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Sir Keir Starmer on Friday saw his political strategy shattered and faced Labour calls to tack to the left after a historic Green Party parliamentary by-election victory further weakened the prime minister’s authority.
The Green victory in Gorton and Denton showed the fracturing of the left vote in British politics, leaving Starmer desperately trying to hold the centre against what he claimed were the “extremes” of British politics.
Starmer’s already weakened authority was damaged by the defeat, which triggered demands from senior colleagues that he should be “braver” and less gloomy. Brian Leishman, a leftwing Labour MP, called for him to quit.
But most of Starmer’s critics are holding fire until what they expect to be a dire set of midterm election results on May 7, and the prime minister insisted he would “not stop fighting the extremes of politics”.
One cabinet ally said: “He will definitely fight on.” The ally added that Labour should stick to its economic plan and not plunge itself into a divisive “left versus right leadership battle”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will next week insist that her economic policies are starting to produce results for working people, with inflation and interest rates coming down and business confidence rising.
Starmer’s aides insisted Reeves would not be panicked into throwing out new policies to appease the Labour left in the aftermath of the by-election defeat when she presents spring economic forecasts next week.
One said: “This is an important moment to show that we are on the right path for the country. We will not lose our nerve. We are not about to start coming up with random announcements.”
Reeves claims Britain is benefiting from a “stability dividend”. She hopes her Spring Statement will be a marked contrast from her chaotic Budget last November.
Though Starmer hopes an economic uptick will start to shift voter sentiment in the coming months, some Labour MPs believe his political longevity may now be measured in weeks. Elections to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and English councils on May 7 now look ominous.
British politics was thrown into its latest convulsion at 4.30am on Friday when Hannah Spencer won the Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester for the leftwing Greens with 41 per cent of the vote.
Spencer took the previously safe Labour seat with 14,980 votes, with Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin finishing second with 10,578 and Labour’s Angeliki Stogia taking 9,364.
“Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires,” Spencer said in her victory speech. “We are being bled dry.” She barely mentioned the environment.
Until now Starmer’s focus has been trying to stop the drift of Labour voters to Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK. On the advice of former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, Labour toughened its stance on migration and welfare.
The Green victory highlighted how badly this has left the party’s left flank exposed, to the alarm of many Labour MPs. Zack Polanski, who has criticised Starmer’s positions on Gaza and Israel, intends to use the by-election victory to press deeper into Labour heartlands.
The Green victory prompted Angela Rayner, former Labour deputy leader and a potential rival to Starmer, to say: “If we want to unrig the system, if we want to make the change we were sent into government to make, we have to be braver.”
Union leaders joined calls for Starmer to tack to the left, with Sharon Graham, Unite general secretary, saying the result was “a wake-up call”.
Those on the right of the Labour Party said that calls for Labour to be more “bold” were code for a shift to the left. Reeves, who has restored market confidence in recent weeks, is determined to hold to her fiscal course.
Other ministers sympathetic to Starmer said he needed to start being more upbeat. “We’re hooked on describing the grimness of life,” said one minister. “We’ve got to finally sound excited about the future and generate optimism.”
The by-election was bitterly contested and has thrown up allegations of electoral irregularities. Kemi Badenoch, whose Conservative Party lost its deposit with just 706 votes, claimed both Labour and Greens had engaged in “harvesting Muslim community bloc votes”.
Britain’s political system, for long dominated by Conservatives and Labour, is now starting to resemble the multi-party systems seen in the rest of Europe, with a similar erosion of support for centrist parties.
Starmer said: “I will not stop fighting the extremes of politics: the extreme on the right in Reform, the extreme on the left in the Green Party.”