UK Green Party wins special election
The Green Party won a special parliamentary election in England on Friday, a big boost for the small party and a blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose center-left Labour Party was relegated to third place. Green candidate Hannah Spencer was declared winner of the contest in Gorton and Denton early Friday, with 14,980 votes. Matthew Goodwin of hard-right party Reform UK got 10,578 votes. Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia received 9,364.
The result illustrates the increasingly fragmented political landscape in Britain, which was dominated for decades by the Labour and Conservative parties. The Gorton and Denton constituency in Greater Manchester elected Labour lawmakers for almost all of the last century, but Starmer’s Government has seen its popularity plunge since it won office in July 2024. “For people here in Gorton and Denton who feel left behind and isolated: I see you and I will fight for you,” said Spencer, a local councilor and plumber, in her victory speech.
Jenny Jones, a Green member of the House of Lords, called the result “absolutely seismic.” The victory brings the environmentalist party’s total to five seats in the 650-seat House of Commons. It beat not just Labour, which holds 404 Commons seats, but the anti-immigration Reform UK, led by the veteran hard-right politician Nigel Farage, which holds eight Commons seats but has topped national opinion polls for months.
