UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledges to battle left and right rivals after Labour’s humiliating third-place finish in a traditional stronghold.
MANCHESTER: Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed to fight “the extremes in politics” after his ruling Labour party suffered a humiliating defeat in a traditional heartland.
Labour finished third in Thursday’s Gorton and Denton by-election, behind the victorious leftist Greens and the anti-immigration Reform UK party.
Starmer called the result “disappointing” but pledged to “keep on fighting” while acknowledging voters were “frustrated”.
The result shows how Labour is being squeezed by both ends of the political spectrum in a fracturing of Britain’s traditional two-party system.
It suggests Britons are increasingly looking towards insurgent parties for answers on issues like the high cost of living and irregular immigration.
In his first public comments, Starmer hit out at both rival parties.
“They are the extremes in politics,” he told broadcasters, branding Reform the “politics of hatred and division” and deriding the Greens’ left-wing agenda.
He added that the two parties can only “identify the grievances”.
Green candidate Hannah Spencer won the seat comfortably to become her party’s fifth MP in the 650-seat parliament.
Party leader Zack Polanski, who only took charge last September, called it a “seismic” victory.
“People now recognise there is an alternative,” he told a press conference.
The contest was triggered by ex-Labour lawmaker Andrew Gwynne resigning on health grounds.
Labour had won the constituency easily in the July 2024 general election landslide that swept Starmer to power.
Less than two years later, polls suggest Starmer is the most unpopular British prime minister since surveys began.
His most recent crisis centred on his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, an associate of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as ambassador to Washington before sacking him within six months.
The next general election is not expected until 2029, but the defeat intensifies pressure on Starmer ahead of May local elections.
University of Manchester politics lecturer Louise Thompson said it showed he must now “fight a war on two fronts”.
“Whereas previously he’s focused in a much more laser-like way on Reform… Labour will need to take the Green threat much more seriously,” she said.
The Greens ran a grassroots campaign that sought to mobilise the constituency’s 28% Muslim population.
The party, under Polanski, has embraced a left-wing agenda including higher taxes on the wealthy and is avowedly pro-Palestinian.
Its campaign focused less on traditional environmental concerns and more on cost-of-living pressures.
The result was a blow for Brexit champion Nigel Farage, whose Reform party has led national polls for the past year.
He called it “a victory for sectarian voting” and added “Roll on the (local) elections on May 7th.”
Starmer has spent much of his time in office targeting Reform by toughening Labour’s immigration policies.
But the stance appears to be alienating elements of Labour’s left-wing base and young people.
Andrea Egan, the new leftist leader of the UNISON union, said the Greens won “because Labour under Starmer has abandoned progressive values”.
“If the government wants to survive it urgently needs to stand up for workers and defend the fundamental values of our movement,” she added.
