How a working-class plumber threw a wrench in Starmer’s election plans

By Christian Edwards, CNN

London (CNN) — The special election in northern England was supposed to be neck-and-neck-and-neck: a three-way scrap between the governing Labour Party, fighting to keep control of a seat in its historic heartland, and two outsiders – the hard-right populist Reform UK party, and the new-look progressive Green Party.

In the end, it wasn’t even close.

Hannah Spencer, a 34-year-old plumber and member of the local council, won the seat in Gorton and Denton, near the English city of Manchester, with 14,890 votes, more than 40% of the total votes cast. Reform UK, which has led in most national polls for more than a year, came second with 10,578 votes, while Labour trailed in third, with 9,364 votes – around 25% of the total.

“I didn’t grow up wanting to be a politician. I’m a plumber,” Spencer said after the results were announced, apologizing to customers for having to cancel work now that she’s moving to Westminster. Spencer, who campaigned heavily on cost-of-living issues, said she stood as a candidate after questioning the value of “hard work” in today’s Britain.

“Working hard used to get you something. It got you a house. A nice life. Holidays,” she said. “But now, working hard – what does that get you? Because talk to anyone here, and they will tell you. The people who work hard but can’t put food on the table. Can’t get their kids school uniforms. Can’t put the heating on… Life has changed.”

The result is an embarrassing defeat for Prime Minister Keir Starmer in what is the Labour Party’s electoral backyard, made up of working-class voters, students and a large ethnic-minority population. Andrew Gwynne, the outgoing Labour MP who stood down due to health reasons, won the seat with more than 50% of the vote in the 2024 general election. Now, the Green Party has upended Starmer’s claim that only Labour can stop Reform from becoming the next government – an outcome that many experts have been predicting.

Spencer’s victory means the Greens now have five lawmakers in a parliament of 650, but more importantly marks the first time the Greens have won a by-election – a major boost to her party ahead of local elections in May, when voters will choose lawmakers for the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and elect local council members in England. By-elections – votes held in individual seats between general elections – often have outsized significance, acting as a weathervane for national politics.

“The starting gun has fired on local elections in 70 days’ time,” Zack Polanski, the leader of the Greens, said at a victory rally early Friday morning. “This is an existential crisis for the Labour Party.”

Several recent Labour decisions have now been called into question. Among them is the party’s decision to target Reform UK – an upstart party led by Nigel Farage, the architect of Brexit and a friend of US President Donald Trump – as the “real opposition.” Despite winning just four seats at the last general election, Starmer decided early to elevate Reform to the status of Britain’s potential government-in-waiting, hoping that the prospect of Farage as prime minister would encourage voters to back Labour.

But the Greens’ victory means Labour is now fighting on two fronts. Having proclaimed Reform as the de facto opposition, Labour spent much of its first year in government trying to appeal to right-wing voters by hardening its rhetoric and policy on immigration.

Analysts questioned the wisdom of that strategy at the time. Anand Menon, professor of European politics at King’s College London, told CNN that Labour seemed happy to risk upsetting progressive voters with its tougher stance on immigration, since those voters – faced with a choice between Labour and Reform – would ultimately “vote Labour to keep those bastards out.”

Now, that strategy may have backfired, as Labour realizes that chasing voters to its right has caused it to leak voters to its left.

“Our politicians have an absolutely appalling mental perception of what a northern voter looks like and thinks like,” Menon said. “This idea that everyone north of Watford is a total oik who’s basically a racist seems to be the common view now in our politics.”

Spencer’s victory casts doubt on that view. The Greens courted the constituency’s ethnic-minority voters, even publishing pre-election material in Urdu and Bangla. In her victory speech, Spencer criticized “divisive figures who constantly scapegoat and blame our communities for all the problems in society.”

Her remarks were a thinly -veiled attack on the Reform candidate Matt Goodwin, a former academic-turned-hard-right-activist, who had refused to disown his claim that people born in Britain from ethnic-minority backgrounds are not necessarily British. “It takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody ‘British,’” Goodwin said during the campaign.

Farage said the result was a “victory for sectarian voting,” and a victory for “cheating in elections,” without providing evidence. Concerns were raised, however, by Democracy Volunteers, a group of independent election observers, about “extremely high” levels of family voting, in which a family member is seen to be influencing somebody else’s vote, for instance by entering a polling booth with them.

The result has also called into question Labour’s decision to block Andy Burnham, the hugely popular Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester who is seen as a potential leadership rival to Starmer, from standing in the election. Karl Turner, a Labour MP, told the BBC that he had “begged” Starmer not to block Burnham from standing in the election, saying he was “without a shadow of a doubt” that he would have won.

Labour’s decision to hold the by-election earlier than necessary now also appears to have backfired, since it will boost the Greens ahead of local elections on May 7. Labour MPs have previously told CNN that a disastrous set of results in those elections could prompt the party to oust Starmer as leader.

Starmer said the result was “very disappointing.” He pointed out that incumbent governments “often get results like that mid-term,” but stressed that he understands voters are “impatient for change.”

Polanski, whose leadership has re-energized the Green Party, looks set to profit off that impatience.

“Labour’s electoral stranglehold is over,” he told a crowd in Manchester. “This is a seismic victory. We have torn the roof off British politics. And that’s because people now recognize there is an alternative.”

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