Have the Greens just replaced Reform as Labour's main threat?

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0:32This is a Global Player original podcast. Incumbent governments quite often get results like that midterm. But I do understand that voters are frustrated, they're impatient for change. And I came into politics late in life as it happens to fight for change for those people who need it. The people who need an NHS that works for them. To be able to get a doctor's appointment when they need it. To get the money they need in their pockets to pay their bills and to have a decent and better life. and I will keep on fighting for those people for as long as I've got breath in my body. That was Keir Starmer on last night's by-election result.

1:12Bad, it was awful. Disappointing, it was bloody shocking. And as for people feeling frustrated, they're furious. In the pantheon of Labour horror stories, this is right up there with the worst of them. Keir Starmer and Labour are now not only facing bleeding support to their right and reform, but now, for the first time in a long time, a credible threat to their left. Are we about to witness the Greens become a mainstream force in British politics? Welcome to The News Agents.

1:49The News Agents. It's John. It's Lewis. And earlier in the week we had reported a poll that suggested that the Greens, Labour and reform were all absolutely neck and neck. There was nothing to separate any of them. Well, the reality was rather different. The Greens had an absolutely clear lead in the safest of safe seats. And let's hear from their victor, Hannah Spencer. I didn't grow up wanting to be a politician. I'm a plumber. And two weeks ago, during all this, I also qualified as a plasterer. because even in chaos, even under pressure, I get things done. I am no different to every single person here in this constituency.

2:36I work hard. That is what we do. Except things have changed a lot over the last few decades, because 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 who 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.

3:21We are being bled dry. And I don't think it's extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life. So that's Hannah Spencer giving, actually, I think a really excellent speech. Brilliant, brilliant victory speech. And, you know, she should be extremely pleased. They ended up with nearly 41 % of the vote. That is an increase of 27.5 % since the general election. The Greens had never done better than 10 % at a by-election before last night. This is a constituency that in one form or another has been Labour since 1931. It was their seventh safest parliamentary seat and it's now in green hands.

3:58We were saying earlier in the week, you know, Manchester, Greater Manchester, you know, generally speaking, the city of Manchester in particular, generally speaking, an absolute Labour stronghold. I think until recently they had every single ward on the council, now got a Green MP and indeed Labour down 25.4 percentage points with reform. you know a pretty decent performance 10 and a half thousand votes but nowhere near the green so what the Labour Party is now faced with is exactly what I remember some briefing that came out about a year or so ago but this unnamed cabinet minister said that we're in trouble now but our one saving grace is that the Green Party is so shit because they were saying then at that time that if there were suddenly significant bleeding to the party's left if there were a credible force to the party's left then they would be in serious trouble well a year on under zap polanski's leadership a triumph for him that has come to pass yeah and of course the message it sends out the symbolism of this vote is profound because it seems to suggest that if you want to stop reform and there was a significant anti-reform vote last night 70 75 of those people didn't want a reform mp for this constituency then what you do is you don't vote labor you vote green and the green party will be taking this message on now they had a particularly good candidate last night you can't read across from one by-election to a general election let's put in all the sort of caveats you know like we do when you're buying shares that stock market can go up and it can go down all those things but I think it is a very very significant result and absolutely bloody for Labour with the exception of one Labour person who I think comes out probably smelling quite sweetly and that's Andy Burnham who was prevented from fighting in this constituency he did the decent thing he was there trying to help the Labour candidate win and now an awful lot of people saying to Starmer what the hell did you do this is your bloody fault you stopped Burnham from running maybe we'd have had a better chance if Andy Burnham had been our candidate weird we haven't heard from Andy Burnham this morning at the time of recording perhaps not so weird look John I think you should say I think this is this is clearly um it's clearly devastating for Keir Starmer in lots of ways look by elections come and by elections go.

6:24It is true, of course, you know, that governments in midterm struggle, often struggle. New Labour didn't for a very long time, extraordinarily, but generally speaking, government struggle, and that was inevitable. Nonetheless, you know, if this were just a normal kind of swing between parties or a bit of a sort of protest, you could sort of maybe write it off. But I think it's really damaging for Starmer for a few reasons. As I say, one of the biggest things, this I think marks the return of something that we actually haven't seen in British politics since the days really of Charlie Kennedy leading the Liberal Democrats in the sort of mid 2000, which was a credible, potent threat, electoral threat to the Labour Party's left in its urban seats.

