The i Paper visits Gorton and Denton with days to go before voters cast their ballots
It’s the three-way Manchester race that’s too close to call: the once solid Labour seat which could fall to the Greens or Reform UK.
Gorton and Denton is the sort of post-industrial heartland where Labour once performed so strongly, it would weigh, not count, every vote. In the last days before the election, candidates and their teams are trying hard to win over the small group of undecided voters who will determine the outcome.
Labour’s former MP Andrew Gwyne prompted the by-election next Thursday. His resignation on health grounds came after controversial messages on a leaked WhatsApp group.
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The contest has already attracted controversy. Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, who has made no secret of wanting to challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the party leadership, was blocked by his rival from standing as Labour’s candidate. Starmer said it would cost the taxpayer millions and leave the mayoralty vulnerable. But without Burnham’s name recognition, it’s a wide-open contest.
“We need an extra blue bin at the moment,” jokes Christine Daley, in order to recycle all the parties’ leaflets being posted through her letterbox. The retired aviation worker, 68, is dodging the freezing rain in Denton’s retail park. “I’ve always voted Labour all my life, but that’s definitely not happening, I can tell you that for sure. I just don’t like the party anymore, I don’t agree with it. The guy that was running it round here [Gwynne], he ruined it for a lot of people. The Prime Minister: not for me anymore.”
Daley is disappointed with the Government’s record on migration, Waspi women not receiving compensation and being dragged into paying tax on her own pension. She also disapproves of Labour’s former deputy leader Angela Rayner’s underpaying tax on a second property. But Daley doesn’t yet know which candidate she would prefer.
Burnham’s meetings with voters
But Labour has a secret weapon for undecided voters, and it’s not Starmer. There remains speculation that a damaging loss in the by-election could spell the end for his leadership. The unpopular Prime Minister has been noticeable by his absence in this part of Manchester.
Rather, individuals who could be swayed to vote Labour are invited to small, private gatherings. At these meetings, Burnham, Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia, and Bev Craig, the leader of Manchester City Council, focus their efforts on groups of twelve voters at a time.
The Greater Manchester mayor has been helping out despite being blocked as a candidate – but the decision to prevent his return to Parliament could still come back to bite Starmer.
The Labour Party candidate for Gorton and Denton, Angeliki Stogia. She is sick of the abuse against politicians and has deliberately made unity her campaign slogan
Stogia, a Labour Whalley Range councillor, arrived in the city from Greece as a 16-year-old student in 1995. She’s put unity, service and decency at the heart of her campaign and bats off the idea she may not win because Burnham was blocked.
“They’re getting two for the price of one because Andy Burnham is still going to be our mayor, and he’s doing great work at Greater Manchester level and they’re also going to get me watching their backs and also looking after every part of this constituency, making sure that Labour delivers for everybody in this community,” Stogia tells The i Paper.
Labour voters switch to Greens after Burnham blocked
At the Gorton Indoor Market, which fights for customers against an adjacent Tesco Extra, independent bakers sell burnt cobs – a local delicacy – and fresh barms while other traders ply vintage clothes, mobile phone accessories and fried chicken.
“I still like Labour, but for this time, for the by-election, I’ll go for Green [Party of England and Wales], because I was hoping to have Andy Burnham for our candidate,” says shopper Fatou Ceesay, 49, taking a break on a bench. She voted Labour at the general election and says her current choice is a direct message to Starmer.
Levenshulme resident Mike Slater, 44, would usually vote Labour but is switching to the Greens. “I just feel that the mood against the Labour Party is not a great one at the minute. I think it’s nationwide, but I also think people are quite cross with the fact that Andy Burnham wasn’t allowed to go in for the MP.”
Still, some are sticking with Labour nonetheless. “I would have loved Andy Burnham to be the candidate but unfortunately his party has not allowed him, so I still vote for Labour, but he would have taken it on a landslide,” says Henry Iyoha, 57, running a stall which sells mushy peas as well as marshmallows and Murray Mints.
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham was blocked from contesting the by-election but is still campaigning for the Labour candidate (Photo: Peter Byrne/PA)
The Gorton and Denton constituency comprises more than 76,000 potential voters (Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty)
The area encompasses over 76,000 potential voters, distributed throughout Denton on Tameside, and Gorton, Levenshulme and Burnage in Manchester. The Manchester wards are on average 42 per cent white and 40 per cent ethnic minorities with a high proportion of university students and graduates. Meanwhile, the Tameside wards are on average 83 per cent white and have higher levels of working-class voters or unemployed.
“It’s a bit of a Frankenstein seat. It was only created at the last general election as part of the boundary changes, and it mashed together sections of three previous Manchester constituencies,” according to Robert Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester.
“We’ve got a situation where Labour can claim based on electoral history and heritage, ‘we are the dominant party here, we are the main party of the left’, but the Greens can say, ‘we’re the rising force, if you are disappointed in the national Labour Government, you should vote for us’. In those situations, it’s not clear who the front-runner on the left is, and that raises the possibility of an even split which then would enable Reform to come in through the middle,” adds Ford.
Acer Mohammed is selling rugs at Gorton’s indoor market. “It’s all been Labour” until now, he says, but this time he’s voting for Reform. He’s attracted by the party’s plans to increase the income tax personal allowance to £20,000 a year from its current value of £12,570.
