Gorton & Denton by-election thread

[fromorbit]

This dramatic byelection to be held on Thursday 26 February 2026 is looking likely to have a confrontation over sex and gender with the Conservative's just announced candidate Charlotte Cadden being a trustee for Sex Matters. Another factor is with a large Muslim population in the area the group Muslim Vote has endorsed the Green candidate despite one of their aims to be remove teaching about LGBT issues from schools when religious parents object. Obviously in conflict with Green policy.

Candidates

• Angeliki Stogia will be the Labour candidate in this year's election. Ms Stogia moved to the UK from Greece in the 1990s and has served as a councillor in Whalley Range since 2004.
• Reform UK have selected GB News presenter Matt Goodwin as their candidate. He studied at the University of Salford and went on to have a career as a commentator and academic.
• The Liberal Democrats have selected local campaigner Jackie Pearcey as their candidate. She lives in the constituency and previously won 2,600 votes at the 2017 elections.
• The Green Party have put forward Hannah Spencer to stand for them at the by-election. She is a plumber by trade she is from Bolton and has lived in Greater Manchester all her life, and is based in Hale where she is a councilor. She doesn't believe biology is important in deciding gender.
• The Conservative Party have chosen former detective chief inspector Charlotte Cadden as their candidate. She served for 30 years in GMP and London's Met.
• The Re-join EU Party have announced that Joseph O'Meachair will be their candidate. He is a member of the party's executive committee and lives in the North West.

Sebastian Moore (Social Democratic Party)
The Social Democratic Party announced on Friday 30 January that the current SDP North West Chair Sebastian Moore will be running as their candidate in the by-election.

Nicholas Brendan Buckley Advance UK

He is a British charity worker and political figure who previously represented Reform UK.

Dan Clarke is the Libertarian Party candidate

Sir Oink A-Lot
Sir Oink A-Lot is The Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidate

https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/elections/parl.gorton-and-denton.by.2026-02-26/gorton-and-denton/

The just announced Conservative candidate has serious form:
Former detective chief inspector Charlotte Cadden is a lesbian served for 30 years as a Police Officer, both for Greater Manchester Police and the Metropolitan Police - Charlotte is a trustee of the charity Sex Matters, a member of the LGB Alliance Business Forum. She coordinates the Women’s Rights Network in Greater Manchester, In 2023, she set up the national Police SEEN.

Galloway's Worker's Party have now decided not to stand. They may have attracted a bunch of Muslim votes which will now go elsewhere.

Any hustings are going to be rather interesting.

It could that you just haven’t picked up on the message given out in certain circles.

I am part of certain social circles (they are generally nice but left leaning) and any kind of statement that one is proud to be British or English would go down like a lead balloon.

I’ve had people saying it to me with a slight nervousness, carefully watching for my reaction and relieved when I agree.

Even posters on Mumsnet have reacted quite unpleasantly to the idea that we might be proud. Some on the left seem to have a visceral self hatred of their Englishness and ‘white privilege’ and attack those who don’t share their views.

It really is not propaganda.

That’s a good observation of the views of the 5 pillars guys - they really are right wing.

I am genuinely bamboozled at how ZP thinks his hard left values align with groups like 5 Pillars and why they would vote for him. What has he promised them in return for votes?

The 5p guy on x is furious with Labour, claiming that they do nothing for Muslims (so all their efforts so far, upsetting huge swathes of the British public are in vain) but will vote for the Greens.

Is this an exact replica of the deal in Iran where the socialists helped the Islamists overthrow the Shah but then were executed once power was achieved? Is that politically feasible if the Greens win (without the actual executions obviously) - will the 5p guys be able to take over the Greens?

There's no doubt been challenges like that. But it's gone alongside real change being managed from within labour. More women in parliament than ever before and they are focussed on the really tricky areas. . The proportion of state educated is higher. That's much more important for me than whether an individual is patronising. It's going to have a material.large scale effect. You only have to.look at reform- the tokenism- the women.....

Oh I could tell you multiple stories about patronising left wing men having come across them by being in close proximity to at least two big trade unions. Sadly I can’t as they would be very outing.
Give me an old-fashioned sexist any day; I have decades of experience of dealing with that type and in the majority of cases they soon saw sense 😁

The Labour women in parliament have in general been a massive disappointment and in some cases have actively worked against women, unless they are those newer shinier women, you know, the ones with penises. And trade unions are still focused on men.

And the women in Labour are not also 'tokenistic'?

We get it Zack men with beards get to say whatever they want and treat women as second class, women are silenced.

Yep, that explains a lot! Perfectly said.

I could tell you lots of stories about left wing men.

I know I sometimes bore people with how often I mention this, but the extremely rapey Socialist Workers Party is organising a big "anti-racism" rally at the end of March. This is being funded by the unions and has been endorsed by dozens of Labour and Green politicians and left leaning celebrities.

Nobody seems to have a problem with this. In fact the media, even the right leaning media, are curiously unwilling to mention the SWP. Brendan O'Neill is happy to take the piss out of Steve Coogan and Paloma Faith for their political interventions, but even Brendan doesn't mention that it's friends of Martin Smith who are organising the bloody thing.

It should not, in principle, be difficult to say "I don't like Tommy Robinson, but the SWP is rapey as fuck and I would rather not endorse any initiative that they are organising."