7:07The Labour Party has generally the record of the Labour Party since 2010 has been pretty lamentable electorally, even the 2024 election, much weaker in lots of ways than it appeared. If you just looked at the seat count, it was an election which was a sort of mile wide and an inch deep. But one thing they have had, and they've really been able to bank on throughout that time, is an almost unassailable grip on Britain's urban seats. More liberally minded voters, gradually minded voters. That has come at a cost occasionally of some of the other seats in places like the Red Wall that they've wanted to try and win, but they've had a complete grip in those places.

7:44That is no longer the case. That is no longer the case. And it was Keir Starman, the second reason why I think it's particularly damaging, John, is because it was Keir Starmer who set the terms. I remember us doing an episode, I think it was around the Labour Party conference, when Keir Starmer said basically that the litmus test, the criterion for success of British politics, was beating reform. He said that that was going to be the battle for the next general election, and it was only Labour that could do so. That was his own metric for success. On the basis of this by-election, and not just this one, because it happened in Kefili, as well if you remember in the welsh senate by-election where in that case it went to plied labour is again and again showing that it is not the primary vehicle to beat reform and if that pattern is repeated in the may elections then labour mps can legitimately turn to starma and say you set the test and you failed it so this is where i'm just going to push back slightly i don't disagree with any of your analysis i think it's absolutely spot on but i do i buy into new crisis for starmer's leadership starmer's leadership is in the toilet and it's still in the toilet i don't think last night makes his position any more untenable because i think the crisis that there was you know two or three weeks ago when there was going to be the putsch and anasawa comes out and says Starmer's got to go and we were waiting to see whether cabinet ministers would join and instead of which they all rallied round.

9:17Now they may not have rallied round because they think Starmer is the most political genius that they've ever seen. They're rallying around because actually there is no one else who unites the Labour Party at this stage and I think that is still the case today. I don't think the threat increases as a result of last night. I think it It may make the mood more sullen. It may make Labour MPs more dispirited. And it's striking kind of, you know, there aren't a lot of people out there sort of throwing rocks at the moment. I just think people just thought, oh, God, you know, we've lost the game. Probably the only thing I'd demur on is I would say that I think that this has used up another one of Starmer's lives in the sense that there was a bit of calm.

10:02Well, I know, indeed, exactly. There was a bit of calm after the period where Labour MPs kind of looked over the precipice, thought about getting rid of him and didn't. I think this, and from there on, it was sort of reasonably calm. I think this once again crystallises, brings back that conversation about his leadership, which has sort of, at least on the airwaves at least, gone into abeyance. Look, I think you can sort of separate out a few things. I think most Labour MPs you will speak to think it's very unlikely that Keir Starmer will lead them into the next general election. And so it's just a sort of question of when.

10:30I think that this nonetheless so it isn't really I don't think a question this by-election loss of whether it sort of pushes Starmer over the edge as you say I think he's over the edge in one form or another anyway he's on borrowed time I think the more interesting thing is what it does to the calculus of the parliamentary Labour Party and the conversation that the parliamentary Labour Party is having and one of the as I said before although the Labour Party over the last decade and a half its electoral performance has been pretty bad as I say its urban seats which now dominate the parliamentary Labour Party or have done, those MPs at least haven't had much reason to be skittish.

11:09They are going to be really skittish now. They're looking at Denton and that's not a seat really that would have been anywhere near the top of the Greens sort of target list. There are way, way scores of seats in London, in Greater Manchester, in Bristol, in the university towns and Birmingham and places like this which are far, far more favourable to them. And those MPs, Labour MPs, many of whom are sitting what are on paper, really big majorities will be worried. And that changes the calculus because up to now, clearly, the pressure has been, and particularly under Morgan McSweeney, trying to make Starmer, at least to some extent, he was a bit inconsistent on this, but focus on those sort of red wall reform type voters.

11:48This is going to, I think, result or augment a push that we were already seeing, which is a push of the Labour Party to the progressive left and it will embolden those including Angela Rayner and others who are saying we and Ed Miliband who are saying we can't afford business as usual we have to be more radical yes and that brings us to Angela Rayner because she's one of those people who has been out today this result must be a wake-up call she says it's time to really listen and to reflect now you can imagine in a scenario where her problems with hmrc and the purchase of that flat in hove are resolved and sorted out and she's given a clean bill of health and she then positions herself as okay i'm here if you need me to replace keir starmer and that will be in the progressive left direction that we're talking well indeed i mean that is i think a slightly kind of countervailing kind of force actually with regards to Starmer's future, which might in some way reinforce him to some extent, which is to say this, is that this is going to make, because of exactly what we've just described, because it will strengthen the voices of those in the party who want to push the party in a more left direction, more populist left direction, more radical direction.

