John Curtice points nightmare verdict for Keir Starmer after by-election ‘shock’ | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Labour’s Gorton and Denton by-election loss will “make life for Keir Starmer even worse”, a high pollster has warned. Professor Sir John Curtice stated the end result was a shock because of the scale of the Green Party’s victory.

Hannah Spencer took 14,980 votes, with Reform UK second on 10,578 and Labour trailing behind in third with 9,364. Sir John instructed the BBC: “In the end there was a surprise and the surprise is the scale of the Greens’ victory.

“They have really managed to win almost 41% of the votes forged on this constituency, they’ve a 12-point lead over Reform.

“So rather than being this narrow contest we thought perhaps somebody might win with a relatively low share of the vote, the Greens have well and truly won this constituency and getting the kind of share of the vote that we thought was getting difficult in our fragmented politics.

“The fact is that the Greens must be congratulated on what is kind of a outstanding efficiency.

“That of course does simply make life for Keir Starmer even worse.

“It’s not simply that Labour have misplaced, they’ve misplaced badly, they path the Greens by 15 factors, Labour themselves working in third place.

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“I think the idea that perhaps we were hearing from the deputy Labour leader that the Greens can’t really pose that much threat over Labour more broadly beyond this constituency, I think it’s going to be time for Labour to rethink this because the Greens here at least have demonstrated a remarkable ability to get a substantial section of this constituency.”

Labour Party chairwoman Anna Turley described the end result as “clearly disappointing”.

She stated: “By-elections are normally difficult for the party of government, and this election was no different.”

She added that “the politics of anger and easy answers offered by the Greens and Reform” wouldn’t deal with the cost-of-living disaster, create alternatives for younger folks or spend money on public companies.