Zack Polanski predicts 'tidal wave of new Green MPs' at next election after historic Gorton and Denton win
The Green Party leader also took a swipe at Labour's "dirty" campaign, while the party's chair told LBC News she was in tears when the result came in
Green Party leader Zack Polanski has predicted a "tidal wave of new MPs" representing his party at the next general election following the historic Gorton and Denton by-election triumph.
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Hannah Spencer clinched the Greater Manchester seat with 14,980 votes - a majority of 4,402 ahead of Reform UK's Matt Goodwin who came second with 10,578.
The win marks the Green's first-ever parliamentary by-election win, with Spencer becoming the party's fifth MP, in a result which mounts pressure on Sir Keir Starmer's premiership with Labour coming in third.
Reacting to the win, Mr Polanski said: "If we see a swing like this at the next general election, there will be a tidal wave of new Green MPs.
"When I was elected leader of the Greens I said we were here to replace Labour and I meant it.
"Hannah was a fantastic candidate and I know she’ll make a brilliant MP."
Read more: Reform councillor blasts 'cult' around Nigel Farage as he defects to Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain
He added: "This used to be one of Labour's safest seats. In this by-election almost half of their 2024 voters abandoned them and many switched to voting Green, meaning they finished third.
"The Green Party saw a record-breaking swing in our direction and more than tripled our vote."
The party leader took a further swipe at Labour by accusing the party of fighting a "shameful" and "dirty campaign," adding that they "spread lies about Green policies."
He continued: "They knew they couldn’t win, but they risked splitting the vote and letting Reform in.
"People everywhere will now know that voting Green is the way to defeat Reform.
"Many ex-Labour voters told our canvassers that they will never go back to a party that supports genocide, fuels racism, and has failed to deliver on its promise to improve life for people across the country."
The by-election sparked a row overnight amid concerns over "concerningly high levels of family voting" in the area.
Official election observers, Democracy Volunteers, said they attended 22 of the 45 polling stations in the constituency on Thursday, and claimed to have witnessed family voting in 15 locations.
But Manchester City Council has hit back at the organisation, saying it has received no reports of "undue influence on voters".
Family voting is an illegal practice where two voters either confer, collude or direct each other on voting and can involve husbands telling their wives how to vote.
In her victory speech, Spencer took aim at what she suggested was a billionaire class bleeding the working class dry.
She said: "We are being bled dry, and I don't think it's extreme or radical to think that working hard should get you a nice life."
Spencer added: "We are sick of our hard work making other people rich."
In a message to her constituents, she said: "I will earn your trust.
"The cracks that have started to show can be healed. We don't have to accept being turned against each other at all.
"We did this with the people who live here. Shoulder-to-shoulder. This is Manchester and we do things differently here."
Speaking to LBC News, chair of the Green Party, Baroness Jenny Jones, admitted she was in tears when the result came in.
The former Deputy London Mayor told Chris Golds on Friday morning: "It's quite emotional actually.
"I cried when she won. It was spectacular, it's fantastic. She's going to be a brilliant MP and we'll be welcoming her to the House of Parliament on Monday."
Baroness Jones added: "I suppose it was a tough fight, a three way fight with a very well established political party, the Labour Party, who'd held the seat before for decades and decades and against a sort upcoming party that are now reformed that I now think might have peaked.
"Because what we did in the election, we actually talked about a completely different sort of politics. We talked about politics of hope and actually lifting people out of poverty concern about things like clean air and fly tipping and things that matter to the, to the local people.
"The reform message was, was much more hate-filled. And although people wanted change, which is why they clearly voted in three way contest, I think that our policies reverberated."