The Green Party won a convincing victory in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton by election. But will this make any of the parties change tack on issues such as benefits?
According to the Press Association, the final results were:
Hannah Spencer (Green) 14,980 (40.69%, +27.53%)
Matt Goodwin (Reform) 10,578 (28.73%, +14.67%)
Angeliki Stogia (Lab) 9,364 (25.44%, -25.32%)
Charlotte Cadden (C) 706 (1.92%, -5.98%)
Jackie Pearcey (LD) 653 (1.77%, -2.05%)
Reform have claimed that their failure to win the seat was down to “sectarian voting and cheating” rather than their policies.
Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell also seems to think it isn’t Labour’s policies but their failure to make them known that is the problem: “we’ve got to get our politics clearer so people know that we are on their side, we are standing up for them.”
It seems very unlikely that Reform will do anything other than double down on their rhetoric against claimants in the run-up to May’s devolved and local elections.
But it does seem possible that Labour backbenchers will now be pushing hard for the party’s stance on a range of issues to move to the left in an effort to try to counter the Green surge.
At the very least, that may mean a softening of government rhetoric towards claimants in the run up to the May 7 local and devolved elections.
Should Labour fare as badly then, we may see a significant shift, not just in rhetoric, but also in policy relating to disability benefits.
