Greens win Gorton and Denton: is this a turning point for UK politics? – The Latest

0:00Hannah Al-Othman:This is The Guardian.

0:12Hannah Al-Othman:What this election has demonstrated is that people are quite sick of traditional politics.

0:17Lucy Hough:I didn't grow up wanting to be a politician. I'm a plumber. I am no different to every single person here in this constituency.

0:24Hannah Al-Othman:I work hard. That is what we do. How do these political parties adapt to that? And, you know, Labour, it's a real sort of crisis for them. I think they'll have to do some real soul-searching. I think we are moving into an era of multi-party politics.

0:39Lucy Hough:A massive victory for the Green Party in a critical by-election. So is this the end of two-party politics as we know it? From the Guardians today in Focus, this is the latest. Meet Lucy Hoth. Well, joining me is Hannah Al-Othman, Guardian North of England correspondent. Thanks so much for joining us, Hannah. Literally just off the train from Manchester, where you've been up covering the Gorton and Denton by-election. Have you had any sleep? Two hours, maybe. Better than zero. So in the last few weeks in the run-up and the coverage to this election, it has really felt like it's been too close to cool.

1:16Lucy Hough:That it was all to play for between Labour, Greens and reform. and even when I went to bed last night about half two it was still too close to cool but the Greens were starting to make some advances but obviously this morning it wasn't just a victory but a resounding win for the Green Party. What was it like overnight because you've been with Hannah Spencer who is now an MP.

1:40Hannah Al-Othman:So when we're at the count sort of when we got there we were prepared you know we'd got our snacks in we've got our big bottles of Diet Coke because we thought we might be in you know several recount territory obviously the last one in Roncon and Halesby that went down to six votes so that was kind of what we were prepared for before they count the votes they sort of verify them all and each party have people observing and they sort of start taking a tally of what they can see from those ballot papers and so you know that was quite clear before any votes had even been counted that the Greens were going to win it and they were they were very um cautious They weren't counting any chickens.

2:19Hannah Al-Othman:And really, you know, then we're saying, well, who's going to be in second place? And it was, you know, is it going to be reform or is it going to be Labour? So that sort of became what we were watching out for as the night progressed.

2:30Lucy Hough:Yeah. And Labour in third position, which was kind of their worst case scenario, wasn't it? And we'll talk about the implications for Labour in a minute. But let's talk about Hannah Spencer, who's just become a new MP, former plumber. I mean, she's been a really fantastic candidate, hasn't she, in terms of her visibility socially, but also in this new thing for the Green Party, which is really courting the working class vote. We were talking to Owen Jones yesterday about how well they're kind of rebranding to move away from the more old school, traditional middle class perceptions of what the Green Party is.

3:04Lucy Hough:You've met her a few times. What do you think has such cut through in that constituency?

3:09Hannah Al-Othman:she comes across as as very much and she'll admit this herself when i met her she said you know this is all very new to me and you know she did run against annie burnham for mayor she she is a councillor in manchester so she's not brand new to politics but obviously being thrust into the national spotlight in a by-election is very very different um but yeah her approach was just you know she brought her rescue greyhounds everywhere she's got i think four rescue greyhounds she's filming TikTok videos all the time. And she was still working as a plumber a little bit. Still working as a plumber and so I arranged to meet her and I said you know it'd be really good for me if we could meet earlier in the week because you know I need some time to file at the end of the week so it was like a longer piece and her spokesperson that was organised it through but he was like well she's doing a plastering course on Monday and Tuesday so you know she can't meet you until later in the week so yeah I think she finished that during the election campaign.

4:02Lucy Hough:But that goes to show that she wasn't sure that she was going to win. She was just talking about that in her victory speech this morning of like, I took on this plastering course during the campaign because I thought I might need something to do afterwards. And she also said that she was going to have to give a couple of clients for plumbing jobs a ring to say that she was going to be quite busy. So a really fantastic result for the Greens. And I think a really interesting example of how they are now able to run a national campaign type operation. which will obviously be key as we move into May.

4:35Lucy Hough:But let's talk about Labour because certainly the messaging from Number 10 was that they were pretty confident that it was going to be close, but they would scrape it. But they're in third place. Lots of criticism this morning. Criticism specifically about the decision, obviously, to bar Andy Burnham from running in that seat.

