Labour fears Green win more than Reform win in Manchester by-election

An advisor to Labour has suggested that the party fears a potential Green win more than a Reform win, in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election. Why? Because a Green victory could mark the beginning of the end for Labour.

Green leader Zack Polanski responded saying that prospect “sounds like an invitation”.

Labour says Greens winning would be "existential" for them.

Sounds like an invitation….https://t.co/0qbagSvIYp https://t.co/tGZsEguCgB

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) January 26, 2026

Citing an anonymous longtime “adviser to the leadership” of the Labour Party, the Times had reported that:

A Reform win would be terrible… But a Green win would be existential.

They suggested this was because, by losing to the Greens, Labour would:

forfeit their claim to challenge Reform entirely.

Current MP for Gorton and Denton, Andrew Gwynne, resigned this month over deteriorating health after his 2025 suspension for “offensive WhatsApp messages”. The Labour Friend of Israel had previously been a parliamentary under-secretary in Wes Streeting’s health department.

Starmer’s Labour: Siding with elites against everyone else

UK politics has shifted massively to the right in recent decades — with a brief interlude under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. And under Keir Starmer, we now have a Labour government chasing far-right votes, happily getting dodgy millionaire donations and serving the super-rich, sucking up to a warmongering fascist, and backing a settler-colonial genocide abroad.

Today, it’s utterly absurd to call Labour left-wing. Under Starmer, it has once again set up camp firmly in the crowded space on the UK’s right wing.

In fact, Starmer’s Tory-lite politics sums up liberal capitalism perfectly. Its soulless management of an unjust system, while uttering a few nice words here and there, just enables fascism to grow. And in the end, when it faces a choice between fascism and socialism, it prefers fascism.

In short, Labour and Reform are just two sides of the same coin. If you play the establishment’s games, you’ll get a different face, but it’s the same system of injustice and inequality.

An invitation to Labour’s retirement

The Greens are the only mainstream left-wing party in England (now representing 190,000 members) challenging the ideologies of both Labour and Reform. And while many on the left may still think they don’t go far enough, they seem like the best bet in Gorton and Denton by-election.

Most people in the country want nationalisation of key services, higher taxes on the super-rich, a fairer voting system, and a peaceful foreign policy. And there’s consensus on the left that defeating Labour and Reform will mean pulling together to fight for all that.

If Gorton and Denton really turns out to be an invitation to Labour’s eventual retirement from national politics, it’s one that we absolutely need to accept.

Featured image via the Canary