Gorton and Denton by-election: The silent majority isn't silent, and it isn't Reform

Hannah Spencer’s historic Green victory shows voters are rejecting division and embracing progressive politics

The result in Gorton and Denton last night has ripped British politics apart.

But not in the way many would have you believe.

For years, Reform UK has styled itself as the voice of the “silent majority”, the authentic expression of a country gagged by liberal elites. Its intellectual cheerleaders (if you can call them that) promised revolt, and its candidates forecast earthquakes. Poor Reform. Instead, voters delivered something much simpler and cleaner: a decisive rejection.

Green Party of England and Wales candidate Hannah Spencer didn’t just edge past Reform, she thrashed them. With 40.7 per cent of the vote and a majority of more than 4,000, the Greens finished 12 points clear of Reform’s Matt Goodwin. The combined Green and Labour vote was more than double Reform’s total. No last-minute tactical squeeze was required; the so-called insurgency was beaten comfortably and democratically. It is a resounding victory for the left.

This follows Reform’s defeat in Caerphilly in October last year, another seat where we were told voters were secretly crying out for their brand of divisive politics. Twice now, in the sort of communities Reform insists are on the brink of cultural revolt, the electorate has come out in its thousands and chosen something else. The “silent majority” looks increasingly like a rather irritating and rather overblown minority.

Goodwin’s response was telling and entirely predictable, if you’re unlucky enough to know anything about him. The former-academic-turned-GB-News-presenter-turned-women’s-health-guru reached for the now-familiar script: dark insinuations about sectarianism, warnings of a country gripped by dangerous forces, hints that something is deeply wrong with the democratic process.

“I think the progressives were told how to vote, and I think what you saw was a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives that came together to dominate a constituency”, Goodwin opined. You could call it being a sore loser, but it’s more than that. This is straight from the Farage–Trump playbook. When they win, it’s a historic realignment. When they lose, it’s cultural decay.

This is the logic of populism. Reform has flirted repeatedly with the rhetoric of a rigged game when it suits the narrative, but last night’s result was as clear as they come: a turnout of 47.5 per cent, ballots cast and counted, a majority delivered. The public has spoken, perhaps they just don’t like what it has to say?

And, if Goodwin truly believes Britain is carved up into irreconcilable sectarian blocs, he should explain how the very voters he derides as “Islamists” backed a white, working-class woman standing for a party led nationally by Zack Polanski — a Jewish man — in such numbers. That is not the behaviour of a society locked into tribal warfare, but a constituency rejecting the right’s attempts to contort multicultural Britain into a series of warring demographics. Voters have refused the invitation to see their neighbours as enemies. It looks, in other words, like a healthy democracy.

Hannah Spencer speaking after winning the Gorton and Denton by-election, Matt Goodwin of Reform behind, left.

Perhaps voters responded to something else, too: a candidate who looked and sounded like them. Hannah Spencer — plumber, plasterer, trade worker — spoke about public services, cost-of-living pressures, and dignity at work. She didn’t cloak herself in culture war grievance. In fact, Spencer’s campaign was remarkably warm, positive and authentic; a noticeable reprieve from the cruel, harsh, divisive politics we are used to.

So what does this mean for the government?

Labour’s vote share halved in just 18 months, falling from 50.8 per cent at the general election to 25.4 per cent. This was the party’s 13th biggest by-election drop in history. Between them, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives secured just 29.1 per cent of the vote. The Tories (remember them?) collapsed to 1.9 per cent, losing their deposit. The two-party system is shakier than ever.

The lesson, though, is not that Britain is hurtling rightwards. It is that voters want change, and they are increasingly organised and motivated to rupture the two-party system to get it. But the change they appear to want is not Reform’s angry nostalgia, but progressive politics with credibility, focusing on living standards, public services, climate and fairness.

That is both an opportunity and a warning for Labour. By-elections are peculiar beasts, and governing parties are punished mid-term. But halving your vote in what was once one of your safest seats is not par for the course and shouldn’t be treated as such.

This is a trend being seen across the world. The populist-right may have tightened its grip on the globe, but progressives are waking up and fighting it out. From Zohran Mamdani in New York to António José Seguro in Portugal, voters are rejecting snake oil and choosing left-wing politicians with policies grounded in their lived experience.

Labour is uniquely positioned to capitalise on this moment. It has the infrastructure, the activist base, the institutional memory, and a thumping great parliamentary majority. To squander that on tepid managerialism or endless triangulation would be a historic mistake. Complacency is not an option now that the Greens have shown they can turn disillusionment into parliamentary power. If Labour does not channel the appetite for change, others will.

The public mood is not apathetic; it is restless. Britain has a rigged tax system, a stagnant planning regime that chokes off growth, a grinding cost of living crisis, and public services stretched to breaking point. These are big structural failures demanding big structural reforms.

Labour governs with one of the largest majorities in modern times. Three years left, the political capital exists, the electoral mandate exists. Gorton and Denton has shown that the public appetite for seriousness, and for fairness, exists. Do something big, Labour, while you still have the chance.

British politics is fragmenting, and the old certainties are fading. But last night offered a point of clarity: when confronted with a stark choice between progressive pluralism and performative division, voters in Gorton and Denton chose the former, emphatically.

The “silent majority” has now been tested more than once. And each time it has been summoned at the ballot box, it turns out the majority isn’t silent. And it isn’t Reform. ■

About the author: Zoë Grünewald is Westminster Editor at The Lead and a freelance political journalist and broadcaster.

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