Hannah Spencer alongside Green Party leader Zack Polanski during a press conference following her victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election, in the southern suburbs of Manchester, United Kingdom, on February 27, 2026. JON SUPER / AP
It was a resounding victory for Britain's Green Party and a slap in the face for Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In the early hours of Friday, February 27, the results of the parliamentary by-election in Gorton and Denton, located in the southern suburbs of Manchester, confirmed the Green Party's breakthrough. It also relegated the governing Labour Party to a humiliating third place in a working-class constituency it had controlled for nearly a century. This glaring failure further weakened Starmer's already fragile position.
"I said we were here to replace Labour and this is what replacing looks like," Zack Polanski, the Green leader, said triumphantly on Friday. Hannah Spencer, a 34-year-old plumber and Green Party councilor in Trafford, west of Manchester, became the party's fifth member of the House of Commons. She won 40.7% of the vote, compared to 28.7% for Matt Goodwin, the Reform UK candidate, and 25.4% for Angeliki Stogia, the Labour candidate. It was the Greens' first parliamentary victory in northern England. Just a year ago, the party was stagnant in the polls and had only four MPs in Westminster, all of whom were elected in the south of the country.
