Watch: ‘Working hard used to get you something’, says victorious Green Party candidate
Ms Spencer, pictured right, appears to be a personable, approachable 34-year-old woman with four greyhounds who works as a freelance plumber and plasterer who took up politics when she got fed up working for next to nothing.In an emotional victory speech, Spencer promised to fight for those who feel “left behind”, as she celebrated a majority of more than 4,000.
This is the second by-election since Labour’s general election victory in 2024 and the party’s second loss to a party with only a handful of sitting MPs.
The poll was triggered by the resignation of former Labour health minister Andrew Gwynne, who was suspended from the parliamentary party for offensive WhatsApp messages a year ago.
The Greens’ victory at Gorton and Denton represents the sixth largest Labour majority to be overturned at a by-election since World War Two, in a seat that had been held by the party for nearly 100 years.
Spencer received 14,980 votes, nearly 41% of all votes cast, and there was a swing of 26.4% from Labour to Greens.
Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin came second with 10,578, while Labour’s Angeliki Stogia was third with 9,364. The Conservative Party’s Charlotte Cadden came fourth with 706 votes – the party’s worst ever by-election result – and the Liberal Democrats’ Jackie Pearcey had 653.
In her victory speech Spencer – who becomes the Green Party’s fifth MP – said: “Working hard used to get you something. It got you a house, a nice life, holidays, it got you somewhere.
“But now working hard, what does that get you? Because talk to anyone here and they will tell you, the people work hard but can’t put food on the table, can’t get their kids school uniforms, can’t put their heating on, can’t live off the pension they worked hard to save for, can’t even begin to dream about ever having a holiday, ever.
“Because life has changed. Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry.”
Spencer, who is also a councillor in Trafford alongside her job, added: “Now to my customers, I’m sorry, but I think I might have to cancel the work that you had booked in, because I’m heading to Parliament.
“And when I get there, I will make space for everyone doing jobs like mine.”
Labour’s Angeliki Stogia came third in what was considered a safe Labour seat
This is a dismal result for Labour and will inevitably become part of the discussion in the party about Keir Starmer’s leadership.
The prime minister may well face criticism for the decision, on which he spent personal political capital, to block Andy Burnham from standing.
But what will probably be the most intense subject of debate within Labour will be the question of what this means the party’s political strategy should be going forwards.
One senior figure on the “soft” left of the Labour Party, a faction associated with figures like the former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, said to me: “This must be the end of the McSweeney strategy of alienating our own voters.”
To translate: now that Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff and main strategist, has left, Starmer should become more left wing.
Another striking element of the result is that actually Labour figures close to the campaign here in Manchester had been cautiously optimistic in recent days. They were wrong… by some distance.
One Labour MP said to me: “The campaign was great. But you can’t have an organisational solution to a leadership problem.”
The Gorton and Denton by election has workout doubt been a signpost of disaster for Labour.
This was after all a rock solid labour seat held since 1931 with the last incumbent having over fifty percent of the vote.
The loss of this seat is not a good omen at all. People are speaking and speaking decisively.
The result therefore begs the question as to how Labour will do in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament election some 10 weeks away
Its an interesting question about a once dominant party cast into the Scottish wilderness these last decades and all the polling evidence is that this wont change.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me is an old but accurate saw. New Labou and the Blair and Brown years saw to that and all trust has gone.
Scottish politics are a mess. People have lost trust in the system both in Westminster and Hollyrood. But Westminster is the big dog calling the big shots a d these big shots have not been good. Westminster under Labour has not changed that and the optimism has gone. Gorton and Denyon has mist certainly shown that. The Tories may have languished a very poor fourth but Labour are in the same boat languishing a poor third.
The runes are therefore not good for Anas Sarwar as he desperately tried to distance himself from Starmer and the Westminster set .
He knows only too well how and why Labour in Scotland were kicked into the wilderness. He knows that what happened in Scotland is now happening in England.
For all of their ills the SNP still look to be the trusted party. Maybe not as trusted as they once were but in the current climate it looks likely that once again they will secure the Scottish Parliament.
Both of the big dogs in Westminster, the Tories a d the Labour have let us down. The UK is on a terminal slide as the economy and living standards slump whilst the high end corruption continues to grow and prosper. Indeed, the exposure of the regulatory capture of Lord Mandelson and a rotten royal prince by an elite corporate criminal fraternity most certainly gives insight into just how compromised New Labour at the top was. Tories / Labour all the same.
The May elections in Scotland will therefore be an interesting pronouncement. People arr heart and soul sick of the Westminster duopoly of Labour and Tory and I think Anas and the gang are going to find that out again