Green Triumph Catastrophic for Starmer, Terrible for Farage
This should be one of Labour’s safest constituencies. It won the seat with more than half the vote in the general election just 18 months ago. But it finds itself squeezed by populists on the Green left and anti-immigrant right.
Manchester University’s Rob Ford, a political scientist, says Labour is now walking in the electoral valley of death.
The threat is indeed existential.
In Gorton and Denton, Labour was pushed to a miserable third, losing white working-class voters to Reform and students, graduates and Muslims to the avowedly socialist Greens.
All these groups were the bedrock of its 2024 victory. And the outcome wasn’t close.
Starmer’s real failure was articulated by Spencer in her acceptance speech.
“Working hard used to get you something,” she said. “It got you a house, a nice life, holidays… But now, working hard, what does that get you?”
One glimmer of light for Labour is that this was also a bad night for Reform.
Rosa Prince Bloomberg February 27, 2026
Rosa Prince is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She was formerly an editor and writer at Politico and the Daily Telegraph, and is the author of "Comrade Corbyn" and "Theresa May: The Enigmatic Prime Minister."
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