13:02Those people who are very suspicious of that, those who are worried, if there was a Labour leadership election now, it seems almost certain that someone from the soft left of the party, whether it's Angela Rayne or Ed Miliband, would win, particularly in the light of this result and that will fortify that bit of the party the kind of old right of the party what's left of the kind of blair right wing of the party to whatever extent it still exists or more just broadly those who do not like the soft left or the left fortify their resolve to keep starmer in for longer not because they like starmer no or not because they think starmer is very effective and not because he's their guy in particular but just because they will cling to nurse for fear of something worse so i think what this does is kind of worsen those sort of internecine elements.

13:43And to a weird extent, a bit like Harold Wilson in the late 60s when everyone was talking about getting rid of him. In the end, one of the reasons he survived much longer than anyone thought, eventually left on his own terms, which I don't think will happen with Starmer, but, you know, survived for a long time, is because everyone was so afraid of who might take his place. And the Greens, what do they do from here? I mean, what is impressive, and we talked about it the other day on the podcast, was, you know, if it is right that the parties are pretty even across the board, you know, that reform Labour and the Greens are neck and neck, then Labour will win because they've got the better machine.

14:18The Greens had a pretty good machine. They got the vote out. They were very successful. They had a huge number of people out on the streets. I've also seen criticism that they printed leaflets in Urdu. You think, well, if you're trying to reach every audience you can, and there are a lot of people for whom Urdu is still their first language, Is that sectarianism or is that just kind of going to where the votes are? Yeah, well, I mean, and the other thing is, again, I think we're going to talk about this a little bit more, this question of sectarianism. But, you know, there's a lot of sort of caricatures also being pointed about this seat.

14:47It's also a seat which has lots of kind of like middle-class professionals, lots of younger voters, lots of students, University of Manchester not so far away, you know, slightly cheaper areas to live, you know, becoming more fashionable, gentrified, all of these sorts of things. And guess what? And you could see it from the coverage, you know, lots of these people were turning out for the Green Party, Not least because, I mean, we've talked about it this week, you know, I think really part of the problem that Labour has had these last couple of years is that sometimes it has appalled and seemed to dislike the coalition that it actually has hankering after a coalition that it used to have, you know, romanticising a coalition that it used to have.

15:22You know, the fact of the matter is, is that for many years now, Labour's absolutely core constituency has been moral urban voters, younger voters, graduates, ethnic minorities. And look at student loans. Student loans has crystallised it in some way. What is the Labour Party's answer to graduates, which, as I say, formed a backbone of its coalition been over this issue? We've got nothing to say. We've got nothing to say because graduates don't kind of conform to what Labour's view in their own mind of the deserving poor is. Right. But it's just kind of it's not it's not allying to where the reality of the politics is.

15:54The one thing I'd say, if you're looking for sort of, you know, if you're a Labour MP listening to this, and I know quite a few do, if you're thinking sort of looking with despair, it is true to say and we should say that, of course, you know, obviously it looks like the May election is going to be a bloodbath. But when we're looking towards the general election, the Greens, I think, are going to be a really potent force and it's going to be a real problem. It's also true to say that by-election dynamics are not general election dynamics. and once Polanski, much like Farage, we are clearly, as we're seeing, for the moment at least, living in this period of deeply fragmented politics, you know, three, four, five, six parties and so on.

16:26I should say, of course, there have been options, and I say there haven't been options to the Labour's left for a while, there have been in Scotland and Wales, but I'm talking about England primarily here. The general election dynamics are different and, you know, although at the moment we are living in this sort of fire and brimstone populism and left and right, it is true to say that when we come to a general election and if we're seriously thinking about Prime Minister Polanski or Prime Minister Farage or whatever it happens to be, that conversation does become different. And the Greens do have some real weaknesses still in developing their policy agenda, particularly on defence and foreign policy.