Even on FWR it's very difficult to get partisan left wingers to say this. Maybe it's just a kind of NPC programming where the brain doesn't go beyond "left good, right bad". There are Labour supporters who are very very keen to do guilt by association when, let's say, Matt Goodwin has had a conversation with an academic who has some spicy takes, but are utterly unconcerned about Labour MPs sharing platforms with rape defender Weyman Bennett.

And utterly unconcerned about young women who thought they would be safe in the SWP because it talked a good game about women's liberation, only to find that, when they reported their experiences of sexual assault, they were met with questions from the investigating committee about whether they liked a drink, and moreover they had SWP-aligned academics putting it about that they were MI5 provocateurs. That's what our Labour partisans find acceptable in their allies.

5 pillars are particularly aggrieved about "un Muslim" female MPs and really have it in for Shabana Mahmood and Zarah Sultana. The 2 women are nominally on the same political wing (though comrade Sultana would likely see Mahmood as an outright fascist) and Mahmood was facing activists in her constituency openly telling people that voting was un Islamic and particularly for her.

https://5pillarsuk.com/2025/09/10/female-muslim-mps-are-falling-way-short-of-islamic-standards/

I don't think Sultana has actually had to face the sustained opposition from the Concerned Brothers that Mahmood has. Yet.

https://nitter.net/RmSalih/status/1989368351047713208#m

Ah yes ....I too foresee a little snag.

With all due respect the SWP are not your government in waiting. And Matt Goodwin is in a party with James Orr , the philosopher who thinks abortion should be illegal at any time , under any circumstances. As well as having some spicy takes himself , especially about reproduction and womens rights.

With all due respect, you're quite happy to have your government MPs sharing a platform with Weyman Bennett.

Didn't you get the memo? It's only bad if you enable rapists and paedophiles if you're on the conservative end of politics. Left wingers can cover up mass rape with impunity.

We have a woman chancellor- but she is her own person. They are active agents. Women in labour mostly expect to enact a radical agenda in the sense of effecting and leading change. This is sometimes because they've advanced through trade unions which are run by members or through community links. They've been part of the community or workplace agenda and expect to make the agenda.

True, true. The Camillas & Joffreys would have conniptions if they ever dipped a toe into the working class WhatApps with which I'm familiar.
Too many fart jokes, for a start.

Remind me again which party is up to its neck in covering up for the grooming gangs.

That might just be because you know people who like fart jokes?
Aside from that I must qualify because I've genuinely never met anyone called Joffrey other than on game of thrones. And I don't know any Camilla's.

Try asking most left wing people what they are proud of in England and you'll likely be told nothing, and get something about racism and white privilege instead.. The only acceptable narrative is that it's a terrible country. You wonder why they dont all leave then.

Women in labour mostly expect to enact a radical agenda in the sense of effecting and leading change. This is sometimes because they've advanced through trade unions which are run by members or through community links. They've been part of the community or workplace agenda and expect to make the agenda.

Strewth, you're definitely funnier than fart jokes. Try reading the Monaghan Report, then ask yourself why GMB staff were threatening to strike a year after that report. I'll give you a pointer; nothing had improved. Nothing. Still hasn't.
I'm an ex-Labour member, ex-Union member & these days I wouldn't vote for any MP with direct links to a TU. Not one of them.

Are you Australian?
Well that's one take. Has it occurred to you you are allowed to be a labour MP and hold a critique of trade unions or of your own experience of one? Your path has been to exit, some people choose change from within. We are all within something.
I agree many abuses go unrecognised.

Thanks for this.

I have messages popping up on my social media, WhatsApp groups and emails about the Stop The Far Right march but not one has defined what is meant by "The Far Right" or said who is organising it.

The march clashes with the Green Party online Spring Conference but some Green Party members are organising a Green Block within the march and encouraging groups within the Green Party to endorse the march.

“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box.”
George Orwell
England, Your England
1941

What we learned from BBC Gorton and Denton debate

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98q4e59rj9o?

Labour and Greens vie for Gorton and Denton’s large Muslim vote - Hyphen
https://hyphenonline.com/2026/02/17/gorton-denton-muslim-vote-reform-labour-greens-by-election/

I've no attraction to Reform, but to suggest that Labour is not heavily invested in appointing people based on their protected characteristics is plainly false. There are continual calls for women to be appointed within the Labour party....in spite of the fact the Tories have managed it three times without the need for such overt selection policies.

Are you really suggesting that Suella Braverman, for one, is not her own person and an active agent?

It is not just the Left that can be 'radical' ...certainly not if 'change' is your only criteria.Have to say, at present, Labour's female union leaders are completely sold on trans ideology...it is a real issue when even the nurse's union would not support its own members. and when female Labour party members call for other women to be de-selected or thrown out of the party for wanting to maintain sex based protections.

I love that quote from Orwell. I also love that the quote demonstrates that there are, and have always been, plenty on the left who critique their own side. It doesn't, however, prove that "most left wing people" are proud of nothing about England.

They might be quietly in the depths of their being, but it is not considered correct to say so. You have to be anti British and certainly anti English. The English are colonizers you know!

Where i live in Liverpool there is this intensely annoying slogan " Scouse not English" ( based on a large historic Irish migrant community).