Labour admit Greens are ‘hammering’ them in Gorton & Denton

According to an unnamed cabinet minister, the Greens are “hammering” them in Gorton & Denton. This is a stark admission from a party insider, demonstrating that they gravely underestimated the Greens:

Exclusive from @patrickkmaguire and our podcast The State of It

Labour has accused the Greens of “whipping up hatred” among Muslim voters before this week’s pivotal by-election after they called for Sir Keir Starmer’s party to be “punished for Gaza”

A cabinet minister said that…

— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) February 24, 2026

Hammered

The above post is from the Times‘ political editor Steven Swinford. Perhaps the most interesting part is this quote from an unnamed ‘senior cabinet minister’:

The Greens are whipping up hatred and deliberately raising the salience of Gaza. They’re hammering us. They’re a totally different party to the one we thought they were. They’re just like Respect — it’s like fighting a by-election against George Galloway.

Just think about that.

Labour are upset that a rival party is highlighting an important issue that voters are justifiably upset about — said issue being that successive UK governments provided political and material support to a foreign nation committing a genocide.

What did they expect?

Well, we know what they expected, and it was to sweep the issue under the rug.

Under the duopoly of Labour and the Conservatives, there was always a tacit agreement that the two parties and the establishment media would ignore certain issues. The problem is that between parties like the Greens and independent outlets like the Canary, there is now a voice for the legitimate grievances people feel.

Eleanora O’Cualáin (Stats for Lefties) said the following:

Fucking incredible quote here basically admitting that Zack Polanski has transformed the Greens into a serious electoral force, particularly funny given that Adrian Ramsay was predicting that Zack would destroy the party entirely https://t.co/6acmAYAZdo pic.twitter.com/B8KPBoUn23

— Eleanora O'Cualáin 🏳️‍⚧️🇮🇪 (@EleanoraStats) February 24, 2026

And we KNOW that would have happened because some older melt Greens are already saying they're uncomfortable with the party being so mean about Starmer (see: Jenny Jones), and they're pushing back even though it's reaping electoral benefits. If they were in charge, we'd be DOA

— Eleanora O'Cualáin 🏳️‍⚧️🇮🇪 (@EleanoraStats) February 24, 2026

The previous Green Party administration ‘hung candidates out to dry’ for opposing Zionism and genocide. The Canary writer Maddison Wheeldon was one such candidate, and she wrote Polanski ‘must hold firm’ if the failed centrists try to reassert control.

Greens are appealing to voters

Swinford also reported:

Hannah Spencer, the Green candidate, has distributed leaflets in Gorton & Denton in Urdu, saying that voters should “make Labour pay” and accusing them of pushing “racist, dog whistle gutter policies”

On the leaflet, she is wearing a keffiyeh, the Middle Eastern scarf commonly associated with Palestine

On Monday, the party circulated a campaign video in Urdu accusing Matt Goodwin, the Reform UK candidate, of being someone who will “fuel the flames of Islamophobia”

The video shows Starmer shaking hands with Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister of India, and also shows David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, shaking hands with Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. The video cuts to aerial footage of Gaza as Spencer, speaking in Urdu, says: “Politicians aren’t working for us.”

Labour want you to believe it’s unfair to speak to the issues voters care about; that it’s wrong to worry about anything besides the establishment-approved problems they permit us to consider.

Well, we’re sorry, Labour, but those days are over.

Featured image via Barold