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.

Unicorns don't exist. Conflicting law and diplomatic relations stop you doing a lot of shit you want to. Hitting the wall of reality, is something we've grown used to in recent years. It makes for utterly dreadful governance and a huge waste of time and resources.

The issue of a lot of green policies will go down like a cup of cold since in a school environment.

There's your future political front line.

Exactly ... I want to vote for a moderate party with sensible policies.

Trouble is, they don't seem to exist in the UK at the moment.

Kemi talks the talk - but the Tories were rubbish when they were in power and people's memories aren't that short. So that leaves Labour, but I don't rate Keir Starmer at all.

A lot of people feel politically homeless at the moment.

I’m glad Reform didn’t get in but equally I’m not celebrating the victory of a party who doesn’t know what a woman is either.

I suspect it is a case of muslim men taking along their family members to ensure they vote for 'the Gaza candidate'. I've always assumed that many Muslim men will prioritise their religious loyalties to other muslims over any other type of consideration when it comes down to it. The fact that the Greens are progressive - batshit crazy on so many issues that are contrary to conservative religious values suggests this.

They do, but they have to pretend they don't. The apotheosis of ideological 'group think' and social virtue signalling.

I spoke to a group of young female Muslim students a few years ago now.
They said they would never tell their family that men were now allowed in their toilets and changing rooms as their families would insist they withdrew from university.
Two of them had given a sport they enjoyed, and they all said they avoided the campus toilets and waited until they got back to their residences.
So perhaps they would not be considered ‘traditional’ Muslim women given they were in higher education, but this pernicious ideology was certainly affecting them.

The greens are misogynist enough though. If you have a Muslim man who wants his wife to stay in the house and be controlled then transwomen being in single sex spaces isnt necessarily a bad thing. If it affects your teenage daughter in her single sex school or in hospital then you get angry.

what are these very sensible policies and more importantly how will they be paid for?

They had Karl turner (Labour MP for Hull) basically channelling John Prescott by going off on one about Andy Burnham could have won this.

I mean yes he could have. But then who would have been the Labour pick for mayor of greater Manchester, and did they think labour would win that post or reform?

Yes, I suspect this is the start of a trend towards more Independent muslim canidates who fight elections purely on religious and ethno -cultural loyalties. The Green party is just a useful device at present.

Yes, I think it is considered far more important to have a Labour metro mayor than it is a Labour MP for Gorton and Denton.

Gaza might have been a single issue vote because of it being proxy for something else? Otherwise, it’s odd that the Gaza-Israeli conflict would be the defining reason to vote Green when there’s absolutely nothing that a Green G&D MP can do about it.

The worst of this for me is how Polanski will be running on a narcissistic high about getting another Green MP elected and it being proof that all you have to do is promise everything to everyone (except Jews and women) and you get elected.

The problem is that some will suggest that what Labour now needs to do is move more to the left, not just on economic issues but on social justice type isues too....and that would certainly not make them likely to attract back any lost Reform voters, but would also lose them the goodwill voters from the last election who may normally have voted Conservative.

Someone like Shabana Mahmood probably could unite and pull in people from various strands of the spectrum, but the problem for her ( and Wes Streeting) is that s/he's hated on the Left.

No, there will not be a Muslim party, but there will most likely be an increasing number of Islamist independent candidates who people will vote for on the basis of religious affiliation alone.

Even more reason to keep women confined to the private sphere and at home.

I think many of us are just going to have to keep faith that the centre ground will coalesce more with time. Whether it comes from the centre right or centre left is neither here nor there.

And burnham can't stand everywhere, labour need to show they know what they are doing in government and then they don't need a famous candidate.

It's a leap to expect voters to get behind a candidate in the hope they will become leader and change the party eventuality.

I dont think labour will tackle the family and postal voting issue, because its something they have benefited from, and i presume they havent given up on the muslim vote?

Years ago I was working in a country spilt into two distinct ethnic groups during an election. The two political parties ran on those ethnic group lines. One of the parties slogan in the lead up to the election was "Vote Race". Literally that. And actually that party won.

None of it is encouraging. I live in a very ethnically diverse area that is not currently dominated by any one particular ethnic group. Probably drawn by the economic opportunities. People sharing in an aspiration to live and work and be educated in peace. It is/was heartening that the UK is/was a place where this could happen. However, inevitably it seems that ‘Vote Race’ is occurring now.

Anyhow, like others I feel politically homeless. Not a clue who to vote for, but I am sick of the media calls for Starmer to go because who the hell is going to replace him?

That Dawah bro Roshan Salih, who it turns out from this (.https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/green-party-promotes-then-deletes-interview-with-site-censured-for-anti-jewish-and-lgbt-hate/) was also a press wonk at Iranian press TV, is fond of saying that if there was an Islamic party in the UK it would be banned.

In the 90s esp after the whole Rushdie thing there was that idiosyncratic "Muslim parliament of Britain" and even in 1999, a full 2 years before the war on terror and 9/11, Birmingham had the peace and people's justice party founded by Kashmiri Muslims who thought they were being taken for granted by Labour

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2002/jun/19/localgovernment.guardiansocietysupplement

I think it appears extreme because it is. No private landlords, for example. TWAW. Children should be able to "choose their own gender". Boycott Israel. Legalise all drugs, and prostitution, Don't spend any money on defence...and so on.

I disagree with this.

I think many women until recently never thought about the men in frocks waltzing into their spaces - until Sandie Peggie - and the Darlington nurses - and now we realise it could happen to us too.

Perhaps the Greens ( and Labour and Lib Dems ) will begin to wake up and realise that the tide has turned on this issue, and that people want the real problems which affect the majority to be tackled. Not the constand pandering to a very small minority.

Personally, unless Labour sort out their shit and elect someone strong and sensible ( not a 'progressive') then I'm probably going to vote Conservative. If they can keep faith with Kemi I'd be prepared to give her a chance. She's slowly gaining credibility and coming up with some firm proposals.

Where I live a new Muslim girls school is to be built. Keep your daughters away from boys and keep them away from corrupted Western values more broadly ( other than education)