Polls Open in England’s Tinder Box Special Election That Promises Nail-Biter Three-Way Finish

Residents in the towns of Gorton and Denton in Manchester are voting to select their next Member of Parliament in a three-horse race that has grown too close to call.

Campaigning is all but over in Gorton and Denton, a by-election (special election) called after the Labour incumbent of 20 years resigned from Parliament on health grounds following a scandal.

Gorton and Denton is a new constituency created in 2024, but its constituent parts have traditionally been Labour strongholds going back a century. Nevertheless, the Labour Party of Sir Keir Starmer is struggling nationally and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has been topping the polls for months.

Both Labour and the insurgent hard-left Greens have positioned themselves as the party best situated to prevent Farage getting another Parliamentary seat, and whether either will succeed or if they have only split the left wing vote will be revealed in the early hours of Friday morning after the votes are counted. The Associated Press reflects the three-way race between the Greens, Labour, and Reform is “too close to call”.

Indeed, the Green Party has accused Labour of being irresponsible for campaigning at all, such is the risk they perceive from a Reform win. Prime Minister Sir Keir, meanwhile stepped into the bounds of the incendiary earlier this week when he predicted the Gorton and Denton area will “descend into hostility” if Reform wins.

And each of those parties have, in a sense, everything riding on this vote. For Labour’s Starmer, to lose a traditionally hardcore Labour seat amid an avalanche of other scandals and issues could be the death of his leadership. The fact the Prime Minister himself went to campaign in the seat this week has, depending on perspective, been taken as a sign of desperation to throw everything at the seat, or a signal of quiet confidence that Labour believe they’re going to make it.