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Analysis of Gorton and Denton by-election by local politics professor Rob Ford
Hard to find anyone better placed to comment on the by-election - not only is Rob Ford one of the best-known political science professors in the UK, he lives in the next-door constituency, and he even co-authored a book with the Reform candidate Matt Goodwin! (This is not an indication of Ford's personal politics - he writes for The Guardian. Goodwin was an academic who drifted ever further to the right, now presenting on GB News and making racist comments about how being born in Britain doesn't make you British).
The Gorton and Denton by-election: a tale of two Manchesters?
Unpopular incumbent + fragmented opposition + unusual seat = unpredictable contest
But there is a wrinkle. These two chunks of the seat are not equally matched - the Manchester wards had 55,000 registered electors in them in the 2024 locals, while the Tameside wards had just 26,000. So the balance of electoral power splits about 2:1 in favour of the more diverse, graduate and urban liberal heavy Manchester wards.
...
This is also just not an area very open to voting for right wing politicians of any stripe. The Conservatives have not won any of these wards for decades, nor did UKIP manage any ward gains here at their peak. The combined right bloc vote in 2024 was just 22.4% - whereas in Runcorn and Helsby, which Reform gained, it was 34.1% (18.1% Reform, 16.0% Tory). There was a plausible path to victory for Reform in Runcorn just through consolidating the right vote. There is no such path for Reform in Gorton and Denton.
...
That hasn’t been Goodwin’s approach. Statements such as “It makes more than a piece of paper to make someone British” and “we need to stop migration into the UK from Islamic nations” may well cause concern among wavering Labour voters considering Reform in Denton, and will likely outrage many of the Muslim voters and young white graduates in the Manchester wards of the seat. Given that Reform need to maximise motivation in Denton and also maximise apathy and division in the Manchester wards, a candidate more likely than most to generate outrage and encourage voters to unite against Reform seems a strategic error.
...
However the Workers Party choose to prosecute their campaign, they are a problem for both of their left opponents, who cannot afford a three way split. The Greens have a head start in solving this problem as the campaigning organisation The Muslim Vote, who have supported successful independent Muslim candidacies and are perhaps conscious of the hazards of a split Muslim vote in this seat, have already endorsed the party without even waiting for them to pick a candidate. The Greens’ stances on Palestine and on domestic politics, and their anti-Labour populism, also put them closer to the typical WPB curious voter than Labour, the locally and nationally dominant party such voters are typically railing against.
https://swingometer.substack.com/p/the-gorton-and-denton-by-election
Unpopular incumbent + fragmented opposition + unusual seat = unpredictable contest
But there is a wrinkle. These two chunks of the seat are not equally matched - the Manchester wards had 55,000 registered electors in them in the 2024 locals, while the Tameside wards had just 26,000. So the balance of electoral power splits about 2:1 in favour of the more diverse, graduate and urban liberal heavy Manchester wards.
...
This is also just not an area very open to voting for right wing politicians of any stripe. The Conservatives have not won any of these wards for decades, nor did UKIP manage any ward gains here at their peak. The combined right bloc vote in 2024 was just 22.4% - whereas in Runcorn and Helsby, which Reform gained, it was 34.1% (18.1% Reform, 16.0% Tory). There was a plausible path to victory for Reform in Runcorn just through consolidating the right vote. There is no such path for Reform in Gorton and Denton.
...
That hasn’t been Goodwin’s approach. Statements such as “It makes more than a piece of paper to make someone British” and “we need to stop migration into the UK from Islamic nations” may well cause concern among wavering Labour voters considering Reform in Denton, and will likely outrage many of the Muslim voters and young white graduates in the Manchester wards of the seat. Given that Reform need to maximise motivation in Denton and also maximise apathy and division in the Manchester wards, a candidate more likely than most to generate outrage and encourage voters to unite against Reform seems a strategic error.
...
However the Workers Party choose to prosecute their campaign, they are a problem for both of their left opponents, who cannot afford a three way split. The Greens have a head start in solving this problem as the campaigning organisation The Muslim Vote, who have supported successful independent Muslim candidacies and are perhaps conscious of the hazards of a split Muslim vote in this seat, have already endorsed the party without even waiting for them to pick a candidate. The Greens’ stances on Palestine and on domestic politics, and their anti-Labour populism, also put them closer to the typical WPB curious voter than Labour, the locally and nationally dominant party such voters are typically railing against.
https://swingometer.substack.com/p/the-gorton-and-denton-by-election
Much more there. It looks like the left's problem will be a split vote (as Ford says, Andy Burnham would probably have united it handily), though with 'The Muslim Vote' supporting the Greens, that looks good for keeping the George-Galloway Workers Party vote low. How many former Labour voters will stay away, or go Green to send Labour a message?
And the right's problem is lack of experience with by-election organisation, and a candidate who, although he already has a high media profile, is extreme enough to encourage a "stop Goodwin" vote.
