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Labour MPs have said for weeks that the outcome they most feared at the Gorton and Denton byelection was a Green party<\/a> victory.<\/p>\n On Friday morning, their worst fears were realised.<\/p>\n The Greens\u2019 convincing win<\/a> in the Manchester seat gives the leftwing party its best byelection result and its first ever northern seat. More importantly, however, it gives progressive voters a clear signal that they do not have to vote Labour to beat Reform \u2013 a signal that could prove catastrophic for the government in some of its strongest heartlands over the next few years.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat makes this loss so consequential to Labour<\/a> is not just the scale of the defeat but the message it sends to voters about future contests,\u201d said the pollster Luke Tryl. \u201cOne of Labour\u2019s ace cards had been the hope that however frustrated or disillusioned progressive voters might be with the Starmer government the threat of Reform would be enough to bring them back into the fold and reunite the left \u2013 a similar approach to President Macron\u2019s re-election against Marine Le Pen.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that argument risks collapsing following last night\u2019s result.\u201d<\/p>\n John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said the result underlined how two pillars of Labour\u2019s traditional support \u2013 white, working-class voters and ethnic minorities \u2013 had deserted them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Green party\u2019s historic success in the Gorton and Denton byelection means the future of British politics is now even more uncertain than it was already,\u201d he wrote in a piece for the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hannah Spencer\u2019s victory, with a majority of 4,402 votes over Reform, gives the Greens their fifth Westminster MP \u2013 120 miles away from the next closest Green seat, proving the party can now win outside of its cluster of southern support. She told supporters at the vote count on Friday morning: \u201cTo people here in Gorton and Denton who feel left behind and isolated, I see you and I will fight for you.\u201d<\/p>\n The Green party vote share of 41% is four times bigger than their previous best byelection result, and the increase in their vote is five times larger than they have achieved in any byelection since 2010.<\/p>\n <\/gu-island><\/p>\n Officials for the Greens and Labour said there had been a shift among Muslim voters, with many mentioning Starmer\u2019s positions on Gaza as a key reason for moving away from Labour.<\/p>\n Spencer sought to capitalise on this with a campaign that targeted Muslim voters, including with videos in Urdu<\/a>, in an echo of Zohran Mamdani\u2019s mayoral campaign in New York. \u201cI can\u2019t and won\u2019t accept this victory tonight without calling out the politicians and divisive figures who constantly scapegoat and blame our communities for all the problems in society,\u201d she said from the count. \u201cMy Muslim friends and neighbours are just like me: human.\u201d<\/p>\n But for Starmer, Labour\u2019s distant third place is likely to reignite questions about his leadership and renew the criticism of those on the left of the party that he has not done enough to impress its progressive base. It comes after a similar result<\/a> last year in the Welsh Senedd seat of Caerphilly, where Plaid Cymru topped the ballot, ending more than 100 years of Labour dominance in the region.<\/p>\n