People of Gorton and Denton have changed everything

Zack Polanski, The Independent

This week in Manchester, the sun came out for the first time in what felt like forever. I don’t mean that metaphorically — as I walked down a quiet street in Gorton and Denton a few days ago with our then-candidate (now MP!) Hannah Spencer, the sun broke through the clouds and shone down on our campaign. But it wasn’t just the weather lifting my spirits.

As Hannah and I stood on the pavement shuffling bundles of stickers and leaflets, three girls in hijabs and school uniforms excitedly ran up to Hannah, clamouring for photos with her. While they were getting their phones out, I was distracted by a young guy approaching me to shake my hand, telling me how much hope Hannah’s campaign, and the rise of the Greens, had brought to him and his partner.

And while both of us were busy with these conversations, a woman in her 40s waved to us as she crossed the road. “Good luck!” she shouted. In that moment, I knew that something extraordinary was happening. Across divides of faith, background, age and occupation, wherever we went, people were united in their warmth, their excitement and their desire to see Hannah Spencer elected to represent them in parliament.

What was so moving about the way the people of Gorton and Denton rallied around Hannah, though, wasn’t that they were rooting just for her — it was that they were rooting for themselves. For their community. And this morning, they will wake up to the news that together they did something absolutely extraordinary: elected a plumber from Manchester, and the Green Party’s first Northern MP, to the House of Commons — in a seat that was 127th on our target list. Make no mistake: today, the people of Gorton and Denton have changed everything.

For years, people have been told that voting Green is a wasted vote. That people might like our ideas — they might share our vision for a fairer society, a different way of doing things — but when push comes to shove, they’d better play it safe. Vote for the least worst option instead. That, in part, is how we got this Labour government— a government that many across the country voted for through gritted teeth because they thought it would just about be better than the alternative. And, for years, it’s how Labour have held onto seats like Gorton and Denton despite taking the voters there for granted.

That has all changed now. In part, it’s changed because people have seen what the least worst option — a Labour government — looks like in practice. Sky-high bills. Ordinary people struggling to get by. Scandal after scandal. Complicity in a genocide. But it’s also changed because we’ve shown that if you vote for something different, you can get it. At the general election in 2024, Greens defied expectations by quadrupling our MPs from one to four — and since then, those four MPs have been working overtime: forcing the government to abandon its plans to slash disability benefits, pushing for fairer taxes on wealth, and taking the fight to Reform’s toxic politics of division where Labour have utterly failed to.

And now the people of Gorton and Denton have shown that there are no limits to the politics of hope. It’s worth remembering that at the last election, Labour received over half of the vote in this constituency — while the Greens got just 13 per cent. This was not a typically “Green” seat — in fact, it was 127th on the list of green targets when it comes to the swing needed to win. Meanwhile, we were up against both Labour’s dirty tricks — from made-up “tactical voting” organisations to lurid smears about our policies – and the millionaire-backed Reform party spewing out misinformation at every turn. Voters here could have been forgiven for thinking that, however much they wanted Hannah as their MP, they were unlikely to get her.

But the time for thinking like that is over — and voters won’t be taken for fools, or taken for granted, any longer. There are no longer any “no-go areas” for the Greens. Where people hear our message of affordability, bold economics and compassion, they will vote for it — and it can defeat division, scaremongering and hate.

On Monday, Hannah Spencer MP will walk into Parliament as the North’s first Green MP; as the first female plumber to sit in the House of Commons; and as a symbol of what we can do when we put fear aside and back hope instead. And that will only be the beginning. In May, there are local elections all across the country, for councillors and mayors — and after this breakthrough, the sky is the limit for our party.