4:53Hannah Al-Othman:Yeah, sort of the messages I was getting from people I know in Manchester Labour were a bit more they were managing expectations a little bit more and they were closer to it so but they you know they definitely thought they were in with a chance it was very much this could go any one of three ways and they threw everything at it like you know I live in the constituency so I've seen it all play out firsthand I've had every single leaflet through my door and Starmer went to visit as well Starmer went to visit which you know they tend to stay away if they think they're definitely going to lose it so that was an indication they thought they were maybe in with a chance um i had labour at the door far more times than any other party i think no one doubts that if andy burnham had been the candidate he probably would have won and he probably would have won it quite comfortably but i can also see you know why labour didn't want to do that because we've had this um result play out where labour were in third and that's for one parliamentary seat out of 650 but if they'd have had a mayoral by-election i think we could foreseeably have ended up with the same result there and they've you know losing what's arguably their second most important mayoralty and you know potentially even coming third so you know you can see why they made that calculation plus you know if if burnham was in parliament then you know the the the challenge to the challenge to starma is the perceived yeah and gaza was a was

6:21Lucy Hough:a big issue on the doorstep. Gordon and Denton has a large Muslim population. But I was just looking at a tweet from our colleague Patrick Wintour that I thought was so interesting. I mean, rightly, the importance of Gaza amongst Muslims living in the constituency has been heard and that has shown up in the result today. But it's also not just Muslim voters, is it at all? It's people who care about what's happening in Gaza, whatever political affiliations that they may have but that is something that Labour really need to take more seriously as we approach May and the 2029 elections.

6:57Hannah Al-Othman:I'd say the election was not very heavily policy focused it was more driven by you know a need for change you know the candidates as we said Hannah Spence had all this energy behind her and people felt you know very enthused by that but I'd say the exception was Gaza people you know when people raised a policy or an issue it was Gaza and it wasn't just Muslim voters.

7:19Lucy Hough:And let's just talk about reform and Nigel Farage for a second. I'd imagine they're fairly happy with second place but Nigel Farage has gone sort of fairly Trump saying there's this talk about election fraud and this election being a victory for sectarian voting and cheating there was something about family voting that that also sets a worrying precedent doesn't doesn't it?

7:44Hannah Al-Othman:This family voting story broke last night, which is essentially where more than one person, presumably the same household, will go into the polling station together and one will perhaps oversee the other's vote and direct them to vote in a certain way. So that was immediately seized on by reform. And I stood right behind Goodwin when he was saying that it was very Trumpian, that essentially the election had been stolen from them by Islamists and woke progressives. was the phrase that he used. But yeah, he later, he didn't directly refer to that there, but I think he later put out a statement online referring to this.

8:26Hannah Al-Othman:So I think reform were always going to seize on that. And it was a dirty fight. I think, you know, all three of the main parties were referred to the police. There was a lot of dishonesty on leaflets. So, you know, it was a dirty fight. And I think reform were always going to, you know, claim an unfair victory. But I think with the majority that decisive, it was more difficult for them to do. So if it had been closed, that might have carried more weight.

8:52Lucy Hough:It is feeling like something of a quite a seismic shift in politics this morning, isn't it? I mean, Labour had 50 percent plus of the vote in Gorton and Denton in the last election. They've now gone down to 25 percent. The Greens have shut up from 13 to 40 percent. Tories are less than 2 percent. can we look at this as a seismic shift or do you think there are particularities to this constituency that means it won't necessarily play out around the country in the same way

9:22Hannah Al-Othman:I think it certainly gives you know the main party specifically in this case Labour sort of I think it will ring serious alarm bells you know by elections are different but I think what it's shown is you know certainly for all my lifetime we've essentially had a two-party system and you know people would be afraid to to vote beyond Labour, Tory in some areas Lib Dem they thought they might be wasting their vote but now what you know what this by-election has proved and what Helmsby and you know the last general election proved is you can vote for reform you can vote for Greens and they do stand a chance of winning and I think we are moving into an era of multi-party politics how do these political parties adapt that and you know Labour it's a real sort of crisis for them because in Runcorn they lost votes sort of on I suppose what you'd call the right they're sort of what you'd maybe describe as a traditional working class voter base who are more socially conservative and now they've lost sort of in the the liberal progressive young students muslims so it's you know what's left for them it's a dissentrist but is that you know is that enough to sustain the labour party probably not so i think they'll have to do some real soul searching and i think been speaking to people in labour this morning and they're already really really worried about what's going to happen in may which is the next big test

10:52Lucy Hough:the local elections hannah thank you so much thank you for having me that's it for today My huge thanks again to Hannah Al-Othman, Guardian North of England correspondent. You can keep up with her reporting over at theguardian.com, where you can also find full coverage of the by-election result. Today in Focus will be back with you on Monday, and the latest will be back on Monday night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. The producer was Bryony Moore. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. The lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

11:26Lucy Hough:This is The Guardian. you