{"id":393586,"date":"2026-01-27T18:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/393586\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T18:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:30:07","slug":"reform-byelection-candidate-refuses-to-disown-claim-that-people-born-in-uk-not-necessarily-british-reform-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/393586\/","title":{"rendered":"Reform byelection candidate refuses to disown claim that people born in UK not necessarily British | Reform UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Reform UK<\/a> candidate in the Gorton and Denton byelection has refused to disown his claim that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British.<\/p>\n

Matthew Goodwin, a hard-right activist, was presented on Tuesday as the party\u2019s candidate in the demographically diverse seat in south-east Manchester.<\/p>\n

Goodwin has been criticised for claiming<\/a> recently that people from black, Asian or other immigrant backgrounds were not always British, saying<\/a>: \u201cIt takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody \u2018British\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking at an event in Denton, the GB News presenter twice declined to answer when asked by the Guardian whether he stood by those views \u2013 described<\/a> by the Liberal Democrats as \u201cracist\u201d and \u201cabhorrent\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nearly half of the Gorton and Denton population \u2013 44% \u2013 identifies as coming from a minority ethnic background, while 79% of the constituency identifies as British, according to the latest census.<\/p>\n

Goodwin refused to answer the Guardian\u2019s questions as he posed for photographs alongside the Reform MP Lee Anderson at a bar in Denton.<\/p>\n

Anderson, the Reform chief whip, described Goodwin as a \u201cfearless\u201d activist who would \u201cdebate anybody at any time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lucy Powell, Labour\u2019s deputy leader, said Goodwin\u2019s politics sought to \u201cdrive a wedge between communities in Manchester\u201d and that Reform offered \u201cdivision, animosity and hatred \u2013 not the unity and pride which our city stands for\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, alleged that Goodwin had \u201ca track record of anti-Muslim bigotry\u201d and that his candidacy was an insult to constituents.<\/p>\n

Polanski, whose party is the bookies\u2019 favourite to win, has characterised the byelection as a fight between Reform and the Greens, describing it as \u201ca straight contest between hope and hate\u201d.<\/p>\n

Reform is trying to overturn Labour\u2019s 13,000-vote majority and gain its ninth MP, after the defection<\/a> of the former Conservative home secretary Suella Braverman on Monday.<\/p>\n

The Green party is also challenging<\/a> strongly for the seat, which has a significant left-voting population and whose voters sent a Labour MP to Westminster for decades before the boundary changes in 2024.<\/p>\n

Goodwin\u2019s selection as the Reform candidate has surprised some commentators, given his outspoken views on British nationality and Islam.<\/p>\n

Only three weeks ago, he wrote that Britain\u2019s \u201cruling class\u201d was \u201csilencing\u201d debate about Islam in \u201cone of the most serious assaults on free speech and free expression Britain has ever seen\u201d. More than one in four voters in Gorton and Denton identify as Muslim.<\/p>\n

Asked for his message to the thousands of minority ethnic voters in the constituency, Goodwin told reporters: \u201cMy message to everybody in this seat is [that] if you are working hard, paying taxes, contributing to this economy, you should be as concerned by what\u2019s happening in No 10 Downing Street as I am.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have got a government under Keir Starmer that is clearly not in touch with the people in this seat. It\u2019s not about what your religion is, it\u2019s not about what your race is, what your ethnicity is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about whether or not you play by the rules, whether or not you feel that you\u2019re being respected, you feel the system is being fair to you \u2026 I don\u2019t view it in those divisive terms. I think lots of people in this seat are going to be saying we\u2019ve had the [Labour] party in this constituency for all of our lives and what\u2019s changed?\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson, a former Conservative MP, said Reform would focus its byelection campaign on crime, the decline of the high street, and houses of multiple occupancy \u2013 which he claimed were home to \u201cupwards of four or five single young men, creating all sorts of mayhem, committing crimes, terrorising neighbourhoods\u201d.<\/p>\n

Goodwin and Anderson referred several times in the 30-minute press conference to the issue of child grooming gangs, an issue that is most potent in nearby Rochdale and Oldham council areas.<\/p>\n

Goodwin described Reform\u2019s lead in the polls as \u201cthe most significant insurgency since the rise of the Labour party 100 years ago when it replaced the Liberals. This is a seismic political revolution that we\u2019re all living through.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Reform UK candidate in the Gorton and Denton byelection has refused to disown his claim that UK-born…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-393586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}