Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party suffered an embarrassing election defeat on Friday in an area of Greater Manchester that it had dominated for almost a century, a loss that underscores the breakdown of Britain’s two-party politics.
The loss of one of Labour’s safest seats, in the biggest electoral test in almost a year, puts further pressure on Starmer to prove that he should keep his job following weeks of political turmoil and calls for him to resign.
The left-wing Green Party’s Hannah Spencer won the contest for the vacant parliamentary seat of Gorton and Denton, with Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party coming second, and Labour pushed into third place.
The result was “clearly disappointing”, said Labour party chair Anna Turley.
Starmer had staked his personal authority on Labour winning the seat by blocking one of his rivals, the popular Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, from standing, and by visiting the constituency this week when British leaders normally avoid campaigning in local areas if they risk losing.
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