Matt Goodwin blames loss to white woman on Muslims

Matt Goodwin was Reform UK’s candidate in the Gorton & Denton. As we reported, he ran a campaign which was openly antagonistic towards the Muslim community in the constituency. This wasn’t surprising, of course, as his campaign team was stacked full of racists.

Now that Goodwin has lost, he’s blaming the Muslim voters he repeatedly attacked for refusing to vote for him. And as comedian Tez Ilyas points out:

Lost to a blonde woman whose party leader is a gay Jew.

Those darn Muslims 😤 https://t.co/QXE4SJMJzJ

— Tez (@tezilyas) February 27, 2026

Matt Goodwin: that’s politics

We’re sorry, but have Reform completely forgotten how politics works?

You have to offer voters something besides open disgust.

Forgetting about the Muslims who didn’t vote Reform, why did Goodwin think a majority of Manchester residents would respond positively to his message? Manchester is one of the most multicultural and progressive cities in the country; of course they wouldn’t warm to this robotic, dead-eyed Islamophobe.

This is Goodwin’s message in full:

Statement:

“We are losing our country. A dangerous Muslim sectarianism has emerged. We have only one general election left to save Britain. Vote Reform every chance you get. I will continue the fight. I will always fight for you. I will stand at the next general election. Matt.” pic.twitter.com/2jLMNv0ap6

— Matt Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) February 27, 2026

For whatever reason, Goodwin chose to include an image of him looking at his phone. Maybe if he’d spent more time listening to local voters and less time hate-tweeting, things could have gone differently!

As Tez points out at the top, Goodwin’s message really exemplifies the hypocrisy of the right.

On the one hand, they want you to believe that Muslims are a hardline, antisemitic monolith who have failed to integrate; on the other, they want you to ignore that a considerable percentage of British Muslims just voted for an openly gay Jewish man.

So Farage wants us to believe that Muslim women were desperate to vote for Matt Goodwin but were coerced by their husbands into voting for a party led by a gay Jew instead?
Fucking hilarious.

— Sarah (@kokeshimum) February 27, 2026

It’s not just Goodwin who’s crying today; his would-have-been-boss Farage is also having a moan.

this is straight out of the trump playbook. never been clearer how important it is for us to unite and reject reform and their hate. tonight clearly shows it’s greens that are in the position to do it. https://t.co/g7ck6TY65w

— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) February 27, 2026

To be fair to Goodwin and Farage, neither is quite as extreme as Telegraph contributor Jake Wallis Simons:

We’ve reached ‘the Greens winning Gorton and Denton is the 1979 Iranian Revolution’ levels of hysteria https://t.co/ATOWvJn0e0

— Shabbir Lakha (@ShabbirLakha) February 27, 2026

A positive sign

The truth about politics is that most people don’t choose a candidate because they think that person is wholly in line with them. For most, they think about their own self interests first and foremost, and they vote for the politician who most closely aligns with them.

In Gorton & Denton, the Greens convinced more voters than any other party that they best represented their interests. And they did so with a message that society can be about more than pure individualism.

That’s a positive sign for the future, and for what this country can become.

Featured image via the Canary