Starmer takes aim at rivals in battle for Labour to retain Gorton and Denton
The Prime Minister hit out at both the Green Party and Reform UK ahead of Thursday’s by-election.
Sir Keir Starmer hit out at the Green Party’s “disgusting” drugs policy and “toxic” Reform UK on a campaign visit ahead of the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Labour faces a battle to save the previously rock-solid Greater Manchester constituency in the face of a double electoral threat from both Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Zack Polanski’s Greens.
In 2024 Labour won the seat with a majority of 13,413 and more than half the vote, but the party’s plummeting popularity since Sir Keir entered No 10 means it could be vulnerable.
Sir Keir warned would-be Green supporters they could split the anti-Reform vote and allow the party’s candidate, GB News presenter Matt Goodwin, to enter Parliament.
The Prime Minister said: “In this by-election a vote for the Green Party is, in effect, a vote for Reform.
“And we saw in the by-election in Runcorn last year, where Labour lost by just a handful of votes, we got a Reform Member of Parliament. We mustn’t let that happen again.”
Sir Keir also took aim at Mr Polanski’s support for the legalisation of drugs.
“When it comes to the Green Party, look at their drugs policy: they say we should legalise heroin and crack cocaine,” Sir Keir said.
“Imagine what would happen in every park and every playground in this constituency if that happened.
“I have to say, as a father of a boy who’s 17-and-a-half, the idea that the Green Party would make the argument that just, in a few months’ time, it should be perfectly lawful to sell him heroin and crack cocaine… I find that disgusting.”
Hannah Spencer, the Green Party’s Gorton and Denton by-election candidate, has previously said she thought “decriminalising is a conversation that we need to have”.
Mr Polanski has said he wants to “legalise, regulate and control drugs”, arguing for a “public health approach by public health professionals”.
Sir Keir appeared alongside Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell and the party’s by-election candidate Angeliki Stogia at a campaign event.
His decision to visit the seat, where potential leadership rival Andy Burnham was blocked from standing, comes after he did not hit the campaign trail in last year’s Runcorn and Helsby by-election, where Reform’s Sarah Pochin won by six votes.
Sir Keir met Greater Manchester mayor Mr Burnham during his visit, with sources indicating the pair agreed on the importance of a united Labour movement in the fight against Reform.
Speaking to broadcasters in Gorton and Denton, the Prime Minister said: “This is a battle of values in this by-election.
“The values of the Labour Party, which wants to bring communities together in unity and hope, or the toxic division of Reform, that wants to tear our communities apart, that wants to break apart everything that we’ve stood for, for years and years in this country.”
