Green Party’s historic success means future of British politics is more uncertain than everpublished at 06:25 GMT
06:25 GMT
Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert
Image source, EPAImage caption,
The Greens’ new MP Hannah Spencer celebrated with a selfie with party leader Zack Polanski
Hitherto, the Greens had never won more than 10% of the vote in a parliamentary by-election, a figure they reached in the Somerton and Frome by-election in 2023.
Now Hannah Spencer has already claimed her place in the history books as the first ever Green candidate to win a parliamentary by-election.
Not only did Spencer win, but she won well, significantly outperforming the expectations of the polls.
Rather than winning narrowly, the party won 40.7%, enough to put them as much as 12 points ahead of second placed Reform. It represented as much as a 27.5 point increase on the party’s share in 2024.
Labour, who had not hitherto lost an election in the area since 1931, fell into third place. The party’s 25.4% of the vote represented a near halving of their 50.8% of the vote in 2024 and the 13th biggest ever fall in the party’s support in a by-election.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives lost their deposit with just 1.9% of the vote, their worst ever by-election result.
Apart from the exceptional circumstances of the Rochdale by-election in 2024, when Labour disowned their candidate, leaving George Galloway to defeat a second-placed independent candidate, it is the first time that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have been one of the top two parties in a by-election contest.
With the two parties both running at 20% or less in the polls, the Conservative-Labour duopoly that has long dominated post-war British politics has never looked weaker.
The Conservatives are struggling to fend off the challenge from Reform, and now, at the other end of the spectrum, Labour’s traditional position of the principal party of the left of British politics is evidently under threat from the Greens.
Doubtless the result will raise fresh questions in Labour MPs minds as to whether Keir Starmer should remain prime minister.