Labour after Gorton and Denton

It wasn't even close. While the pollsters kept coughing up the Gorton and Denton numbers that put the three parties inches from one another, the outcome was the Greens 12 points clear on 41%. Reform managed 29%, and Labour mustered a poor third on 25%. Also, shout out to the Tories for losing their deposit and managing their worst ever parliamentary by-election result. Behind this survey of the scores after the doors is a profound shift in British politics - the first time since the war when neither of the two main parties of government came first nor second, the first time the momentum behind Reform has been stymied despite receiving their customary flattery, hype, and media over-exposure. And, for the Greens, its first ever parliamentary by-election win. A day for the history books, and more signs that the Greens are becoming the new party of working class Britain.

It was also, without a shadow of a doubt, a catastrophe for Labour. They threw the kitchen sink at Gorton and Denton. Campaigning by the Prime Minister, virtually every available MP timetabled for door knocking, huge events that scraped together thousand-strong campaign days. Dodgy leaflets, off-the-scale negative messaging, all of it came to nought. The margin of victory between the Greens on the one hand and Labour on the other, while Reform cornered the constituency's right wing vote, had something more than tactical voting behind it. Like Caerphilly, Labour's traditional backers wanted change and in Hannah Spencer elected a working class woman on a socialist platform. The size of the win was also an endorsement of a different kind of politics instead of the miserabilism with dashings of racism offered by the other parties.

The cope though, the Labour Party cope, it's been a pitiful sight. Doing the rounds on breakfast TV this morning Heidi Alexander put the rejection of her candidate down to "impatience". This is the narrative that has emerged over the last six months to explain electoral reversals. After 14 ruinous years of Tory government, the punters want to see change for the better and are impatient for it. The implication being that once Labour delivers Beijing-levels of annual economic growth, wages go up, new workers' rights are bedded down, and parents feel the benefit of breakfast clubs the polling numbers will recover, delivering a renaissance at the ballot box when 2029 swings around. What poppycock. People aren't fed up with Labour because they want to see a better world yesterday, they're disgusted because the government made decisions that made life worse. Scrapping winter fuel payments for everyone bar pensioners on the lowest incomes, stupid. Relishing the opportunity to cut £5bn worth of social security support to disabled people. Stupid. And getting caught with their muzzles in the freebie trough, and then defending it. Utterly, utterly stupid. Throw in their support for the genocide in Gaza, its Farage cosplay, and the unforced error of appointing Peter Mandelson, is it any wonder that Labour's base is splintering?

Going by the commentary offered by sundry Labour MPs on social media after the by-election, it's telling that those closest to the realities of working class life understand the issues. Clive Lewis's criticisms were particularly blunt and spot on. But what chances does Labour have of learning from this disaster? The track record is not looking good. When the SNP annihilated Scottish Labour in 2015, did the party pause and reflect? Did it think about who its voters are, or ask why so much of its working class base demonstrated little loyalty to the party's unionist shibboleth and switched from voting for an anti-independence to a pro-independence party? It did not. There was scant movement for the next nine years, hoping that the vote would return without changing much. And, as it happened, enough voters were cheesed off with the SNP in government to give Labour another go. And as polls now show, most of them now have buyer's remorse. That's the record, and in his leader's letter to MPs, Keir Starmer has argued that carrying out "change" means not changing anything at all.

It's an entirely predictable epistle. There's the retread of Alexander argument that it's all "impatience", and the woe today will surely be followed by jam tomorrow. And that the Greens' win is a one off. They "simply do not have the resources, the activist base or the local knowledge to replicate this victory across the country". Brave words from a campaign that spectacularly misread the constituency's mood in what was, before yesterday, Labour's 34th safest seat. He goes on and blames the "endorsement from George Galloway" and "sectarian" politics. This latter charge is typical of a party that is just itching to attack Muslims if they have the temerity to vote for anyone else. As plenty of people have pointed out, how sectarian is a vote that has endorsed a white women standing for a party led by a gay, Jewish man? Labour think they have the Greens bang to rights because the party issued a leaflet in Urdu that pictured David Lammy with Benjamin Netanyahu and Starmer with Narendra Modi. Proof that the Greens are in the gutter of communalist politics? Only someone utterly ignorant could make such an argument in good faith. Netanyahu is on there because his government has murdered over 100,000 Muslims, with the support of Labour. Modi is on there because under his premiership, he has encouraged Hindu extremism and anti-Muslim pogroms, all the while subjecting Muslim-majority Kashmir to brutal occupation. How dare British Muslims care about their friends and relatives, and be disgusted at Starmer's efforts to cosy up with the BJP. If Starmer wants to lecture others about division, he might want to reconsider his own policies first.

Starmer's letter pledges to carry on regardless. Just as his campaign tried to ignore the Greens by pitching the by-election as Labour Vs Reform, he's as intent on ignoring the reasons for Labour's defeat. An obviously suicidal attitude to take, but one typical of Labourism. Nevertheless, most Labour MPs quite like being Labour MPs and will be drawing their own conclusions. For every Clive Lewis or Nadia Whittome prepared to break ranks, there are scores of others who, quietly, know what the issues are. Yet, paradoxically, despite a humiliating defeat Starmer's position is probably strengthened in the short term. His reason for existing, to absorb the body blows of the coming meltdowns in Wales, Scotland, and the English local elections remains the case - ahead of the party selecting a new leader. Meanwhile, the Green insurgency continues. A new MP, 200,000 members, a confidence that left wing politics can see off Reform, whoever comes after Starmer it's hard to see how Labour can win back the activists, supporters, and voters it has so carelessly and needlessly shed. On the occasion of Labour's 126th birthday, Starmer's gift to the party has been a new historic low. One that, on its current trajectory, could be the first of many.

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