PM vows to ‘keep fighting’ after Greens sweep past Labour and Reform to win byelection – UK politics live

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Some photos from Guardian photographer Christopher Thomond in Gorton

Newly elected Green party MP Hannah Spencer at her first constituency surgery the day after winning the Gorton and Denton byelection in Manchester. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianSpencer enjoying chips and curry sauce from Sue’s chippy in her constituency, the first proper meal since winning the byelection. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianAn upside down Vote Labour sign in Gorton, Manchester, where Spencer overturned a huge Labour majority to win the Gorton and Denton byeelection. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Labour MP Clive Lewis has called for a “clean break” for the party after the Gorton and Denton byelection, describing the defeat as “a punch in the face”.

The Norwich South MP, a prominent left-wing critic of the current leadership, said:

The byelection result is a punch in the face for the Labour Party and for Keir Starmer’s premiership.

This government has burned its base, alienated its core vote, sidelined its activists and stuck two fingers up to the very people we came into politics to represent – and we’re surprised voters are walking away?

Changing the leader without changing the politics would be a waste of time.

The problem isn’t presentation. It’s direction. We promised change and delivered continuity. We talk tough but govern timid. We protect vested interests when we should be taking them on.

Reform is growing because millions feel ignored and taken for granted. If we don’t offer real change, they’ll channel their anger elsewhere, as they have this week in Denton and Gorton.

Stopping Reform now has to be the priority. But Labour can’t do that from a position of arrogance or denial. We will need to work with other progressive parties.

That means co-operation. It means democratic reform. It means accepting we do not own the centre-left vote.

None of that happens unless Labour changes fundamentally. Not tweaks. Not reshuffles. A clean break.

If we carry on like this, we won’t just lose byelections. We’ll lose the country for a generation.

How Gorton and Denton compares with other byelections - in three charts

Here are three charts that explain how the Gorton and Denton byelection results compares to previous byelections from the analysis produced by More in Common.

1) How Labour’s vote collapse compares with other byelections since 2016

More in Common says:

Whereas in the years preceding the 2024 general election, Labour were on a run of extremely successful byelection campaigns, their two most recent byelection losses show the scale of Labour’s challenge on both sides - losing 14 per cent of the vote to Reform in Runcorn and now 25 per cent of the vote to the Greens in Gorton and Denton.

Labour vote change compared to other byelections since 2016 Photograph: More in Common

2) How Labour’s vote loss compares with historic Labour byelection defeats

More in Common says this was one of Labour’s biggest ever byelection losses.

How this loss compares with historic Labour byelection losses Photograph: More in Common

3) How Reform UK’s result compares with previous Brexit party/Reform UK byelection results

More in Common says:

While the result in Gorton and Denton was disproportionately good for the Greens, Reform UK mostly performed in line with expectations. The swing they experience in Gorton and Denton roughly matches the swing they are experiencing everywhere else around the country, compared to the Greens who significantly outperformed their national polling.

How Reform UK's result compares with previous Brexit party/Reform UK byelection results Photograph: More in Common

That is all from me for today. Taz Ali is now taking over.

Reform UK says it is reporting 'family voting' allegations to police and Electoral Commission

Reform UK has announced that it has referred the “family voting” claims in the Gorton and Denton byelection to the police and the Elecoral Commission.

In a statement, Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said:

Reform has today reported the many cases of ‘family voting’ to the electoral commission and the police.

What was witnessed yesterday is deeply concerning and raises serious questions about the integrity of the democratic process in predominantly Muslim areas.

If this is what was happening at polling stations just imagine the potential for coercion with postal votes.

If action isn’t taken now, then we will ensure it is after the next general election.

The “family voting” claims were made by Democracy Volunteers, a group that monitors elections. Their statement is here.

Asked about the claims, Manchester city council said no issues had been reported and said it was “extremely disappointing” that Democracy Volunteers waited until after the close of polls to make the claims.

This is from James Ball, political editor of the New World (previously the New European), on the sectarian voting claims.

The current argument of the British right is that Muslims turned out in “blocs” with “family voting” to cast their ballots for a party led by a gay Jewish man, and this shows that multiculturalism has failed, voting is “sectarian” and we are in a crisis.

Hmmmmmm.

Labour faces struggle to win second place in Holyrood elections, poll suggests

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

Scottish Labour now faces a very tight electoral battle for second place against the Scottish Greens and Reform UK in May’s Holyrood election, a widely-respected academic poll has found.

