The Greens are set to stage an all-out fight to win the upcoming Gorton and Denton byelection, with officials in the party arguing they have a real chance of victory after Andy Burnham was barred from applying to be the Labour candidate.
The Greens came third in the seat in the general election, nearly 14,000 votes behind Andrew Gwynne, the sitting MP who stepped down last week. But they plan to flood the constituency with activists in the hope of persuading locals they are the party more likely to defeat Reform UK.
While it is up to the local Greens to decide a candidate, it is expected that they could field Hannah Spencer, leader of the Green group on Trafford council, who stood against Burnham in the 2024 Greater Manchester mayoral election.
Defeat to the Greens, or a sufficiently high Green vote to allow a Reform win, would be a major blow to Keir Starmer, as well as significant embarrassment after he moved to ensure Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, could not stand.
One Green official said the aim would be to create a sense of momentum similar to that generated by Plaid Cymru in last October’s byelection in the Welsh Senedd seat of Caerphilly, where the Welsh party pushed Labour from first to third as it saw off a strong Reform challenge.
“It’s us or Reform,” the official said. “We’re serious. We will be throwing a lot of resources at this, and unlike the other parties we simply can’t afford to do that unless we have a chance of winning. Andy Burnham being blocked is a gamechanger for us.
“We obviously need to cement this narrative but people can feel that Labour are breaking apart.”
Zack Polanski, the Green leader, briefly considered standing in the seat – he comes from Manchester – but has opted to focus on winning a seat in London, where he lives.
However he was due in the constituency on Tuesday to kick off a campaign which the party hopes could see hundreds of activists delivering leaflets and knocking on doors at the weekend.
The Greens also plan a dedicated crowdfunding effort for the campaign, to raise money for leaflets and signboards.
One local activist said that while the party was unlikely to confirm a candidate for about a week, Spencer, who works as a plumber, was seen as a likely bet: “She used to live in the constituency and knows it well. Local people would see her as someone who would speak up for them.”
In a potential boost to both Labour and the Greens on Monday, George Galloway, the rabble-rousing former Labour MP who more recently represented Rochdale as a pro-Gaza independent, ruled himself out of the byelection after earlier suggesting he would stand.
The 71-year-old, who was first elected to parliament in 1987, announced that a local councillor, Shahbaz Sarwar, would instead stand for his Workers Party of Britain.
Sarwar unseated the deputy leader of Labour-run Manchester city council in 2024 and is expected to campaign heavily on Labour’s perceived failures over the Gaza conflict, but does not have the profile of Galloway.