16:58I mean, I've interviewed you a few times. You know, their answers usually aren't great. And I think Polanski is smart enough to know that. He's smart and he's proving himself very canny. So they know that. And it was quite interesting when he was being asked in the sort of victory lap he was doing about prospects for government and all that. He's playing all that down because he knows that as soon as you enter that kind of arena, when he's not going to go back to your. Exactly. And so that's smart. But but, you know, there will be different dynamics. And when we come to the general election, those dynamics will not be favorable necessarily to the Greens and Farage.

17:31And maybe, you know, Starmer's strategy has basically been to say, set this up as a kind of Macron style strategy. which is you might not like us but you really want, in Macron's case Marine Le Pen, in our case Farage. It might still be that when we get to the general election, that's not a bad strategy overall for the Labour Party but whether Starmer is the man so disliked has he become by the electorate to put it off, I think is clearly the big open question. Listen, we played that clip of Keir Starmer at the top of the podcast where he's, you know, I'm going to fight, I'm going to roll up my sleeves.

18:05Honestly kia i've heard you a number of times say you're going to roll up your sleeves and you're going to work the hard yards i i just think that's sort of still a bit of a cliche you need to be telling the story of what it is you're trying to do for the country and i still think that is still so poor from this government the storytelling of what it's about and i even heard heidi alexander this morning the transport secretary who kind of was the sacrificial lamb being put up to defend Labour's case yeah where's that short straw exactly the shortest I can't see it and she was being put up and she was admitting that we've got to tell a better story of what we're about and that I still think is Labour's you know that is what is driving a lot of Labour MPs and supporters nuts that it's still unclear what it is you're trying to say or trying to do or your direction of travel or you know where the sunny uplands are right when we come back we're going to be talking about reform the conservatives remember them and also this accusation which has been doing the rounds what we saw in gorton was sectarianism for muslim voters really stay with us

19:17from a range of trusted voices and award-winning journalists call the cabinet here exclusively on LBC, Siobhan Mahmood, the Home Secretary. Find out the latest news and hear every side of the story. Right now, Nigel Farad says jump and Keir Starmer says how high. Voters are frustrated, they're impatient for change. You are not supposed to read too much into by-election results mid-term, but sometimes the temptation is too hard to resist. Listen on our free Global Player app or the LBC app. LBC, leading Britain's conversation. And now, another appliance triumph from your friends at Grand Appliance.

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20:47test first time? Spoiler, they don't. When the race weekend's over, we're here to keep you up to speed. Listen and watch today. Search up to speed on Global Player. Up to speed.

21:08The News Agents. So we've talked about Labour and the Greens and we're going to go into depth in a minute about reform and where it leaves reform. But let's get a sense of the atmospherics of last night because Henry Riley, lucky man, was up all night watching it unfold. Was it immediately apparent what the result was going to be or did it take some time? It took some time. It's one of those classic situations where no party wants to claim it. I think the Green Party didn't really want to jinx it, to be honest, given they've never won a parliamentary by-election before and their sort of people on the ground kept reiterating that their best ever performance at a by-election was in 2023 in Somerton and Frome where they only got 10 % of the vote.

21:52So they don't historically do very well at these by-elections and they were very keen to keep saying, well, it's a three-horse race and it's very difficult when you've got the progressives fighting against each other, Labour and the Greens, and we're worried reform could come through the middle. But it was after sort of midnight where reform started conceding, And Lucy Powell started doing interviews where she was saying, well, the Greens did well today, but they'll never do well in a general election. And then we got a real sense that the Greens had obviously done very well and won by a clearer majority than we thought.

22:21And can you take me through the other controversy of maybe not the night, but the day's voting? And this is this whole issue that has been raised of family voting. Yes. And I mean, it's difficult on the ground to know how big a story it is, really. You're sort of guessing and you're speaking to other parties, you're speaking to other journalists. Now, the Greens were obviously keen to downplay it when it was clear that they were looking like they were winning. They were saying, well, I mean, this happens at every election, but it was a real bombshell. I mean, we didn't expect that as the polls sort of shut at 10 o 'clock.

22:54The first time we heard it was reporting from Sky News that this group called Democracy Volunteers, who've been around for a while, but that they had observed this election and they'd been at nearly half of the polling stations. They've been at 22 of the 45 polling stations. They spent between sort of half an hour and 45 minutes at each. And they had observed that at 15 of those polling stations, there were 32 what they described as concerning elements of family voting. Now, right at the start, it wasn't clear how big a part that was going to play. Now, if we were in the other by-election territory that we had this parliament, the Runcorn and Hellsby by-election, which reform won by just six votes, then I think it would have been a huge story, particularly even after Hannah Spencer had won for the Greens.

