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.

Is it a common view beyond the far right parties that Kylian Mbappé isn’t, as he’s said himself, ‘a Frenchman’?

Regarding English-ness; being half English and half Greek Cypriot, it would be laughable for my Greek dad to have seen himself as English. He liked the English but his personality and culture was Greek in every way. Him and my very English mum couldn’t have been culturally more different. I was raised within two very different cultures. I’ve got many British friends with recent-ish (1950s onwards) heritage of a different ethnicity. Although they’re British (and Londoners), many of them call their country of heritage ‘home’ even if they were born here. Some have had their ashes or even bodies returned to their, or their parents, homeland, when they’ve died. They have some customs from here and some from ‘home.’ English people are ethnically English, have their own customs and are indigenous to this land. Some immigrants and children of immigrants LOVE and fit into Britain (and its smaller countries). Some don’t.

Having grown up and currently still living in Gorton we need not only a reform mp but a full reform government! The place has become a dumping ground for immigrants, they have destroyed the place & some how ended up taking all the social housing… and yes I’m checking who’s moving into them as I’m currently 8 yrs of waiting for rehousing from a private let that I’m being evicted from as I can’t afford the rent (increase after increase) also in full time employment before any one starts with that one

You're being obtuse. I've already told you my view, I'm not far right. I'm purely saying that English/ness is an ethnicity, yet the left have always tone policed this area. I'm talking about England. I'm born here to two foreign parents, I've grown to have the opinion I'm British/Polish Estonian-British. In everyday life, that makes no legal difference meaning I could play for England (in my dreams). But to say there's no English/ness ethnicity is isn't my opinion.

Your Party continue to be comedy gold. They issued a statement saying they are not standing and Reform has to be defeated and Labour, but no mention of endorsing the Greens or anyone else.

So I guess everyone is supposed to vote Sir Oink or the Tories. What are you saying?

Statement on the Gorton & Denton By-Election After consultation with local Your Party activists, we will not stand a candidate in this by-election. Instead, we will unite to defeat the far-right

https://x.com/thisisyourparty/status/2018408817923342594

This is so petty even for YP.

This stuff is hilarious, but has deep roots.

There is a certain type of English people of the middle class who get embarrassed by existence of the English. It is totally to distinguish themselves from the horrid working class English who whether left or right know they exist and celebrate it.

“In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. 
They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the 
general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident 
thought. 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. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping 
away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes 
squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always 
anti-British.”
― George Orwell, England Your England

I was responding directly to assertions being made about who is a ‘Frenchman’.

More broadly we’re talking about a prospective MP who has gone beyond questions of ethnic Englishness and queried whether someone born in the U.K. and lived their whole life here is really British. Because being British is ‘more than a piece of paper’.

"..sometimes 
squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British.”

The more sanctimonious third worlder position. Peruse the Your Party social media and you'll find nothings changed

The Monster Raving Loony party have had some policies that became law later and seem quite sensible. Commercial radio (well the BBC didn't play Screaming Lord Sutch's music), all day pub opening, wheelchair ramps on buses, protection for Wensleydale cheese, for example.

I voted for Binface for London Mayor, in part as a protest against the loss of the second preference voting.

I live in Gorton too. A reform MP is absolutely the last thing we need right now. I will vote for whomever can defeat them. Gorton, in common with most areas of Manchester has been destroyed by the rise of buy to let and out of control rent. None of which can be blamed on immigration in any way. Who in their right mind is going to trust in a ‘party’ led by a schoolboy nazi brexiteer and a load of ex Tories who, if Britain is broken, are the fuckers who broke it in the first place.

That’s an interesting point. I was trying to do some maths on this.

Gorton and Denton

76,524 total electorate
Overall turnout (last GE) - 48%
48% of electorate = 36720

30% of constituency Muslim = 22950

With the reported block voting and greater use of postal votes by Muslims, if that group are moderately motivated to gain political control, it would not seem difficult for their choice of candidate to win. Assuming that the greater proportion of voter apathy is in the non Muslim group. As PPs have mentioned, it appears to be a previous tactic to use the left to gain power then dispose of them.

That’s as far as my maths can go - welcoming any further input from others good as this sort of thing.

