As a very long-time Labour voter, and occasional member, I’m nonetheless delighted by the result of yesterday’s Gorton and Denton by-election; won convincingly by the newly resurgent Green Party, with Labour plodding along in third place. The Tories were slaughtered; but not on this occasion to the obvious benefit of ‘Reform’ (our Right-Wing, populist party, for foreign readers), which came second, but 4,000 votes behind the Greens.

Clearly this result reflects public dissatisfaction with the two parties that have dominated British politics for the last eighty years, just as ‘Reform’ does over on the other side. This is the same constituency that propelled the radical Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party in the 2010s, albeit not for long. Both movements can be seen as expressions of disappointment with ‘conventional’ British politics, albeit coming from radically different directions. For the past few years it has been the Right that has exploited this most effectively, leaving ‘progressives’ like me desperately wishing that someone else could do the same for ‘our’ side. I wasn’t expecting the Greens to take on this role; but here we are!

Much of this can be put down to their choice of a candidate in this election, Hannah Spencer. She ticked all the boxes to mark her off from most conventional present-day politicians: young, a woman, non-university educated, and a professional plumber; with whom working-class voters – so long as they’re not male chauvinists – can easily identify. She also seems to have said very little in her campaign about the environment; which may be thought surprising for an overtly ‘environmental’ party, but may have done something to free it from the stigma of being a ‘single-issue’ and somewhat ‘wokeish’ body, and so broadened its appeal. Which of course any party has to do to if it aspires to the government of a whole nation. We’ll see whether the Greens can rise to this.

Of course, if this pattern were repeated nationally at the next General Election, the Greens could ally with another Left-leaning ruling party – Lib Dems or Labour – in order to exert influence that way. In Gorton and Denton the Greens and Labour together garnered more than half the total vote, which is bad news for the Right-wing ‘populists’, but promising for the ‘Progressive’ side. Here in Sweden that would ensure a Progressive national government automatically. But the UK of course has ‘FPTP’ to complicate things  (https://bernardjporter.com/2016/02/29/first-past-the-post/).

Still, a welcome sign that the Rightists are not having it all their own way.