Reuters
—
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party suffered an embarrassing election defeat on Friday in the Greater Manchester region, which the party has dominated for almost a century, underscoring the collapse of Britain’s two-party politics.
The loss of one of Labour’s safest seats in the first major electoral test in nearly a year has put further pressure on Mr Starmer to prove he can save his job after weeks of political turmoil, with calls for him to resign.
In the race for the vacant seats of Gorton and Denton, Hannah Spencer of the left-wing Green Party won, Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration British Reform Party came in second place, and Labor moved into third place.
Labor Party chairwoman Anna Turley said the results were “clearly disappointing”.
Starmer blocked the candidacy of one of his rivals, the popular mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, and staked his personal authority on Labor’s bid to win the seat by visiting constituencies this week, where British leaders typically avoid campaigning in local areas if they risk defeat.
The defeat comes after Mr Starmer faced the most dangerous period of his time as prime minister this month, when some MPs said he should resign over his decision to appoint Labor veteran Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington despite his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Labor won just over half of the votes between Gorton and Denton in the last general election in 2024, but Starmer’s unpopularity, slowing economic growth, a series of scandals and policy shifts led to a significant drop in the party’s support.
The Green Party won 40.7% of the vote on Friday in an election sparked by the resignation of a member of parliament for health reasons. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party came in second with 28.7% of the vote, followed by Labor in third with 25.4%.
Labor MPs said before the vote that Mr Starmer’s position was unlikely to be immediately threatened if he lost.
But they added that he could be challenged after the May election, when Labor is expected to struggle in local and regional opinion polls, including in the Welsh and Scottish parliaments.
It is the first time the Green Party, which supports leaving NATO and legalizing recreational drugs, has won a one-shot election for parliamentary and northern England seats.
This brings the party’s total number of seats in the House of Representatives to 5 out of 650.
