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UK PM Keir Starmer suffers major blow after his party comes third in key vote
The result in a seat that Labour has dominated for nearly a century represents an embarrassing setback for the prime minister.
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UK PM Keir Starmer suffers major blow after his party comes third in key vote
Sam Meredith@in/samuelmeredith@smeredith19
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Key Points
- Britain’s ruling Labour party slumped to third place in Gorton and Denton as the Greens secured their first-ever by-election victory.
- The result in a seat that Labour has dominated for nearly a century represents an embarrassing setback for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
- It may also raise fresh concerns about a possible leadership challenge.
Green Party candidate and winner Hannah Spencer speaks after the vote count on February 27, 2026 in Manchester, England.
Ryan Jenkinson | Getty Images News | Getty Images
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer suffered another blow to his leadership on Friday, after the left-wing Green Party won a special election in a seat the governing Labour party has dominated for decades.
The result in Gorton and Denton, in Greater Manchester, is likely to intensify speculation about Starmer's position, who has come under pressure from the appointment of Peter Mandelson as U.S. ambassador despite his association with Jeffrey Epstein, and a series of departures from Downing Street.
Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer received 14,980 votes, or 40.7% of the vote, notching the party's first-ever by-election victory.
The right-wing Reform UK party finished second with 10,578 votes on 28.7%, while Labour came third with 9,364 votes on 25.4%.
British government bond yields, known as gilts, were marginally lower on the news, erasing earlier gains. The 10-year gilt yield stood at 4.267% on Friday morning, while the 30-year gilt yield was last seen at 5.069%.
Spencer, a 34-year-old plumber and plasterer, becomes the fifth sitting Green lawmaker in Britain's 650-seat House of Commons.
[By-election result hands fresh blow to UK's Starmer]
watch now
VIDEO7:3507:35
By-election result hands fresh blow to UK's Starmer
"Instead of working for a nice life, we're working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry and I don't think it is extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life," she said in her victory speech.
Labour won the Gorton and Denton seat with almost 51% of the vote at the national general election in July 2024, when Starmer swept to power and ousted the Conservative Party after 14 years in office.
In an interview with broadcasters, Starmer described the result as "very disappointing" and said he understood that voters were "frustrated" and "impatient for change."
The change in fortunes for the ruling party appears to suggest that voters could be willing to look beyond the main parties of Labour and the Conservatives, or Tories, to more alternative parties such as the Greens and Reform UK in the wider local elections in May.
[John Curtice: Hard to conclude UK Labour's by-election loss is one-off]
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VIDEO5:5005:50
John Curtice: Hard to conclude UK Labour's by-election loss is one-off
John Curtice, a prominent political scientist and professor of politics at the U.K.'s University of Strathclyde, said the result shows the two main parties are being challenged.
"We are getting an unprecedented challenge by Reform, as it were from the right, stroke the more socially conservative end of Britain, challenging the Conservative party. And now, the Greens apparently now serious competitors with Labour for voters on the left and those of a more social liberal disposition," Curtice told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Friday.
"Historically, in Britain, we've said elections are won and lost on the center ground. That's not what is happening at the moment," he added.
'Energy boost'
"The Green Party will be absolutely cock-a-hoop," Damian Lyons Lowe, CEO of London-based polling company Survation, told CNBC's "Europe Early Edition" on Friday.
[UK by-election loss 'directionally difficult' for Labour: Survation]
watch now
VIDEO5:2005:20
UK by-election loss 'directionally difficult' for Labour: Survation
"I think people looking forward now to the local elections, certainly this is a really, kind of, energy boost for the Green Party because the wasted vote argument that is normally the curse of the Green Party — that a vote for the Greens is just letting Reform in, for example, or the Tories in," Lowe said.
"Those voters will feel energized and I think the Greens will do better than they would have done otherwise in the local elections in May," he added.