A by-election for the United Kingdom parliamentary constituency of Gorton and Denton was held on 26 February 2026, following the resignation of Andrew Gwynne on health grounds. Gwynne was sitting as an independent following suspension from the Labour Party for sending offensive WhatsApp messages.
Hannah Spencer of the Green Party won the by-election with 40.7% of the vote and a margin of victory of 4,402 votes, becoming the party's fifth MP and first in the North of England. It was the Green Party's first by-election victory and its highest vote share in a by-election, by a margin of 30 percentage points.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, applied to be the Labour candidate, but was blocked by the party's National Executive Committee (NEC), a decision Angela Rayner later called a mistake. Commentators described his bid as a possible springboard for a leadership challenge to Prime Minister Keir Starmer; Burnham later won the 2026 Makerfield by-election, amid the 2026 leadership crisis.
The result was widely considered a significant blow for the Labour Party, being its first election loss in Gorton since the 1931 UK general election and the seventh-largest Labour majority to be overturned at a by-election. Commentators described the result as seismic and historic, showing the rise of newer parties in British politics, and undermining Labour's political strategy.
Background Gorton and Denton is a predominantly urban constituency in Greater Manchester, comprising electoral wards of both the City of Manchester and the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside. Containing districts such as Burnage, Denton, Gorton, Levenshulme, and Longsight, the area is diverse, with left-leaning young professionals in Levenshulme, white working-class Reform UK–leaning voters in Denton, and a Muslim population (who make up about 28% of the seat) around Gorton. The constituency is the 15th–most deprived of England's 543 constituencies; 35 of the 40 neighbourhoods in the Manchester part of the constituency are in the 20% most deprived in the country, and 45% of the children in the constituency live below the poverty line. The constituency also includes Manchester's poorest neighbourhood, Longsight East, where average household disposable income is £23,000 a year, less than half that of the highest-income neighbourhood in the city.
Andrew Gwynne was first elected as the Labour Co-op MP for the constituency of Denton and Reddish in the 2005 UK general election, and was re-elected to the seat for the four subsequent parliaments. Denton and Reddish was abolished in the 2023 review of Westminster constituencies. In the 2024 UK general election, Gwynne won the new constituency of Gorton and Denton with 50.8% of the vote and a majority of 13,413. Gwynne served in the Starmer ministry as a health minister until February 2025, when he was dismissed from his ministerial role and suspended from the Labour Party as a result of antisemitic comments and comments about an elderly constituent he made in a private WhatsApp group.
Following his suspension, Gwynne sat in the House of Commons as an independent MP. Speculation began in mid-2025 that Gwynne would resign on health grounds so that Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, could stand in his seat. In September 2025, Gwynne denied that he would stand down and rejected the idea. There was also speculation that Burnham's allies were drawing up a list of possible constituencies where he could stand in a by-election, including Gwynne's; at the time, Gwynne said he had no intention of standing down before the May 2026 local elections. On 22 January 2026, Gwynne announced his resignation, citing "significant ill health" and advice from his doctor that it was unsafe for him to return to work. The following day, he was appointed Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead. The by-election, the second since the 2024 general election after the 2025 Runcorn and Helsby by-election, was formally called by Manchester City Council on 28 January.
Prior to the election, it was described as "very critical" by Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting in the context of Burnham's potential candidacy. A Sunday Times journalist also called it critical and noted the presence of Chancellor Rachel Reeves in Gorton instead of a scheduled trip to China. Days prior to the election, pollster Mark Diffley described it as "one of the most important elections of recent times", while political scientist Robert Ford said it could be "the day Labour's electoral Tinkerbell dies" in reference to the shift in support away from Labour to the Green Party and Reform UK.
Candidates The final list of 11 candidates was published on 3 February 2026. Pollsters and political commentators characterised the by-election as a three-way race between the Greens, Labour and Reform UK.
Labour Party
Blocking of Andy Burnham's candidacy
Following media and public speculation, Andy Burnham, the incumbent mayor of Greater Manchester and former MP for Leigh, requested approval to stand as Labour's candidate on 24 January. As a sitting directly elected mayor, the party's rules required him to seek the approval of the party's National Executive Committee (NEC) before putting himself forward for selection as a parliamentary candidate. The NEC met on 25 January and voted 8–1 against Burnham's candidacy, with most NEC officers – including Prime Minister Keir Starmer – voting against, NEC Chair and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood abstaining, and party Deputy Leader Lucy Powell voting for allowing Burnham to stand.
