The Greens Are Starting to Make the Establishment Nervous

Political shenanigans are set to reach fever pitch this week. On Thursday, the residents of Greater Manchester’s Gorton and Denton constituency will elect a new MP. It’s set to be a very tight – and very noisy – race, with the vote having huge symbolic meaning, no matter how it goes.

For Reform UK, it’s a temperature check on whether voters will be drawn to a party that’s looking more and more like Tories 2: Return to Blue. For the Greens, it’s a test of whether they can yet appeal in seats that aren’t in southern cities or rural idylls. And for Labour, it’ll likely be an unflattering snapshot of Starmerism’s fall across the country. 

There’s a ton of politics riding on this vote. And desperate times call for desperate measures. Which may explain some particularly sad political and press attacks this weekend.

The Gorton and Denton vote is – as the Manchester Mill put it last week – more political streetfight than your usual parliamentary byelection. The heat infecting the race is a symptom of what its runners represent: on the outer wings of the ideological spectrum, a politics of division and anger versus one of optimism and hope. And in the middle: the politics of pointless managerialism, further tarnished with Epstein-adjacent scandals. 

Reform’s candidate – former professor turned rightwing telly-pundit Matt Goodwin – was always an odd pick for the Greater Manchester seat. It’s hard to imagine the stiff, St Albans born culture-warrior connecting on the doorstep. Perhaps that’s why, according to some reports, he’s been avoiding them. 

“None of the dozens of voters I spoke to across the area over the course of two weeks in February had actually glimpsed him in the flesh, much less seen him on their street or doorstep,” wrote the Guardian’s Jonathan Liew this weekend. 

Goodwin, of course, denies that. And according to a rare recent interview, Reform’s campaigners have been running an intense ground game. “Last weekend,” Goodwin told Spiked, “we collected more data in two days than we did during the entire Runcorn and Helsby campaign.” That by-election put Reform’s Sarah Pochin into parliament last year. 

Unlike Goodwin, though, Pochin was a local, as well as mayor and councillor. And it may be Goodwin’s lack of connection to the area that has motivated some of the harshest attacks on his opponent, Hannah Spencer for the Greens. 

The right has focussed its swipes primarily on her class, trying to argue that Spencer, a plumber, does not have the same socio-economic background as the constituency’s white, working-class voters, who make up around 30% of the seat’s population.

It’s especially ironic that Reform is trying to start a Class-Off, given the professorial status of the rightwing candidate, and the millionaire status of more than a few of Reform’s top bods. Goodwin has referred to himself as coming from “a working class family”. Former colleagues disagree: “He’s not working class,” one told the Times, “The idea he is some kind of horny-handed son of toil is ridiculous.”

Even still, the Mail on Sunday added to the Spencer pile-on yesterday, calling her a hypocrite for allegedly owning two homes – a situation the Greens say is transitional following a break-up. A separate article on Saturday lambasted her for taking four overseas trips in the last 12 years. A desperate Julia Hartley-Brewer resorted to asking why Spencer has “the same hairstyle as a three year old?”. Incisive stuff.

But none has been so last-gasp as Labour, whose attacks on a made-up Green party national policy to “legalise all drugs” this weekend reeked of hopelessness. And it gave some of its MPs a chance to really shine. 

Home office minister Mike Tapp quickly weaponised sexual assault to condemn the Greens for wanting to legalise date rape drugs, a policy that also doesn’t exist. Rather, there appears to be a policy proposal aimed at the decriminalisation and legal regulation of recreational drugs. 

Labour’s candidate, local councillor Angeliki Stogia, has attracted little press attention; campaigning from deputy party leader and Manchester MP Lucy Powell hasn’t exactly banged either. On Labour’s strengths against the party’s challengers, she told the FT: “We’ve got a much stronger brand.” That nicely sums up Labour’s problems. You’re supposed to be selling hope, not soap.

Labour has a lot to lose here, having held at least part of the area through multiple boundary changes for almost a hundred years. Limited polling has, so far, not been in their favour, with hefty Gaza-linked losses expected amongst the constituency’s large Muslim population, putting the party in third place, Reform in second, and the Greens first – though Labour contests the poll.  

The real question for the party of government is how it got here. A 13,000 vote majority gained just over 18 months ago now appears to have vanished. But self-reflection doesn’t appear to be among Labour’s strengths.