0:00
The Greens have surged in Greater
0:01
Manchester, winning the Gordon and
0:03
Denton bi-election. So, Hannah Spencer
0:05
beat out reform and pushed Labour into a
0:08
humiliating third place in what had been
0:10
one of their safest seats in the whole
0:12
country. And the Conservatives, remember
0:13
them? Well, they got 2% of the votes and
0:15
they lost their deposits. It means that
0:17
British politics is feeling more French
0:19
than ever with populist parties on the
0:21
left and the right squeezing out the
0:23
main contenders. So, how did we get to
0:25
this point? Well, it all started when
0:26
Andrew Gwyn, who was the long-standing
0:28
MP in the area, stepped down. There had
0:30
been reports for months that Manchester
0:32
Mayor Andy Bernham was looking for a
0:34
route back into Parliament. And this
0:35
seemed like the perfect moment for him,
0:37
but Kier Star used his still really
0:39
quite tight grip over the Labour Party
0:41
machinery to block Bernham from running
0:44
and then potentially being a leadership
0:45
contender. It was a controversial move,
0:48
especially as Bernham has enjoyed almost
0:49
North Korean levels of popularity in
0:51
Manchester in the nine years that he's
0:53
been mayor. The maneuver did make some
0:55
sense though for Star who otherwise
0:57
doesn't have a particularly obvious
0:58
successor in the cabinet. It did mean
1:00
that when he lost his chief of staff and
1:01
comms director within the same 24 hours
1:03
in February, there wasn't really enough
1:05
momentum to actually get rid of him.
1:06
With Bernham in parliament, that could
1:08
have been different. But the problem for
1:10
Star now is that Labour looks
1:11
desperately unpopular right ahead of
1:13
absolutely pivotal local elections in
1:16
May. Starmmer, for his part, has
1:17
described the result as very
1:19
disappointing as Labour's vote share
1:21
collapsed by 25%. And the green margin
1:24
of victory, a majority of 4,000, is a
1:27
bit of a surprise as it looked like they
1:28
were neck andneck with reform and labor
1:31
during the campaign. Nigel Farage, the
1:32
reform leader, was quick to suggest foul
1:35
play in the seat. He described the
1:36
bi-election as a victory for sectarian
1:39
voting and cheating. The electoral
1:41
commission has reported on concerningly
1:43
high levels of family voting. Meanwhile,
1:45
Tory leader Cammy Bedno has put out a
1:47
statement condemning what she describes
1:49
as grievance politics in the campaign.
1:52
She accused the Greens of a quote nasty
1:55
sectarian campaign and some of their
1:56
campaigning techniques were
1:58
controversial. The Greens put out
1:59
leaflets with Kstarma stood next to the
2:02
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and
2:04
David Lammy, the deputy prime minister
2:06
alongside the Israeli PM Benjamin
2:08
Netanyahu. They came under fire as well
2:11
for publishing social media videos in
2:12
Erdu and in Bangla. So, some
2:14
bi-elections reveal fundamental ruptures
2:17
in British politics. This feels like one
2:18
of them. And it raises an extremely
2:20
concerning question for Labour, which is
2:22
who is actually voting for them? And 18
2:25
months on from Kier Starma's very big
2:27
but very thin majority, has Labour's
2:29
support base collapsed? What seems sure
2:32
is that whatever comes next will test
2:34
the UK's political system to its limit.