‘I’m voting Reform to put more money in my pocket’
“What pushes me as a person in real life to vote for Reform would be the monetary aspect. If I have more money in my pocket, that’s my biggest concern,” says Mohammed. The 46-year-old Muslim, who after several stints in prison now helps ex-offenders, says although he thinks Reform “could be deemed racist”, successive Conservative and Labour governments have pursued anti-migration policies too.
Reform party candidate, Matt Goodwin, has been a right-wing commentator, writer and GB News host
Nigel Farage with the party’s candidate in Gorton and Denton (Photo: Danny Lawson/PA)
Meanwhile Reform’s campaign HQ is in a massive modern warehouse on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Denton. Two bouncers stop even friendly visitors getting close. Inside, Matthew Goodwin is back from a round of leafleting, unwinding a blue scarf and sipping from a protein drink before sitting down with The i Paper in front of a massive poster of Nigel Farage.
“I’m saying, ‘Look, you don’t actually have to agree with everything that Reform says, but what you do have to agree with me on is this area needs a very loud, strong champion in Westminster,’” Goodwin says. A former academic who used to research Britain’s far right, he later became a right-wing commentator, writer and GB News host.
He is campaigning to lower energy bills and stop illegal migration alongside local issues such as antisocial behaviour in parks.
“I think when this by-election started, there was a media narrative that went along the lines of ‘Reform will do well in white working-class areas like Denton; Labour and the Greens will do well in more middle-class, progressive, diverse areas like Longsight and Levenshulme’. That is not reflected in the reality on the ground. We have significant support.”
Green candidate Hannah Spencer, who is also a local councillor and a plumber
Spencer with party leader, Zack Polanski (Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty)
The Greens are after Labour voters too, with leader Zack Polanski a regular presence on the campaign trail. In the window of the Greens’ local HQ is a cardboard sign: “Ministry of Plumbing and Plastering” – a play on candidate Hannah Spencer’s day job as a plumber and Trafford councillor.
Activists dressed mostly in green take a break from leafleting in the freezing weather. In the tiny kitchen detailed recycling instructions adorn the walls. Teabags jostle for space with a jar of dog biscuits for Spencer’s four greyhounds.
Labour has called on the Greens to step aside to avoid splitting the left-leaning vote and allowing Reform to slip through. Asked if she would consider it, Spencer rolls her eyes.
‘How are the Labour Party left wing?’
“How are the Labour Party left wing? I’ve not seen any indication that they are. Maybe they once were, but certainly not now. And we can see that from how many Labour voters are coming towards us, but how many activists too. I don’t think it’s possible to say that we’re splitting the vote, because that suggests that we’re similar in any way, and we are worlds apart,” she tells The i Paper.
There are certainly policy differences with Labour. Spencer indicates a willingness to discuss Britain’s Nato membership and believes Class A drugs should be legalised for better regulation. Her pro-Gaza position helps with the large number of Muslim voters, some of whom are dissatisfied with Starmer’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war.
People shop at Longsight market. This part of the constituency has a sizeable ethnic minority population (Photo: Temilade Adelaja/Reuters)
A Labour poster in Longsight, where voters may decide to switch support following several party scandals (Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty)
‘It’s all kicking off on Facebook’
Tensions are running high in Gorton and Denton. As British politics fractures, so do tempers. Many voters canvassed for their opinions by The i Paper either did not want to speak or declined to give a surname for fear of reprisals from their neighbours. “It’s all kicking off on Facebook,” says one resident who declined to be identified. “I don’t want to be dragged in.”
A local bistro where Goodwin had a meeting had to publicly state it wasn’t supporting Reform after receiving threats. A young mother, taking her baby for a stroll, comments, “It’s been quite charged”. Others are simply disengaged: “What election?” is a frequent response to questions.
Greens’ Spencer has had to be accompanied by security in the constituency after an incident where a “very, very angry” man shouted abuse, while Reform’s Goodwin arrived at a hustings with guards in tow. The candidates are all fed up with online and in-person attacks on their campaigns. “There’s been an enormous amount of misinformation during this campaign. I’ll go further actually, there’s just been a lot of lies,” says Goodwin.
Labour’s Stogia is softly spoken. But when she clarifies the correct pronunciation of her name, she replies: “Angeliki is pronounced with a hard G like angry, and I am angry.” Like the others, she is sick of the abuse and has deliberately made unity her campaign slogan. In Manchester, she says, “we get on, and this divisive rhetoric is poisonous for the city, and this is why people feel so passionately about it”.
The eyes of the world are on the constituency; Swiss TV channels are vying with The New Yorker magazine for time with the candidates.
Best example yet of UK electorate’s fragmentation
Reform and the Greens are optimistic about winning, but some believe Labour could keep the seat. That would spare blushes in No 10, where Starmer’s leadership has been under question.
“It’s bad for business to talk politics,” says one shopkeeper who declines to be identified. “But 80 per cent of my takings are from people on benefits. You could put Donald Trump or Satan – whoever you think is worse – in charge of Labour and they’d win here.”
Voters in Gorton and Denton can choose from 11 candidates, ranging from the Monster Raving Loonies and the Conservatives to the Communist League. What’s notable is not Labour’s loss of voters, which is common for governing parties in midterms.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many candidates as I have for this election. It’s crazy,” says Teresa Wightman, 71, a retired mental health nurse. “Every day when I’ve been up in Denton there’s been an awful lot of people around knocking on doors.”
Instead, this seat is the best example yet of the fragmentation of the British electoral system, where the first past the post system is buckling under a wider range of parties. A split vote could throw up a surprise winner on Friday morning and provide the blueprint for future contests.