Yes. Thinking about it, it will be very interesting to see how many among the Muslim group like things the way they are in the UK and how many are very motivated to take power (as some are very vocal about) but will change things to greater resemble countries that the other Muslims may have fled.

We have seen Muslim posters on here as well as other social media and even Baroness Falkner saying that they don’t want the extremists to be in charge.

I can’t remember which election will have a convicted Muslim terrorist running. Quite stunning that we haven’t got a law against a convicted terrorist being in government but maybe it has never arisen as a risk before now.

Well looks like Charlotte has rattled Farage judging by his ill-informed post on X:

https://x.com/nigel_farage/status/2018412398684574187?s=46&t=tGndANTCcSFoV6PaqNg6qA

Which “LGBTQ charity” does he mean?

The replies say it was The LGBT foundation, 15 years ago.

That would have been at the time of the "Jungle" camp at Sangette, the main mode of transport being lorries not boats. Wasn't that broken up in 2009/10?

Yeah, that Elizabeth Marshall, woke as fuck.

Who she?

She is the writer of Our Island Story, which was a Victorian era history text that influenced many generations of British children.

That is, the author of the book I was talking about.

How desperate of him.

We don't like him.

I totally get why people might not want to vote for Goodwin.

Spencer has said being a man or a woman which hopefully we can all agree is a more fundamental fact than nationality is something not based on biology. That line of reasoning has led to criminal acts, experiments on kids and all sorts of issues.

Her party is debating voting through a motion saying Zionism is racism which fundamentally is similar to what Goodwin says only more extreme.

Muslim Vote is a sectarian organisation backing the Greens which thinks telling kids gay people are a thing is wrong and want to impose blasphemy laws. No one in the Green leadership has called them out.

The recent march through London combining support for Palestine with support for the Islamic Republic is definitive proof that a huge number of the Palestine supporters in the UK are sectarian racist militarists.

If the Greens gain power their ideas on defence and the economy look like complete disasters.

There is NO moral high ground here. This is why Reform might win.

Yes Reform might win because some racist people might vote for them.
The Greens might win because racist and sexist people might vote for them.

Both parties have a mouthy man as a front who relies on words to cover up lack of practical plans. Two vibe based parties.

Obviously Labour has its own issues which we all know.

The choice here is awful. In fact one could argue the only sane choice is Sir Oink a Lot.

A key thing I would say though is trying to give moral lectures to potential Reform voters is a recipe for a Reform victory.

For the Greens this is big problem. The strongest charge against Reform is they are a bunch of hapless amateurs who in power would screw things up.

The exact same thing is true of the Greens who in Brighton and Bristol are showing they are not up to the job.

I wonder if some of that snobbishness originates in some of the differences between the Normans and the language and culture they brought with them, and the plain old Saxons - with their simple, plain speaking?

The upper classes and the royal court in England at one point spoke French - and I do wonder whether some of the differences in the pronunciation of vowel sounds that now occur between the long rolling vowels of South/South East and the flat vowel sounds of North, have their origin in these differences.

The English language is very rich in vocabulary - with multiple different word choices for things of very similar or the same meaning. Those that originated from Norman French often being considered the more sophisticated. So for example we have 'to buy' or 'to purchase'; 'to get' or 'to acquire'; to 'own' or to 'possess'; 'to ask or 'to enquire' etc

Sorry, I'm not aware of her, and her book. Would she take issue with me?

Great summary. This is what I see too, based on evidence and actions.

Yes Reform might win because some racist people might vote for them. The Greens might win because racist and sexist people might vote for them. Both parties have a mouthy man as a front who relies on words to cover up lack of practical plans. Two vibe based parties.

So true, but didn't you get the memo that antisemitism is the kind of racism that is allowed by leftist morality police?

And if I had a choice between ZP and NF running anything NF would win hands down. It's a low bar, I concede, but at least he hasn't tried to con women out of money by selling them the lie they can increase their breast size via hypnosis.

Obviously it would be better if the choice was more appealing. Honestly, just based on what I know about the candidates and their current party policies, I'd want to vote CC but given it seems the Tories have no chance, I think a lot of people will decide to vote tactically.