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Something profound just happened in British politics. In a corner of south Manchester, two populist parties have together garnered three-quarters of the vote. The Greens and Reform UK have come first and second in what was a safe Labour seat — comprehensive proof that the old Labour-Conservative duopoly is broken.
The eventual winner of this contest may be Angela Rayner, as Labour, beaten into third place, takes fright at the new threat from its left. The loser may be decency. Voters have flocked to two insurgent parties which are thriving on exploiting ethnic and religious divides.
Britain used to be resolutely contemptuous of extreme parties. While Italy lurched from crisis to crisis or the French succumbed to populism, we prided ourselves on moderation. The Communist Party of Great Britain won very few parliamentary seats; the British Union of Fascists and British National Party never won any. Our election nights offer a regular roster of beloved eccentrics: Count Binface wants to nationalise model railways; the Monster Raving Loony Party opposes any takeover of Iceland (the supermarket). But there is nothing remotely humorous about the new populism seen this week in Gorton and Denton.
Reform UK ran an overtly anti-Muslim campaign of sheer, degrading nastiness. The Greens, under new leadership, bear little resemblance to the climate activists of old. I have spoken to a number of longstanding party members who are appalled by what they see as a descent into sectarianism. In predominantly Muslim wards, they accused Labour of complicity in the destruction of Gaza and aired a video, in Urdu, of Sir Keir Starmer meeting Narendra Modi, India’s Hindu nationalist leader.
This is a crushing defeat for Starmer, whose brief appearance in the campaign was a sign of desperation. While a narrow Labour loss could have been brushed off as a classic midterm blip, to be beaten into third place is an existential crisis. This is the second time in less than a year that the governing party has lost a seat where it had over 50 per cent of the vote.
Better for Labour if Andy Burnham had been allowed to stand, rather than being blocked. That is the terrible thought on every MP’s mind today: that Burnham’s charisma and nous might have persuaded voters to stick with them. Instead, Green Party leader Zack Polanski has pulled off a coup: by winning 41 per cent of the vote he made good on his promise that the Greens were the most effective way to stop Reform. That line will be repeated with increasing confidence in May’s local elections in England and in target seats at the next general election.
Something similar has happened on the right. Reform UK has proved that it is the dominant force on this wing of UK politics. The Conservative candidate lost her deposit. Reform was never likely to win in this constituency: there were only some pockets of the white working-class demographic on which it has focused. So the party’s 29 per cent vote share is striking.
One result of all this will be more scrutiny of both new parties. The resolutely divisive campaign fronted by Reform’s Matthew Goodwin in Gorton sits oddly with Nigel Farage’s pitch to make his party more moderate, and his attempt to put clear distance between himself and far-right activist Tommy Robinson, who recently endorsed Goodwin’s campaign.
Meanwhile, the new Greens combine pledges to bring in rent controls with an apparent keenness to collapse the bond markets deliberately — not by mistake, as Liz Truss did. Together with the strident anti-Zionism — the party will shortly vote on whether Zionism is racism — it feels reminiscent of George Galloway’s “Respect” Party, or perhaps Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s hard-left La France Insoumise. What’s certain is that the word “green” no longer means cuddly environmentalism, and the word “progressive” means little except to confer a vague halo of not being “right-wing”.
The next general election is a long way off. During that time, perhaps voters will recoil when such tactics are exposed. Reform seems to have broken electoral law by sending out a leaflet which appeared to be a handwritten letter from a local pensioner, with surprisingly similar talking points to those used by the party. There was no way for a voter to know it was a political leaflet and the party has apologised for a printing error.
Meanwhile, Professor Rob Ford has complained that the Greens misrepresented his views on their leaflet, to imply that Labour couldn’t win. And Democracy Volunteers, which is accredited by the Electoral Commission as a watchdog, raised concerns about “concerningly high levels” of family voting.
Labour has gone into a full-blown panic. Labour MPs fear that there are now no safe seats; that they will be out of a job in three years’ time; that Starmer’s vanquishing of the hard left has backfired. There will be more manoeuvring by ministers and more distraction from the business of governing.
A leadership challenge still feels some way off. Had Burnham stood and won last night, it would be different: and for Starmer personally, this is the only upside of the debacle. But with the Manchester mayor kept off the field, no one seems likely to tilt at the prime minister immediately. Labour feels uncertain who to back. Rayner is still embroiled in an HMRC investigation. Wes Streeting still lacks clear support. MPs are talking up John Healey and even Yvette Cooper but are unable to fix on anyone.
The prospects have never looked bleaker for the two main parties. And Britain has never looked more divided.