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2 hours ago
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Labour lost significant numbers of white working-class voters to the Greens in Gorton and Denton, the party’s postmortem has concluded, after it came third in the Greater Manchester byelection last month.
The Greens won the byelection, with Reform in second place.
Labour’s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, told activists and members it was a warning the party could lose voters on its left flank who went far beyond the stereotype of progressive young professionals and those from Muslim communities.
High numbers of voters broke for the Greens in the final hours before polling closed, the party’s analysis has found, with some conflicted until they reached the ballot box about which party was better placed to stop Reform.
Powell was expected to present the findings to Labour’s national executive committee on Tuesday but told activists and members in a call over the weekend that people had repeatedly said they needed a “reason” to vote Labour.
Party chiefs are mulling a change in strategy after the byelection, where the Greens’ Hannah Spencer won by 4,402 votes, ahead of Reform’s Matthew Goodwin, in a seat which had previously been safe Labour territory.
Though Labour had a highly targeted campaign with a record number of activists out on polling day, strategists believe it was the high visibility of the Green campaign locally, with street stalls, posters and a very identifiable local candidate, which meant tactical voters believed it was safe to vote Green and still prevent a Reform victory.
Powell told activists on the call that she could not “sugarcoat” the fact that many voters had wanted to send a message about government failures.
“There’s no doubt that we suffered from a large protest, with voters telling us to do better, be stronger about our purpose and values, and deliver the change we promised faster and more clearly,” she said. “We have ceded the political megaphone and it’s up to us to strongly and proudly get that back.”
Powell said analysis from the campaign had found the two biggest reasons for not voting Labour were tactical voting to keep Reform out, and protest voting to send Labour a message.
Labour has traditionally relied on a more low-key strategy around byelections, with a less visible local candidate and a highly targeted doorstep approach to get out its reliable voters.
But a number of senior party figures have said in recent weeks that the party needs a thorough overall of its strategy, especially in long-held safe seats where the data is rarely updated, because of the current volatility of UK politics and the high numbers of voters switching parties and more previously non-voters turning out, especially for Reform UK.
Powell said it was clear across both sides of the constituency that the Green vote went far beyond their traditional base of urban liberal voters and that the Greens had successfully convinced voters they were a hopeful choice and the tactical choice to beat Reform.
She said that in the general election many of those voters would have been “still open to Labour, but … wanted to send us a message of frustration and disappointment”.
She told members on the call that there was a “clear lesson” that voters wanted to be given substantial reasons to vote Labour again, saying there had been too many “hot-takes on what happened in the byelection, from many who weren’t even there”.
She said the party had “ceded the political megaphone and our task now is to show that we are the only force in British politics able and willing to deliver the progressive change”.
Some anger within Labour has been directed at the party’s general secretary, Hollie Ridley, a close ally of Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney.
But senior figures in No 10 and in Labour HQ have since defended Ridley and said she should not be made a scapegoat for what are expected to be very difficult results for Labour in the May local elections, especially in Scotland and Wales.
The Greens have enjoyed a significant boost in polling since the victory in the Gorton and Denton, their first in a national byelection, and are expected to compound that with advances in the local elections, particularly in London boroughs such as Hackney, Newham and Waltham Forest.
The party’s membership has tripled in England and Wales since September last year, after the announcement of Zack Polanski as its leader, to about 200,000.