The poll of 1,517 Scottish voters from the publicly-funded Scottish Election Study has found the Scottish Greens have pushed Labour into fourth place for the first time.

Its Scoop poll, carried out by YouGov, put the Scottish party on 34% in the constituency vote, Reform UK in second place at 18% and the Scottish Greens on 16%, with Labour trailing in fourth on 14%.

If that finding is repeated on 7 May, it will be the SNP’s worst result since 2007 but still hand them a fifth successive term in office because the opposition vote has been split by Reform UK.

While the Reform, Green and Labour numbers are very close and around a pollster’s margin of error, these data follow Labour’s shock defeat by the Green party of England and Wales in the Gorton and Denton byelection, where it came third behind Reform UK.

The Scottish Election Study team of Prof Ailsa Henderson and Dr Fraser McMillan, both at the University of Edinburgh, said those findings were likely to hand pro-independence parties a majority at Holyrood on 7 May.

Even so, their poll found an eight-point lead for no after don’t knows were excluded, with support for independence at 46% and the no vote at 54%.

John Swinney, the SNP leader and first minister, has said an overall majority for the SNP would trigger a demand for a second independence referendum but has not yet claimed a broader yes majority would do so.

Henderson and McMillan said:

Despite low satisfaction with the SNP’s performance in government, with just 23% of respondents indicating that the party was doing a ‘good job’ in office compared to 40% in the first Scoop survey in December 2021, the nationalists’ continued strength among pro-independence Scots on the constituency ballot means they are well-placed to compete for most of the country’s 73 first-past-the-post seats in May.

This, combined with the Scottish Greens’ increasing strength on the list and retreat from contesting most constituency seats, means voters could once again return a comfortable pro-independence majority despite yes continuing to lag no in a hypothetical second referendum (54% no versus 46% yes when undecideds and other non-response are removed).

Greens claim they could win more than 100 seats at next election on basis of Gorton and Denton-type swing

The Green party is claiming that it could win more than 100 seats at the next election on the basis of the swing it achieved in Gorton and Denton.

In practice, parties rarely replicate their best byelection results at general elections.

But More in Common, a polling company and campaigning organisation, has produced an analysis today showing how Gorton and Denton compared with other Green byelection results.

Green results in various byelections compared Photograph: More in Common

Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan suggests Starmer should go because he's 'block to us winning'

The Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan has suggested that Keir Starmer needs to be replaced as the party’s leader.

Speaking to Times Radio, he said:

If Keir Starmer is seen as a block when you go out and knock on doors - if people say to you, they’ll vote Labour, but they won’t vote Labour if he’s the leader – then he’s the block to us winning. And from a purely pragmatic, electoral strategic view, you have to remove that block …

Now, I’m not saying you do that this morning. I’m saying that we need to be serious about winning again. And, if there’s a block to winning again, then we need to look at how we remove that block.

Duncan-Jordan was one of four Labour MPs suspended by the party last year for several months for persistent disloyalty. One of the others was Brian Leishman and today Leishman has been calling for Starmer to go much more directly. (See 10.16am and 11.23am.)

Farage claims Green party win in Gorton and Denton evidence of 'resurgent hard left'

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has posted a video on social media doubling down on his claims that the Gorton and Denton byelection result was a victory for sectarian voting and cheating.

He cited the concerns raised by Democracy Volunteers, but he said the main probem with elections in this country was postal voting, which he claimed was being “abused massively”.

(Donald Trump also claims that postal voting is often fraudulent in the US. As in the UK, there is little or no evidence to support systematic postal vote fraud, but the notion has traction with conspiracy-minded rightwingers.)

In his video Farage said he was pleased that Reform UK had more than doubled its vote, and he claimed Keir Starmer was on his way out, and the Tories were “completely finished”.

He ended by suggesting some sort of link between the Green party and Churchill’s statue in Westminster being defaced overnight.

Farage said:

Starmer’s on the way out. The Tory party is completely finished. There’s a resurgent hard left working now with sectarian politics and, emboldened off the back of it, the Churchill statue in London has been vandalised overnight, calling him a Zionist and saying, ‘Globalise the Intafada’. We are in very, very big trouble. And the only party that will fight this, that will turn this around, will clean up the voting system, is Reform.”

Earlier David Bull, the Reform UK chair, said that his party was not challenging the legitimacy of the byelection result. (See 8.21am.)

Scottish secretary Douglas Alexander says byelection result shows Labour needs to go 'further and faster' delivering change

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

Douglas Alexander, the Scotland secretary, has said Keir Starmer needs to “move further and faster” to address voter anger over his government’s policies after a “tough and disappointing” by election result for Labour.

