People power led the Greens to victory in Gorton and Denton

Hannah Spencer’s win in Gorton and Denton has transformed the face of British politics. Across the country this weekend, we’re waking up to a changed political landscape after she beat both Reform UK and Labour by a hefty margin to become the constituency’s first Green MP. A tradeswoman from Manchester prised open the door to Westminster – and that door won’t ever shut.

It’s worth remembering just how improbable this result would have seemed just a few months ago. Gorton and Denton was our 127th target – and a “safe” Labour seat, with Keir Starmer’s party winning a majority of almost 13,500 votes.

And yet last Thursday, Hannah took on both the billionaire donors and the smears of the political establishment, and won. She beat Labour into third place, and firmly secured a win over Reform with a majority of 4,402 votes.

Predictably, in the aftermath, there have been attempts to undermine that result. Allegations of supposed “family voting” have circulated and been contested by the returning officer. Any credible accusation of wrongdoing must be investigated, and where wrongdoing has occurred, it must be addressed.

Due process matters. But it is wrong to throw around insinuations in order to delegitimise the democratic choice of thousands of local people. I don't think anyone seriously thinks this would have impacted on the result. We won because we earned trust on the doorstep, not because of conspiracy theories pushed by sore losers.

Others in Labour have suggested that the Greens ran a “sectarian” campaign. That is simply untrue. Our campaign was rooted in inclusion. Yes, we produced videos in Urdu, because we believe that voters should be spoken to, not spoken about. Reaching out to communities in the languages they use at home is not division; it is democracy. In a constituency as diverse as Gorton and Denton, making politics accessible is a strength, not a weakness.

What this result really exposes is something deeper: Labour’s leadership still does not grasp why it has lost – and lost badly – in places it once considered untouchable. Starmer and his allies appear determined to blame anyone but themselves: the voters, the Greens, the weather. But in 2024, voters lent Labour their support because they were sick of a Tory party in a death spiral and desperate for change.

What they have seen instead is a government mired in scandal and U-turns, waging war on its own base, backing policies that alienate core supporters, and failing to offer meaningful improvements to people’s lives. Until Labour understands that, it will keep haemorrhaging support.

So it’s no surprise that, last week, voters in Gorton and Denton chose something different: a working-class Green candidate who laid out clear plans to end rip-off Britain. From rent controls to cleaner rivers, while Reform peddled division and Labour tried to mislead voters, Hannah was clear about what she would offer residents.

This is a turning point, not just for the people of Gorton and Denton, but for the whole country. It shows that Greens can win anywhere – that people pounding the pavements for a candidate they believe in can beat the billionaire press, the smears from Reform and the misinformation of a party that has forgotten who it was built to serve. From the start of this campaign, we knew it would be a fight between big money and people power – and we have shown that people power can prevail.

And it shows that the Green message of affordability and bold economics, paired with compassion and humanity, can take the fight to the authoritarian threat growing in our communities – and win.

For too long, Labour has taken voters for granted in places like Gorton and Denton, assuming that however far it strayed from its values, no matter how many promises it broke, its voters would have nowhere else to go. As a result, it has too often echoed the language of division rather than confronting it, while doing too little to address the real pressures people face: housing costs, stagnant wages, collapsing public services and polluted rivers.

After last week, that assumption no longer holds. Voters in Gorton and Denton were brave – voting for what they wanted, not holding their nose and backing the “least worst option”, as they’ve been told to do for years.

Make no mistake, this win will reverberate around the country. On Friday, I was in Manchester, celebrating Hannah’s victory. On Saturday, I was in Hackney, Islington and Walthamstow, campaigning to elect Green mayors and councillors in May. A Green wave is no longer a distant hope; it is within reach.

This is just the start. It shows what’s possible when communities refuse to be taken for granted – and when politics is done with them, not to them.

Zack Polanski is the leader of the Green party of England and Wales

Photograph by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images