The Green Party has been accused of the “most sectarian campaign we have seen in a long time” after winning the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Speaking to GB News, Research Fellow Henry Jackson Institute Emma Schubart criticised the newly elected MP Hannah Spencer’s Urdu campaign video, arguing that she was “campaigning in a language that a lot of the country does not understand”.
Ms Spencer secured victory for the Greens with 14,980 votes, with Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin landing second place with 10,578 votes.
Labour’s candidate Angeliki Stogia placed third with 9,364 votes, while Charlotte Cadden of the Conservative Party lagged behind in fourth with just 706 votes.
Following her win, Ms Spencer declared there will a “Green tidal wave”, adding the “real work begins”.
The new MP for Gorton & Denton said: “This by-election has shown there is no such thing as a safe seat. There is no place where the Green Party cannot win.
“Come and join so we can spread hope and win everywhere across the country. This is just the beginning… our momentum will carry on. You’ve seen a Green surge tonight and just you wait you’ll see a Green tidal wave at the next General Election.
“We are here to replace Labour…now the real work begins.”
Emma Schubart has accused the Green Party of the ‘most sectarian campaign in a long time’ after issuing a campaign video entirely in Urdu
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PA / X / GB NEWS
Taking aim at Ms Spencer’s campaign video, captioned entirely in Urdu, Ms Scubart told GB News: “I think it’s evidence of the most sectarian campaign we’ve seen in a long time, but it’s also not surprising.
“Out of the seven wards in Gorton and Denton, two of them are Muslim majority wards, and those two Muslim majority wards actually account for over a third of the population in the entire constituency.”
Citing evidence of turnout rates for the last local elections in Gorton and Denton, Ms Schubart said: “In the last local election in Gorton and Denton in 2024, the wards with the highest turnout rates were the Muslim majority wards.
“So this is something we need to think about ahead of May, in my opinion.”
One of the Green Party’s campaign videos for the Gorton and Denton by-election used Urdu captioning
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X/GREEN PARTYQuestioned by host Miriam Cates on whether the campaign video was an “appeal to foreign issues over British concerns”, the research fellow agreed: “I think we’ve lost the national civic nature of campaigners.
“This country has become a transnational understanding of politics, which is completely foreign to what we do in this country.
“In these parts of the of the country, it’s certainly sort of the death of patriotism. I think it’s become a transnational practice, voting is no longer a civic or patriotic duty, it seems to be much more ethnically informed.”
Host Charlie Peters then shared with Emma Ms Spencer’s defence of the video, where she pushed back on “sectarianism” accusations and claimed the video was about a “shared common ground and a common feeling of struggling”.
Ms Schubart told GB News that she was campaigning in a language that ‘a lot of the country does not understand’
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GB NEWS
Dismissing Ms Spencer’s remarks, Ms Schubert stated: “I don’t think there’s much common ground to be pointed to if you’re campaigning in a language that a lot of the country does not understand, so that’s a bit difficult to understand.”
Asked by Miriam whether the UK needs to adopt a “compulsory” voting approach similar to Australia, Ms Schubart suggested that there needs to be more “voter mobilisation” within British communities.
She concluded: “I think it’s a huge issue because we’re not mobilising large parts of the population.
“Part of that is because we know a lot of the voter mobilisation in Muslim majority wards is happening in mosques, so they’re actually being really smart, and we need to sort of adopt a similar strategy.”