23:41I think the fact it was such a big majority, 4 ,500, negated that somewhat. But I mean, reform was certainly pushing this narrative. And there were people on the ground for reform saying, well, this can't be right. And I think what was interesting as well is it wasn't just from reform. So the Lib Dems had an MP there, Lisa Smart, who's their cabinet office spokesperson. And when we were talking to her, both sort of for LBC, but also just privately, she was making clear this is a really big issue. And she's been looking at this idea of family voting for a while and telling us very clearly that this is very much against the law and very much against electoral law as passed a few years ago.

24:19Since you mentioned reform there, Henry, I think it's fair to say that their candidate, Britain's favourite academic, Matthew Goodwin, not entirely happy about the result, having something of a sulk and maybe even a strop throughout the night. He was. And it's interesting, the Labour candidate kept her counsel, Angelique Estonia, didn't give any interviews. She was on the stage. She applauded when the Greens won and sort of got hell out of Dodge and got out of there as quickly as possible. Whereas Matthew Goodwin was parading around a little bit. He was going over and making a real point of thanking all of the people who were counting the votes.

24:52And he was all too willing to speak to the media and was sort of saying to us, well, the voters now got a choice. It's between Mads, Zach's open borders, his words, and Reform UK's policy of sensible border issues. He was really very angry about the family voting, pushing this line that we heard from Nigel Farage about sectarian politics. So he was clearly irritated by the whole thing. And rather than keeping his counsel, was immediately telling us he'd be standing in future general elections and that this was just the start and it was a wonderful result. And one other thing, Henry, I know a lot of listeners will want me to ask you about this.

25:28Did you at any point manage to meet one of the most storied candidates, Saroinke-Lott? I did. And I had a lengthy chat with Saroinke-Lott. and he was telling me about the party's policies. They want to massage... The monster-raving loony candidate, just in case anybody hasn't noticed the roink. Yeah, just to be clear, the official monster-raving loony party candidate, and they want to massage speed bumps was one of their policies. They want to put classrooms on floors four and above to raise the standards of education. It's sort of classic loony policies. And they actually, I mean, you've done by-elections before.

25:59There's sort of strange periods where nothing's really happening until the loonies walk in and then there's all sorts of big cheers. But what the exclusive that I did get... And that's just Matt. The story we did get was that underneath those big loony hats, which look quite fun and inoffensive, they did concede and prove to me that they were hiding cans of lager in there because you're not allowed to buy alcohol at the count. And they searched back. So they'd already been at the pub and they were having a tremendous night. Well, they've just won our chief video producer, Shane's vote. Reg, thanks very much, Henry.

26:32Time for you to get the hell out of Dodge as well now. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Cheers. Thank you. So let's stay with the reform element of this, because compared to how they performed in the general election, this was a distinct improvement on where they were. They were only 4000 votes behind the person who won, but still 4000 votes behind. This is Matt Goodwin trying to make sense of it all. Matthew Goodwin, you hope to be Reform's ninth MP. What went wrong? Because it wasn't even close. Sectarianism. That's what happened. We more than doubled our vote. We're in Labour's backyard. We're the second political force in this seat.

27:10We have planted a flag in Northern England. You will have seen the reform boards up and down this constituency. More than 10 ,000 people voted for us. We can go on to Labour constituencies across Northern England, into the Red Wall, into Wales. We can win those seats. We will win those seats. Again, the Greens can only pull this kind of result off in a small number of seats. We can do this everywhere. Our ground game is the best game in British politics. We're not resorting to sectarian politics to get us over the line. I think we've run a very professional campaign. I think we've connected with the local people.

27:46Again, not many British people want legalized crack cocaine and heroin, open borders, scrapping our nuclear deterrent. The reason the Greens have won here, let's be honest, is exactly what that report was warning about a few hours ago. Family voting, otherwise known as sectarianism. Now, we can have a conversation in this country about sectarianism and what it's doing to our democracy, or we can pretend it's not happening. It's clearly happening. So that was Matt Goodwin. And his statement on X said, we're losing our country. A dangerous Muslim sectarianism has emerged. Now, how ungracious can you be about the people who vote in that constituency?