of an era

As with the election of Mamdani in New York, the surge in support for the Greens has simultaneously stunned the establishment, whilst injecting a new dose of optimism into the left in Britain.

The more serious strategists of British capitalism are tearing their hair out at the thought of what lies ahead, with mavericks and ‘populists’ on the right and left now on the rise.

“Those who want moderate, inclusive, economically sane politics [read: austerity and militarism] need at least one of the two major parties to get their act together and quickly,” decried an editorial from the Financial Times, lamenting the demise of the ruling class’ traditional A and B teams.

At the same time, the Greens’ victory is a rebuke to pessimists, cynics, and sceptics who declare that Britain is ‘marching towards fascism’ and shifting to the right; that workers are apathetic, ignorant, and bigoted; that the left is dead.

Instead, what we are seeing is a contradictory process: a breakdown in the old order; a polarisation to the right and the left; and a powerful radicalisation, particularly amongst the youth.

Revolutionary answer

This radical mood has been building up for years – desperately searching for a political outlet or expression. And now it is beginning to find one, in the shape of self-proclaimed ‘eco-populist’ Zack Polanski and his rejuvenated party (no doubt to the detriment of Corbyn and Sultana’s Your Party).

The Greens believe the chronic troubles we face can be solved by reforming and patching up capitalism, however, which is clearly not the case.

For this reason, a growing layer, including of Green supporters, are going further and drawing revolutionary conclusions. It is increasingly evident that the entire system is bankrupt and broken, and needs to be overthrown.

We, the Revolutionary Communist Party, welcome this humiliating blow for Starmer’s Labour, as well as the defeat for Farage’s Reform.

At the same time, we must tell the truth: there is no way out of the crisis in society within the confines of capitalism.

That is why we fight for a revolutionary answer to workers’ problems. And it is why we are building a revolutionary party – a communist force that can put an end to the misery and barbarism of capitalism, once and for all.

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