Green Party, Manchester: Gorton and Denton result - what it really reveals about British politics
Green Party Leader Zack Polanski described the win for his candidate Hannah Spencer in the Gorton and Denton byelection as ‘seismic’, claiming, perhaps somewhat ill-advisedly given the well-documented history of the Houses of Parliament, to have ‘blown the roof off British politics.’
In fairness to Mr Polanski, his elation is understandable; Labour has held this seat, largely without challenge, for the best part of a century. It was, then, amongst the safest of safe Labour seats.
However, a deeply unedifying wrangle between Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, with the former blocking the latter from standing as an MP in this bellwether vote, saw the incumbent party thrashed into third place. Sir Keir, then, running scared of Mr Burnham’s ambition to lead the Labour Party, has left himself prone to the criticism that he put himself before the party, perhaps even the country.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Raynor described the result as a wake up call for Labour. The same could well be said for the Conservative Party, the party of Thatcher, Churchill and Disraeli lost its deposit, here. Tory candidate Charlotte Ann Cadden attracted just two per cent of the vote, the party’s worst ever in any byelection. That £500 not being returned, then, is the least of Kemi Badenoch’s worries.
Cleary, the damage done by the populist Boris Johnson years, compounded by the calamitous tenure of Prime Minister Liz Truss, poses an existential threat to the party whose credentials have earned it the moniker ‘most successful political party in world politics.’ Byelections are notoriously detatched from the likely reality of a General Election. The fortunes nationally of a party – the Greens – that espouses an open bordered Britain and the legalisation of crack cocaine and heroin remains to be seen. What is clear, though, politically; we are a nation divided.