Burnham expressed his disappointment and concern about the impact of the ruling for Labour in the 2026 local elections, the 2026 Scottish Parliament election, and 2026 Senedd election. The decision was criticised by Labour members, with 53% of party members disagreeing with the NEC's move, and 50 Labour MPs and half a dozen Labour peers signed a letter objecting to the NEC's decision. Unison head Andrea Egan expressed frustration at the decision, saying that members of the union would be "disappointed and angry". Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner had previously declared the idea of the NEC preventing Burnham standing as a "stitch up", before the ruling was announced.
The by-election had been framed by the media as a route for Burnham to return to Westminster and potentially challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership. Labour figures were reported to be concerned that Burnham's candidacy would trigger a by-election for the position of mayor, which would be expensive and politically risky for the party. Burnham's application to stand in the by-election was supported by some senior Labour figures, including Powell, Rayner, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, and organisations Mainstream and Momentum.
Candidate selection Angeliki Stogia, a councillor for the nearby Whalley Range ward, an employee of the Arup Group, and a professional lobbyist, was announced as the Labour Party candidate on 31 January, beating Eamonn O'Brien, the leader of Bury Council. Fellow Manchester City Council members Rabnawaz Akbar, Abid Latif Chohan, and Julie Reid were also on the longlist. Stogia is originally from Arta, in Greece. As a councillor, her local credentials were noted by Labour insiders speaking to The Guardian as a contributing factor to her victory in a close race. Stogia previously stood as a Labour candidate for North West England in the 2014 European Parliament election and Chester South and Eddisbury in the 2024 general election.
Reform UK Matt Goodwin was announced as the Reform UK candidate on 27 January. He is a conservative political commentator, right-wing activist, GB News presenter, and former professor at the University of Kent. He is also honorary president of the party's student wing, Students4Reform. Goodwin stated that, as a student at the University of Salford, he used to deliver pizzas in the constituency area. He lives in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Zia Yusuf had previously been mentioned as a potential candidate.
Green Party On 30 January, the Green Party announced that its candidate was Hannah Spencer, a councillor on Trafford Council for Hale in Greater Manchester, who had been the Green candidate in the 2024 Greater Manchester mayoral election. Spencer, a plumber, is a life-long resident of Greater Manchester and said that she previously lived in the constituency. She was selected by the local party at an online hustings event the night before: with 457 votes, she beat Muslim Greens co-chair Fesl Reza-Khan (65 votes) and local campaigner Sarah Wakefield (63 votes).
Other political parties The Conservative Party announced on 1 February that its candidate would be Charlotte Cadden, a former detective chief inspector who was a police officer for 30 years and had served with both Greater Manchester Police and the Metropolitan Police. She is a trustee of the anti-trans rights group Sex Matters. The Liberal Democrats announced on 30 January that their candidate would be Jackie Pearcey, a local resident, school governor, and president of the North West Liberal Democrats, who had previously stood in 1997, 2001, 2017, and 2019 in Manchester Gorton, which covered the western part of the current constituency.
On 1 February 2026, Advance UK announced its candidate as charity worker Nick Buckley, a former member of Reform UK who stood for the party in the 2021 Greater Manchester mayoral election, coming fifth, and then in the 2024 Greater Manchester mayoral election as an independent candidate, where he came third. The magazine Searchlight criticised Buckley for having invited Nick Griffin, the former leader of the far-right British National Party, onto his podcast, Nick Talks, a week before his selection as Advance UK's candidate.
The Social Democratic Party announced on 29 January that its candidate would be Sebastian Moore, the party's North West Chair, who previously stood as the party's candidate in Manchester Central in 2024. Rejoin EU announced on 31 January that its candidate would be Joseph O'Meachair, a member of the party's executive committee who stood for the party in Preston in the 2024 general election. The candidate for the Communist League was Hugo Wils, an aerospace factory worker and member of Unite the Union. The candidate for the satirical Official Monster Raving Loony Party was Sir Oink A-Lot, who previously stood for the party in the 2015 Oldham West and Royton by-election and the 2023 Manchester City Council election in Northenden, with the party stating it was "hamming it up and bringing home the bacon" with its "local candidate", who was "the whole hog" and had "Think Big, Vote Pig" as the campaign slogan. The candidate for the Libertarian Party was Dan Clarke, who stood for the Liberal Party in Runcorn and Helsby in the 2024 general election and in the 2025 Runcorn and Helsby by-election.
Parties who did not contest Initially, the Workers Party of Britain's leader George Galloway, who lost his seat of Rochdale at the last general election, said he would stand if Burnham became the Labour candidate. On 27 January, it was reported that the party selected Manchester City Councillor Shahbaz Sarwar as its candidate, but on 28 January the party said that it had not yet chosen its candidate and would choose from a list of four contenders, including Galloway and Sarwar. On 1 February, the party announced that it had decided not to stand in the Gorton by-election, describing it as "in the best interests of the working-class" for Labour and Reform to lose.