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.

Zack is a salesman. Plenty of good.people in the Greens before it was taken over by people who dont care about the environment.

More sunlight on the greens and Zak in particular can only be a good thing

That is enormously concerning.

We need to mothball postal voting or make it hard to get and introduce proper voter ID and lets be honest probably need police stationed at polling booths. As someone from an ethnic minority myself this hurts my heart, my dad made sure we each registered to vote and then hassled us to go vote to make sure we exercised our democratic right as British citizens. Never would he had thought my vote was his. Women are being disenfranchised basically. This has been happening for ages, it’s not new, hopefully Labour will start seeing the sense in tightening up the system (now that they are losing out).

Absolutely. More questions, more accountability.

I wish they'd won on an environmental ticket, rather than 'We'll give everyone free money' ticket.

Agreed, I'd much rather have seen Reform win this.

The Greens will take a fair few seats in the next GE imo.. the Muslims will vote as a bloc for whoever will benefit them most as a distinct ethnic group

Until such time that the islamic party of Britain is set up the Greens are the useful idiots that that will do.

Depressing as fuck. Hate Greens and Reform. It’s a no from me. Labour need to get their shit together.

Indeed

reforms message - it's all immigrants/woke liberal elites fault you feel your life is out of control and the country is spiralling into disaster. We'll bin off anything to do with equality & equity.

greens - it's all far right/elite rich ppls fault you feel your life is out of control and the country is spiralling into disaster. We'll tax the rich and give their money to you

labour - don't ask us, we're paralysed by our inability to relate to the voters, understand why they're so pissed off or do anything about it because we keep shooting off our own feet

it's fucking playground politics.

are there any grown up politicians?

They're unleashing perverted men into women's toilets and changing rooms!

Give your head a wobble.

I agree with you on the issues. Some women want privacy from the male gaze for religious/cultural reasons; some because of past trauma and some because they do and that's reason enough.
However, voting for political parties is about compromise. It's very rare that a political party matches your outlook completely. For example someone with naturally left tendancies might vote for the Conservatives or Reform because single sex spaces is their red line. Likewise somebody else might vote Green because it ticks other non-negotiable boxes even though they disagree with their stance on trans issues or other issues.
I have written quite a few long rants about Farage. He's my least favourite person. But I can understand why people vote for Reform (at least some of the reasons). I think it's quite easy to get into a mindset of panic that if (eg) 30%of people vote for a party you never would then that 30% must have opposite/inconorehensible values. Or even "unBritish" values. But its not how it works always. And even when people do have red lines on positions you/I don't agree with (say abortion or Gaza) its not automatically an opposite values issue.

No they're just going to massively over promise a world of unicorns where everyone is lovely and there will be plenty of money for everyone and everything

then just like reform have found in the local authorities they run they'll come up against hard economic reality and find they can't deliver the unicorns after all. All the hope that ppl felt voting for them will be turned against them and if anything ppl will be even angrier because of the hope not materialising

oh and of course they won't be able to do anything for women as they're unable to define what one is

I agree with those who are saying the GPEW are going to find it difficult to square the circle of support for LGBT+ rights with Muslim conservatism. However, my Labour candidate at the local elections, a Muslim, appeared to take my concerns about trans identifying men in women's spaces seriously. And then right at the end, said 'but we are used to men dressing as women in our culture, it is not something new to us'. I admit I died a bit inside. Muslim men from other countries where they have these men, don't see a problem. Because those men dressed as women use their own spaces. They do not understand that our men in dresses want to be in women's spaces.
As with a lot of people, they do not see the problem. They do not see that if you change laws to allow these men into women's spaces, that means all women's spaces. Spaces where your daughters and wives and mothers are.

Is Gaza the only reason Muslims voted for the greens? I'm struggling to see the appeal beyond that one policy

They knew there was likely to be a high incidence of voters fraud. They should have policed it properly

How would that work in a first past the post system where Muslims make up 6-8% of the overall population and even in places like GandD are at about 28%? Even if they all coordinated with perfect hive minded precision "the Muslims" could return a couple of candidates at most in a GE. I dont think it's sensible to worry about an Islamic Party of the UK sweeping to victory in a landslide general election. It's also not as if the Greens bought "the Muslim vote" by promising to enact Sharia law, so I don't think that's on the cards either. I doubt anyone who voted Green thought they were backing a socially conservative party so the Greens haven't had to pander by radically changing their policies. (Their stance on Gaza may well have helped them but I think that would have been their stance anyway. They're Lefties).

Plus you can't blame just Muslims for the result even if it's not the results you wanted. For the Greens to have gotten the results they did plenty of non-Muslims will have had to have voted for them.

I don't think the people lamenting the Greens' win are necessarily supporting Reform. "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right ..."

Yes, the evidence showing muslim men were controlling their wives and daughters votes is extremely concerning and was easily foreseeable.

How many people who voted green went “oh they want men in womens toilets and they want to legalise heroin, sounds good!”. I can’t help but to think many think these things are not an issue because their daughter will never be in a bar while someone slips a roofie in her drink or it won’t be their kid addicted to heroin (which is bullshit, I’ve met quite a few Pakistani drug addicts over my lifetime). Even if you are a single issue voter on Gaza the rest of their positions should cause concern for anyone who wants a stable society.

Which either means muslim voters don’t see themselves as part of a wider society which could be harmed so it doesn’t affect them or the salience of Gaza is overwhelming to them or they literally didn’t hear about the rest of the policy positions. Most practising muslims I know would be horrified at the drugs legalisation aspect and women in toilets, tbf all the hijabis I know are out and about, not at home all the time so they would be impacted by the disappearance of single sex spaces.

Think it has quite a lot to do with it, one business owner mentioned taxes when talking about Labour in an article I was reading, but why you would vote green instead is beyond me.

Yes, once the pressure is on him to declare that "Zionism is a racist endeavour" - no ifs or buts, then his cultural - jewish and family loyalties and identity will really be tested, against his current position of being everyone's favourite Jew in the village.

I think so because like you, I can't see what other Green policies would resonate with Muslims.

They seem to hold opposite views apart from on the question of Gaza.