Speaking outside Scottish Labour’s one-day conference in Paisley, Alexander refused to endorse calls earlier this month from Anas Sarwar, the Scottish party leader, for Starmer to quit but conceded that voters feel a “depth of frustration” about the government’s direction.

He said:

Well, of course it’s a tough and disappointing result for Labour. I’ve seen by elections, I’ve won some and I’ve lost some. Of course, governments tend to lose by elections, but we’ll take time to reflect and consider what this means. My own sense this morning is that we need to move further and faster in delivering the change that people want to see. Given the depth of frustration that voters feel about the challenges they continue to face.

Any party in government at the moment is going to face significant challenges. It’s not the first time a party of governments lost a by election, but we take this seriously. We’ll consider the lessons that need to be drawn. But my sense this morning is there’s a key lesson for us in moving further and faster in delivering the changes that people voted for in July 2024.

Hinting Sarwar would not repeat his calls for Starmer to stand down, Alexander said Sarwar wanted to intensify his focus on May’s Holyrood election, with Scottish Labour trailing either neck and neck with Reform in second place, or trailing third according to some polls.

Alexander said:

The main focus of what Anas is going to be focussed on today is not what’s happening in Westminster, but what’s about to happen in Holyrood. He is determined to use the coming ten weeks not to be a commentator on British politics, but to be the best persuader in Scottish politics.

We have a generationally talented leader in our Sarwar. I believe the next ten weeks he can take that case to the SNP, make the case that we deserve better, that we can fix the mess left behind by the SNP and that’s the case he’s going to make here in Paisley today.

Hannah Spencer - who she is, and full text of her victory speech

Josh Halliday and Alexandra Topping have written a profile of Hannah Spencer, the new Green party MP for Gorton and Denton.

And here, for the record, is the full text of Spencer’s victory speech. It does not seem to be available online, and it is worth recording in full.

Something exciting is happening - and I invite you to be part it. Come and join the Green party so we can spread hope and win everywhere else across the country too. Our strength will grow as more and more of us we come together.

And we did this, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Just as we have always done in this constituency. Because this is Manchester. And we do things differently here.

Hannah Spencer at her press conference this morning. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has issued a statement about the byelection accusing Labour of creating “the monster of harvesting Muslim community bloc votes”.

This is similar to the allegation being made by Reform UK. (See 5.09am.)

There are some instances of electoral fraud in the UK. But they are very rare, and our elections are generally acknowledged to be free and fair. Critics would argue that the Tory/Reform UK complaints of sectarian voting have a racist element. Badenoch has spent the last year trying to harvest community bloc votes from farmers, and no one has complained about that.

Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink?

Shortly before the local elections the Guardian is hosting a debate at the Conway Hall in London on whether Labour can come back from the brink. It is on Monday 30 April and the speakers are Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr who will be discussing the threat to Labour from both the Green party and Reform and whether Keir Starmer can survive as Labour leader? There are details here, including information about how to buy tickets.

And this is what Hannah Spencer said at the press conference this morning when asked if she thought she would have won standing against Andy Burnham.

If [Burnham] had stood I think we would have had a harder fight, but I think we possibly still would have won it.

We’ve heard from so many people that they are so angry at Labour and have been for a very long time, that him standing as a Labour politician would not have helped in his campaign to be elected here and would have really gone against him.

Polanski gave a similar answer. See 10.57am.

Zack Polanski and Hannah Spencer at their press conference. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

At his press conference Zack Polanski, the Green leader, said trying to get MPs from other parties to defect to his party is not a priority.

Asked if was seeking defections, he said:

My priority right now actually is scoping out where might the [next] likely byelection be about to happen and how do we make sure we’re on the ground as quickly as possible to make sure we can repeat this as many times as we need to. Also a relentless focus on local elections and the Senedd.

Any MP who shares our values, I’m always open to those conversations, but quite frankly, it’s just not something I’m craving at this point because, actually, I want to win Green MPs but I want to do it on the ground in the same way that we just did it last night.

While several sitting Tory MPs, and more ex-Tory MPs, have defected to Reform UK, there are few, if any, Labour MPs who are seen as potential defectors to the Green party. That is partly because the two parties have very different internal cultures, and a history of sometimes-bitter rivalry.

Did Starmer get the message? - snap verdict on PM's response to byelection defeat

Keir Starmer has probably made his standing in the Labour party worse with the response to the byelection defeat he gave in a short broadcast interview this morning. (See 11.18am.)

