Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Britain's Green Party won the Gorton and Denton byelection in southeast Manchester with a more than 4,000-seat majority, beating the ruling Labour Party into third place, and 12 points clear of Reform UK.
The Greens' new Member of Parliament, Hannah Spencer, a plumber from a neighboring suburb of Manchester, produced a convincing win in Thursday's poll, overturning the 13,000-seat majority won in the 2024 general election by the previous Labour holder of the seat who is standing down due to ill-health.
Spencer won 14,980 seats, or 40.7% of the vote, Reform's Matt Goodwin, 10,578 and Labour's Angeliki Stogia trailing in third place with 9,364. The Conservative Party's candidate came in a distant fourth with just 706 votes. Turnout was 47.6%.
The win, a first for the Green Party in a byelection, takes the party's contingent in the House of Commons to five.
Speaking in the early hours of Friday after the results were announced, 34-year-old Spencer vowed to "fight" for the people of Gorton and Denton "who feel left behind and isolated."
