There is something endearingly ridiculous about Matt Goodwin. The gamekeeper turned poacher of national populism is like the Alan Partridge of political studies: self-important but not self-aware and in a relentless pursuit of self-promotion. He was responsible, during his (very) brief time as a ConservativeHome columnist, for the funniest article that I have ever edited. It was 300 or so words over the limit; I got it under simply by removing every adverb.
Nonetheless, as Goodwin’s career tergiversations have taken him from being a centre-left academic to a GB News host and Reform UK candidate, the succinctness of his political commentary has improved. His statement on why he lost the Gorton and Denton by-election wasted no words. ‘We are losing our country’, Goodwin lamented, since a ‘dangerous Muslim sectarianism has emerged’. Now, we ‘have only one general election left to save Britain’. The nation will be relieved to hear that he’ll stand again.
The Green Party’s triumph last night is an extraordinary development in British politics: a sign of just how our democracy’s traditional stability has collapsed, and a harbinger of further madness and misery to come. It was a signifier that the old party system is dead, that electoral sectarianism is here to stay and that the Britain that most of us hoped to live in is gone.
Hannah’s Spencer’s victory was emphatic. Before yesterday, the Greens had never received more than 10.2% of the vote at a by-election. But in Gorton and Denton, they won 40.6%, outperforming all expectations and constituency polls. If the 26.4% swing to them was repeated in a general election, they would win over 100 seats. If Labour MPs weren’t already panicking – and looking to smash the glass marked ‘Big Ange’ – they certainly will be now. Andy Burnham must be feeling rather smug. Even if Keir Starmer staggers on to May’s local elections, Zack Polanski’s boob-whispering spectre looms large.
But let us be clear. The Green victory was not based on a sudden wave of environmental concern among the good people of Greater Manchester. Spencer’s campaign relied far more on Gaza than Greenfinches. Campaigners were not out last night demanding ‘Net Zero Now!’, but with the flags of Palestine and Pakistan. Videos in Urdu pictured Starmer with Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi. Mosques were explicitly targeted for votes. Polanski knew what he was doing.
It’s bizarre to think that only a few years ago the Green leader was on the stage at a Liberal Democrat conference, extolling the virtues of Zionism. But, like Goodwin, he has followed his grift to its logical conclusion. If pursuing power means dropping the environment to combine fatuous talk of genocides with a litany of leftie tummy-tickling over rent controls and wealth taxes, so be it. How long a party of trans rights and enforced school secularisation can rely on the votes of conservative Muslims is an open question. But this is only the start of the Green wave.
The old parties can clutch their pearls and lament the breakdown of our multi-faith democracy into religious and ethnic enclaves – neatly summarised by the voting patterns of Gorton and Denton’s two halves – but they are in no position to complain. Both the Tories and Labour have previously played sectarian footsie when required, taking a photo with Modi here or calling for a ceasefire in Gaza there when they thought it might help them win.
This was the worst Conservative by-election performance since the 1980s, seeing them lose their deposit and three-quarters of their vote from the last general election. If it was at all doubted, May could well confirm that the Tories no longer exist as national political force; the brief, confident promise of Boris Johnson’s unifying 2019 victory long since dissolved. If the party is to survive, it will then have to accept that it largely now no longer exists beyond the prosperous South and rural areas, hoping to win back enough Lib Dem seats to force a hung parliament in which it can provide the experience to a Reform-Tory coalition or pact.
Until then, expect the forces that produced Spencer’s victory to strengthen. Expect Starmer’s authority over Labour to crumble further, for the Tories to disappear north of Watford Gap, for Polanski to cart his keffiyeh up and down the country – and for Goodwin to remain ubiquitous on our screens.
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