By Stephen Fisher, 27 February 2026

Yesterday Labour lost the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election. This was a constituency were they took 50.8% of the vote at the 2024 general election and an estimated 67.2% in 2019. 

With just 25.4% of the vote yesterday, it was their thirteenth biggest ever drop in vote share at a by-election. Labour’s vote dropped to half of what it was in 2024, and to just under two-fifths (38%) of their 2019 vote. Moreover, Labour had not lost a parliamentary election in the area since the 1931 election: a time when Labour lost four out of every five seats it defended following the collapse of the Labour government during the Great Depression.  

There are already several good analyses of the by-election result including these from (in alpha order), Stephen Bush, John Curtice, Peter Kellner, John Rentoul, Michael Thrasher, and Henry Zeffman, as well as some great pre-election commentary by Rob Ford. There’s lots of good relevant background analysis, including this from Jane Green and Marta Miori. 

I thought this might be a reasonable moment to share the piece below that I wrote for the Oxford Forum on how and why Labour’s support has collapsed since the 2024 general election. 

Since mid-November, when I finished the piece below, Labour’s support in the polls broadly stabilised at around 19%. So, despite numerous developments — including the Budget, Andy Burham being blocked from standing in the by-election, publication of the Epstein files, the departure of Morgan McSweney from number 10, the Scottish Labour Leader calling for Starmer to step down, and various controversial policy announcements and U-turns — Labour’s support in the polls has essentially been steady at around 19% since October.

We shall see if that continues to be the case. 

Perhaps the most important consequence of the by-election result is that it will encourage the Greens to challenge Labour in more places in local elections and for liberal-left voters to be more willing to vote Green in seats Labour are defending. The more success the Greens have at local elections in Labour seats the more they are likely to carry on challenging in Labour seats at the next general election. 

Continue reading Things continue to go badly for Labour →