Gorton and Denton: Labour has failed us. Now it could hand the seat to Reform

On Thursday, the Manchester district of Gorton and Denton has a choice that will echo far beyond this constituency.

The forthcoming by-election is not a routine contest. It is a test of whether communities that have been taken for granted will finally use their power, and whether we will allow a split vote to deliver a Reform victory by default.

Let us be clear about the stakes.

The Labour Party is asking voters to rally behind it to stop Nigel Farage's Reform party. But Labour is not the firewall. Labour is the problem. In a race this tight, Labour risks becoming the vehicle that takes Reform over the line.

The constituency, with 76,000 potential voters, approximately 26 percent of whom are Muslims, is split demographically into the Gorton side, which is more ethnically diverse, and Denton, which is more white working class. Both have been traditional Labour voters. Recently, however, the right-wing Reform party has made inroads into the constituency in particular with voters disenchanted by both the Labour and Conservative Party's failures.

For a long time, many working class communities have been told to accept decline as normal.

Now the cost of living crisis has turned that decline into daily pressure: families cutting back on essentials, young people locked out of housing, wages stretched thin, and local life becoming harder and more insecure.

Public services are failing too, not as an abstract political argument, but in the lived experience of people who wait longer, travel further, and get less in return.

In Denton, residents talk openly about being forgotten, pointing to crumbling infrastructure and services that do not meet basic needs. 

Labour's moral failure

Labour promised change. Instead, trust is collapsing, because people can see that their lives are not improving in the ways they were told they would.

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For many voters, especially Muslim voters, Labour’s failure is not only economic and social. It is moral. 

The UK political establishment has enabled the devastation in Gaza through political cover and continued support for Israel, while humanitarian catastrophe has unfolded in front of the world.

Major human rights organisations have reached the gravest conclusions about what has been done to Palestinians in Gaza and what risks remain.

People have watched, protested, pleaded, written, organised, and been met with evasion and excuses.

People have been told to look away, to be pragmatic, to swallow their conscience for party loyalty. But moral clarity is not a luxury. When a party treats mass human suffering as a communications issue, it loses the right to demand automatic loyalty from communities whose values it has betrayed.

Borrowing from Reform

Labour’s response to Reform's rise has been to chase the terrain Reform wants: a politics of control, deterrence, and punitive signalling on immigration and refugees.

When Labour adopts the language and instincts that Reform thrives on, it does not shrink Reform, it normalises it, and it teaches voters that Reform sets the agenda.

When Labour adopts the language and instincts that Reform thrives on, it does not shrink Reform, it normalises it

If Labour tries to prove it can be tough in the same way, many voters will conclude that Reform is the original and Labour is the echo.

That is how you strengthen a threat you claim to oppose.

This by-election is being fought on margins. The latest Green internal polling is reported to put the Greens just 0.2 percent behind Reform, effectively level.

That means one thing in practice: any votes diverted back to Labour make it easier for Reform to win. Not because every Labour voter supports Reform, but because vote splitting is how Reform breaks through.

And we have proof.

In the recent council by-election in Fletton and Woodston in Peterborough, Reform won by a small margin. In percentage terms, Reform took about 39.9 percent of the vote, the Greens took about 37.3 percent, and Labour took about 22.8 percent.

That is Reform’s route to victory: not universal popularity, but a fractured field.

If the vote against Reform had consolidated behind the strongest challenger, Reform would very likely have been beaten. Instead, the split delivered them the seat.

Gorton and Denton faces the same danger. If Labour persuades enough voters to come home out of fear, it does not block Reform. It opens the door.

We have also seen the claim only Labour can stop Reform fail on its own terms.

Vote Greens

In the Caerphilly Senedd by election in October 2025, Plaid Cymru won, Reform came second, and Labour came third. Labour campaigned on fear. Voters chose the challenger who could actually win.

The "only Labour" script collapsed.

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The lesson is not complicated. When communities unite around the credible challenger, Labour’s scare line stops working. Reform can be stopped without rewarding Labour’s failures.

So what do we do on Thursday?

We stop letting Labour weaponise fear to demand obedience.

If you want to punish Labour’s failures on the cost of living, on public services, on the Gaza genocide, and on adopting the politics that empowers Reform, you can.

And if you want to stop Reform, you must vote with your eyes open.

This is not about ideological purity. It is about political reality. In a tight contest, fragmentation guarantees the worst outcome.

So the message is simple: unite around the Greens. Vote Green, to block Reform, and to end Labour’s assumption that our communities can be ignored, disrespected, and still counted as automatic.

Because if Labour gets its way, we may wake up on Friday with the most unforgivable result of all: Labour failing our communities, and then letting Reform in.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.