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Before he took off for China, Keir Starmer made a huge, and entirely conscious, political decision: to throw all Labour has got at the Gorton and Denton by-election.
This was not inevitable. There is an alternate universe in which Labour, struggling in the polls, quietly chalked the contest off. It could have campaigned seemingly as normal, but privately decided not to invest too much resource into the race, managing expectations with the well-worn adage that “incumbent governments lose by-elections”.
Instead, they are leaning into the fight. As a senior No 10 figure put it to me, they’ve taken “the conscious political decision” to invest a huge amount of money and time into holding the seat, because, they say, holding off the threat of Reform is too important not to. Labour has arranged for a cabinet minister to be in the east Manchester constituency every day for seven consecutive days. Rachel Reeves was there yesterday, as were Bridget Phillipson and Steve Reed the day before. In this sense, the Labour campaign is reminiscent of the Batley and Spen by-election, the last time Starmer’s leadership was felt to be on the line in a high-stakes contest at which the party threw everything. The election on 26 February will be another such contest.
In No 10’s view, the outcome in Gorton and Denton hinges on the next few days. In the Caerphilly by-election last October, which was disastrous for Labour, Plaid Cymru established themselves as the progressive challengers to Reform and won, leaving Labour trailing behind in third after Farage’s party. Downing Street is determined not to repeat that mistake again. As one No 10 figure puts it, this is the “crucial week” in which Labour needs to establish, early in the campaign, that it is the only party that can beat Reform.
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Hollie Ridley, the party’s general secretary, told special advisers in a meeting on Thursday evening that the suggestion the Greens could win in Gorton and Denton is “bollocks”. Party figures have been rattled by “incredibly damaging” briefings, apparently from inside government, suggesting that Polanski’s party could be in with a chance, and are now vigorously briefing the opposite. They emphasise that the Greens have no presence in the constituency – no councillors, and no data.
“If Zack Polanski, who is from Manchester, thought the Greens could win he would be standing there himself,” one Labour figure puts it. Party figures say that Labour councillors campaign all year round in this seat as part of their contracts, and that there’s a “strong Manchester Labour brand” distinct from the party’s national identity. They insist that the mood on doorsteps has been positive, and that the seat is “winnable.” Burnham will be in the area to campaign once the candidate has been announced. In a sign of some remaining bad blood over the Manchester mayor’s blocking, a senior figure says that Burnham’s suggestion that the party would lose has “galvanised Labour MPs” into campaigning to prove him wrong. Another Labour source says that a key factor in Labour’s potential success in the seat is “Andy’s star power” and his visible achievements as mayor, from bus routes to housing.
But the question of who is better placed to challenge Farage’s party is far from settled, complicated in part by Reform itself, which has briefed our old colleague Patrick Maguire in the Times that its internal polling places the Greens in second. “We absolutely expected them to pull something like this,” a Labour source remarks. “It benefits them greatly to split the vote by suggesting this is anything other than a two-horse race between Reform and Labour.” The only constituency-wide poll since the by-election was called – conducted with such a small sample size as to be barely worth mentioning – places Reform on 30 per cent, Labour on 27, and the Greens ten points behind on 17.
The Greens are also refusing to relinquish their claim to be the best progressive challengers to Reform. “I think it’s laughably absurd at this point to suggest that the Labour Party is a left-wing party,” Polanski told the New Statesman at the Greens’ candidate launch on Friday. “It is a party that wanted to slash disability benefits, but were shamed into not doing it… We’re not splitting the progressive vote. This is about stopping the Reform Party and the Green Party is the only party that can do that.”
Polanski also dismissed the suggestion that he hasn’t stood himself because he believes the Greens can’t win in the constituency, saying he will “seriously consider” standing for parliament if a seat comes up in London, where he is a member of the local assembly. “I knew we would have brilliant candidates from the area who could step up… We’re not a party where I would parachute myself into a seat no matter how much I think we would win it.”
The only thing the Greens and Labour can agree on, privately, is that they believe Reform has made an error in selecting Matt Goodwin as its candidate. This high-profile pundit with well-known views on ethnicity and national identity is “galvanising voters to come out and show we don’t want his kind of politics,” as one Labour campaign figure puts it. Labour points to Tommy Robinson’s endorsement of Goodwin to underline the importance of this fight. Starmer and those around him have decided to lean into this campaign, but that investment now makes the stakes even higher if they lose.
[Further reading: Corbyn’s slate must win election for Your Party to survive, allies warn]
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