Keir Starmer is facing an ultimatum from his own party to change direction or risk a leadership challenge within months, after the Greens humiliated Labour with a historic byelection victory in Gorton and Denton. Overturning a 13,000 Labour majority from the general election, Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green councillor, became the party’s fifth MP on Friday. Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin was second, just ahead of the Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia.
The scale of defeat in an area that had returned Labour MPs for nearly a century, and where Starmer’s party still believed it could win even on polling day, plunged his ministers and MPs into renewed despair just weeks after he saw off a challenge to his position. While only a handful of backbenchers called openly for Starmer to depart after the result, even loyal ministers said the surge in the Greens’ fortunes under the leadership of Zack Polanski meant the prime minister had to address an exodus of Labour voters from its left flank.
In a pointed comment, Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister and a key figure on Labour’s left, called the result “a wake-up call”. But Starmer appeared minded to ignore the pressure, using a TV clip and letter to his MPs to attack the Greens as an “extreme” leftwing equivalent of Reform UK, saying they could not replicate the success in a general election.
Without a significant turnaround in his fortunes, Starmer could face a leadership challenge after elections in May to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and English councils, with Labour currently expected to fare badly in all of them. One new poll on Friday suggested that in Scotland, Labour could be pushed into fourth place for the first time, behind not just the SNP and Reform, but also the Scottish Greens.
“I think it hastens everything,” one MP on the soft left of the party said of the Gorton and Denton result. “I thought we could maybe keep going for another year after May but definitely not now. I don’t think anything can save him.” Ministers usually loyal to the prime minister were similarly downbeat. “The result is cataclysmically bad for us. The worst possible,” one said. “It will obviously intensify calls for Keir to make moves to the progressive wing, but the calls will be to do it now – not in a few months or even a few weeks.”
The sense of humiliation for Starmer is heightened by the fact that Downing Street blocked Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, from standing in the byelection, with many in the party believing his local popularity would have saved the seat. The two men met in Manchester this week for one-on-one talks, which were said to have been initially awkward but ultimately constructive as they cleared the air. Burnham is understood not to have ruled out having another go at returning to parliament.