Sam Coates from Sky News was doing the interview, but it was a pooled clip, shared with other broadcasters. These clips are always short; they don’t allow time for in-depth questioning, and they are intended to produce a headline quote for use on the TV news.

And, normally in these circumstances, the most important thing for a PM whose party has lost badly to say is: “I get it, I heard what you had to say, I’m listening.” Sound humble and chastened is the usual advice from the comms team. It is a script that has been followed by leaders of all parties over the years.

But Starmer did not adopt this stance. And he adopted three further positions that will only revive fears that, in fact, he doesn’t get it.

First, he tried to play down the significance of the defeat by suggesting it was a relatively standard reversal for a governing party mid-term. (See 11.18am.) It wasn’t. As this Sky News graphic illustrates, it was the seventh largest Labour majority overturned at a byelection.

How Gorton and Denton compares with other Labour defeats Photograph: Sky News

Second, Starmer did not give any indication that he intends to change the way he governs. Some Labour MPs are assertively demanding a new approach. Following a defeat on this scale, sometimes prime ministers do recalibrate; it is not reasonable to expect full details hours after a defeat, but it is not unusual for a leader to deliver the ‘we hear what you say’ line with a change of tack implied. Alternative, leaders say they need to do better, and to deliver change further and faster (a line Starmer and his ministers have delivered in the past).

When Coates challenged Starmer on this, and asked him why he was not offering change, Starmer he replied:

We were elected into government to change millions of lives for the better. That’s why we’ve already passed the Renters’ Rights Act. Better rights for renters that haven’t been there for a generation.

It was if he he heard the word “change” and reverted to another pre-programmed line to take, missing the point that Coates was making.

Third, Starmer revived Labour’s campaign claim about the Greens being extremist. (See 11.33am.) This obviously failed to work for Labour in Gorton and Denton. And if Starmer had been watching Zack Polanski and Hannah Spencer at their press conference a few minutes earlier, he might have paused to reconsider. Polanski is not Jeremy Corbyn. And trying to depict Spencer as an extremist is a total lost cause, as will be obvious to anyone who heard even a short clip of her victory speech. (See 8.29am.)

UPDATE: Here is a clip of Starmer’s response.

Starmer describes Greens as 'the extreme of the left' in response to byelection defeat

In his pooled interview clip Keir Starmer doubled down on the anti-Green party language he was using during the byelection campaign.

Referring to Reform UK and the Greens, he said:

We were fighting the extremes of the right and the extremes of the left.

He also said Labour was up against “Reform on the right, with their politics of hatred and division, the Greens on the left, with their politics of getting out of Nato in the middle of the conflict with Ukraine, of legalising all drugs, including heroin and crack cocaine to give to adults”.

They were “the extremes in politics”, he said, referring to both parties, claiming that they could “identify the grievances” but that they could not unite the county and solve problems.

Leishman says byelection result shows Anas Sarwar right to say Starmer should quit

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

Brian Leishman, the Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, and a constant critic of Starmer, has accused the prime minister of being selfish and politically inept by refusing to allow Manchester mayor Andy Burnham from standing in the byelection.

Speaking outside Scottish Labour’s one-day spring conference in Paisley, Leishman said:

It shows that the prime minister was firstly selfish in blocking Andy Burnham from standing, because Andy Burnham was the very best option we had of retaining the seat, and it is, make no mistake about it, a safe seat - if there is such a thing. It’s been Labour for generations.

We have lost that because the prime minister and the people that advise him have courted Reform voters. This political idea that we can out-Reform Reform – and that’s what the nation firstly wants, but also needs – is completely wrong. The solutions for the societal problems that we have had after 14 years of austerity can all be found in leftwing proper Labour party values.

The prime minister, I fear, is unable and incapable of actually delivering those Labour party values. He should step down. [I] think he needs to live by his own mantra of putting country before party. And if he resigns, he can actually prioritise both.

Leishman said Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, was right in calling earlier in February for Starmer to quit. Sarwar is facing an uphill battle to win this May’s Holyrood elections after seeing Labour’s support in Scotland plummet as voters punish the party for Starmer’s mistakes.

Let me agree with Anas and everyone in Scottish Labour, this is about Scotland. This is what the Holyrood elections have got to be about. It’s not a judgement on Kier Starmer. It’s not a judgment on our first 19 months in government, which, again, I have said, has been nowhere near good enough and not up to Labour party values.

But Anas is absolutely Scotland’s best bet for a new direction and to actually give the country the renewal it needs because we are closing in now on two decades of SNP failures.