After Keir Starmer returns from China, attention will quickly shift to Greater Manchester, where the traditionally safe seat of Gorton and Denton will be contested in a by-election on February 26
Keir Starmer returns from the Far East this weekend having extracted some much-needed concessions from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Despite another unhelpful intervention by the not-so-reliable ally Donald Trump, No10 will be pleased there were no major hiccups during the high-stakes Beijing trip. But attention in Downing Street will rapidly turn to matters back home and there have been plenty of whispers in the PM’s absence over a looming by-election battle in Greater Manchester.
In a little under a month – on February 26 – voters in the traditionally safe Labour seat of Gorton and Denton will pick their next MP after Andrew Gwynne’s resignation. The decision Labour’s governing body last weekend to block Andy Burnham’s Westminster comeback was a massive gamble – and one some MPs fear could backfire.
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“If we lose the by-election, the message is going to be that Keir Starmer sacrificed a seat to keep Andy Burnham out,” said one backbencher, dryly adding: “That won’t play out well.” And another MP said: “No. 10 have already conceded that we’ll lose the seat, they knew they were giving it to Reform or the Greens when they blocked Andy.”
But while some are despondent, there’s a genuine feeling that it can be won. Labour MP Karl Turner, who has been heavily critical of the Government’s jury trial shake-up, told The Mirror: “I spoke with (deputy Labour leader) Lucy Powell yesterday.
“Lucy is on the ground. Lucy is realistic. Doesn’t try to make it sound good if it isn’t. Lucy assures me that it’s good on the ground.” He added: “If we don’t win this by-election the pressure on the gaffer will be intense. And that’s not what we need.”
But what do the experts think? “Well, we’re all guessing is the short answer to you,” polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice told The Mirror. The country’s leading elections expert said there were potentially four significant players in the crunch by-election – Labour, Reform, the Greens, and the Workers’ Party. He said there was a “big unknown” around the latter due to limited available evidence.
Sir John said: “It’s a question of which of those can nudge probably themselves ahead where in some aspects the circumstances of the constituency are favourable and in other aspects they are unfavourable.
“Probably it’s going to be one with a relatively low share of the vote and in those circumstances, trying tossing a few coins”. He said that the constituency was once one “in which you weighed the Labour vote – you didn’t count it” because it was so safe.
However Labour’s vote fell heavily in constituencies with a substantial Muslim community, he pointed out. “But now that Labour’s vote has collapsed across the country as a whole, given that collapse is on the MRP (polling) evidence heavier in place in which Labour currently hold, welcome to a fascinating by-election”.
Asked whether Labour can hold the seat, he replied: “Yeah they can. Of course they can. They can. But probably only just if they do. And equally can Reform win it? Yes – probably only just if they do. Can the Greens do it? Well, more of a challenge on the evidence that we’ve got so far, limited as it is. Can’t be entirely ruled out.”
Pressed on whether it was still all to play for all, he said: “Yeah. It may well be that all these efforts to polarise the electorate don’t work and we do end up with a by-election in which whoever wins is winning on a pretty low share of the vote.”
Fellow polling expert Luke Tryl, who leads on public opinion at More in Common, said the by-election is a three-horse race between Labour, Reform UK and the Greens – but they are all united by one thing: Nigel Farage. Reform is dominating the agenda,” he said. “The interesting thing about Reform and Nigel Farage in particular is his fans really love him and his detractors really hate him. Because it’s so polarised, that comes to define the race.”
Either the Greens or Labour win depending on which party voters believe will beat Reform, or the vote is split between the two and Reform wins, he says. “It all depends how tactical voting plays out,” Mr Tryl admits.
“We ran a focus group on Wednesday night with voters who had voted for Labour in 2024 and are still largely leaning towards parties of the left, and their big question was: Who do we vote for to stop Reform?
“They were saying: Is it the Greens? Is it Labour? Voters have got what I call tactical paralysis. They don’t know who the tactical choice is to stop Reform.”