The real story of the Gorton and Denton by-election is the collapse of Labour and the haemorrhaging of its support, argues Steph Pike

Before nominations had even closed, the Gorton and Denton by-election was a political theatre of high drama with the King of the North, Andy Burnham, blocked from standing as a candidate by the middle-manager of the South, Keir Starmer.

The decision to block Burnham from standing angered unions, Labour Party members and Labour MPs, with fifty writing to Starmer to protest. Although Starmer’s excuse for blocking Burnham was that he didn’t want the expense of running a mayoral election so soon after a by-election, the fact that No.10 has been briefing against Burnham since then exposes the real reason; that Starmer is scared of Burnham being in a position to challenge his leadership.

And with good cause; Starmer’s popularity is at an all-time low, and recent polls have put Burnham’s popularity ratings way above other potential challengers such as Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting.

The real story of the by-election is the collapse of Labour and the haemorrhaging of its support since the 2024 general election. There is a crisis at the centre of British politics with the Tories arguably irrelevant and Starmer deeply unpopular.

Gorton and Denton is one of Labour’s safest seats and one of only seventy seats that Labour holds with an absolute majority.

However, in the current political climate, no Labour seat is safe.

The landslide majority that Labour secured in 2024 masked the reality of a party already in decline, heavily criticised for its stance on the Gaza genocide and its timid policies. Starmer’s own majority was reduced by over 9,000, a bleeding of votes that characterised the elections.

Labour’s victory was an unpopular one built on quicksand and reflected a collapse of support for the Tories rather than a positive endorsement of a Labour government. Rather than reflecting on this and using his large majority to improve the lives of ordinary people who had already suffered fourteen years of devastating cuts and austerity by the Tories, Starmer blundered on as prime minister trying to out-Tory the Tories and out-Reform Reform, dropping all pretence of being a party of and for the working class.

One of his first acts as prime minister was to cut the winter fuel payment for pensioners and to refuse to abolish the two-child limit, increasing poverty rather than trying to eradicate it.

His litany of authoritarian, right-wing and outright racist policies, including a war on refugees, an attack on our fundamental right to protest, further privatisation of the NHS, complicity with the genocide in Gaza and a fawning, sycophantic relationship with Donald Trump, spending on arms and warmongering at the expense of public services, have led him to become universally hated; a position from which it is inconceivable he can recover.

In the 2024 general election, Labour won Gorton and Denton with a majority of 13,000. However, given Labour’s national unpopularity and the fact that Reform overturned a 14,000 Labour majority in Runcorn and Helsby last May, this could be a disaster for Labour; and a disaster of their own making.

It is now a three-horse race between the Greens, Labour and Reform. The Green Party candidate, Hannah Spencer, is the only left candidate in the race, and is polling fairly well on a ‘Hope not hate’ campaign against Reform. This is a battle that is raging well beyond the North West and beyond the electoral sphere. Stopping Farage and Starmer at the ballot box is important, but it is worth remembering that the pro-Palestine independent MPs who were elected in 2024 were successful because of the mass Palestine movement.

It is not election leaflets that change people’s minds; it is not the elections that can defeat Reform and the far right. To do this, the left must continue to build mass movements; over Palestine, against war, against austerity, and against fascism. If the parties of the left are not active in and committed to these movements, they will fail.