The Conservative Party has hit a new low after a crushing defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-election, according to polling guru Sir John Curtice.
Kemi Badenoch’s party was not expected to pull up trees in the Greater Manchester constituency given their past struggles at area’s ballot box.
But Sir John said on GB News this only tells half the story behind their poor showing at the by-election in which the Green Party romped to victory.
“They’ve never won this constituency, but they were capable of getting around a third of the vote around 20, 30 years ago”, Sir John explained.
“They’ve now got 1.9 per cent [of the vote]. That is an all-time low for the Conservative Party.”
He continued: “They only stood a chance if two of their opponents were evenly split, for instance, Labour and the Greens, and Reform managed to get above the line.
“At the edge of the of the day, the parties got 29 per cent, which is in line with its standing in the opinion polls. Given that the constituency does contain a significant proportion of minority voters, and given that minority voters in general are largely disinclined to back Reform, they are after all, less concerned about immigration policies.
“This is not a constituency Reform were likely to do particularly well in also, but their vote was up by 15 points.”
Sir John suggested Kemi Badenoch should be troubled by the result
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GB NEWS / PA
Zack Polanski’s Green Party emerged victorious, taking in 14,980 votes.
Hannah Spencer became the area’s MP after securing the Greens’ first ever by-election win.
The Labour Party won the seat with 50.8 per cent of the vote share at the 2024 General Election, but sunk to third on this occasion.
Competing with them for the poorest showing mantle was the Conservative Party, who accrued a measly 706 votes compared to the Greens’ total.
Sir John Curtice joined Stephen Dixon and Ellie Costello
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GB NEWS
Speaking on GB News, ex-Tory minister Michelle Donelan said they were never likely to perform well.
“We didn’t launch a large-scale campaign or allocate resources to this particular seat”, she said.
“It was never going to be our fight to have. It was a fight between the Reform Party, the Green Party, and allegedly, the Labour Party, but they came third.
“The analysis from last night’s by-election, I think, shows a crisis moment for Keir Starmer, given this was one of his safest seats. He’s now gone down to third place.”
Kemi Badenoch did not allocate anything significant resource wise to the by-election
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PARLIAMENTGB News’s Stephen Dixon put it to Ms Donelan that her party suffered the worst by-election result in its history, to which she replied: “We were being strategic.”
She explained: “We could have allocated a load of resource and time to that seat, which would have been a pointless endeavour.
“What parties do is focus on the areas that are going to get the most traction.”
Stephen said the Tories should not have even bothered fielding a candidate in that case.
The former minister insisted the Tories were always likely to field a candidate in the interest of democracy, to ensure the people of Gorton and Denton had the option to back the country’s oldest political party.