Hannah Spencer overturned a massive victory at the Gorton and Denton by election on the night of February 27th. We have witnessed a melting of the Labour-Conservative divide in politics towards more of a middle-ground, where both sides are trying to appeal to a wider electorate.
The result? There’s almost little difference between the two, and voter partisanship towards either or seems to have fizzled out. People don’t feel represented by either of the parties anymore, and now it seems a new system is emerging: a battle between the Greens and Reform.
The difference about Hannah Spencer is that, for once, it seems like she is actually representing everyone, not just the working class, not just the stereotypical ‘white British’. She represents and advocates for the older and younger generations, the immigrants and the long-standing nationals. She emphasises how Britain was once a space where working hard meant you could access a good life, whereas now it doesn’t even guarantee food on the table or heating in your home.
I remember hearing how my own friend couldn’t afford heating: an already in-debt university student working towards a medical degree that would be giving back to society. Instead, she had to ration a few minutes a day of the heat from her oven to warm her hands, trying to heat herself up if she got too sick, and fighting weekly colds. It’s an insane concept.
Is this what Labour’s 2025 government spending review meant when it said, ‘the UK should be a country where hard work means people can get on in life’? Is that what ‘getting on’ looks like? I remember I noticed two problems when I read this line: why should hard work only mean you can ‘get by’, and why do you have to ‘work hard’ to be able to get by? What does hard work mean?
Hannah Spencer offers something different. She says: ‘working hard should get you a good life, but equally, if you can’t work, you should still have a good life. Everyone deserves a good life.’ And for once, I feel like I am also represented. I feel like I could potentially feel more a part of a British culture than I ever have. Something I have struggled to feel for so long.
I grew up as an only-child from two immigrant parents. While I did not grow up working class myself, my mother came from a working class background before building a life for herself here in the UK. For different reasons, I often felt like I didn’t ’fit in’ – whether it be my accent or the things I was interested in.
In high school, for the short periods I wasn’t homeschooled, I felt a cultural disparity between myself and my peers – I didn’t know how to talk about the same topics they did. Today, many people feel comfortable enough to confide in me their resentment towards immigrants. Maybe it’s because, to some, I could look ‘more British’, but in reality, I’ve been made to feel totally ‘un-British’ my entire life.
Now, it seems the narrative could be different. The story seems to be that if you were born here, if you have a British passport, you are British. Cultural diversity is welcome; growing up different is part of the story. You can be British and have grown up eating the traditional fish and chips, watching football, or Coronation Street.
You could have grown up eating a dish from your parents’ home country, celebrating a non-Christian holiday, and listening to music that differed from your peers’ own habits. Or, you could have grown up doing both. That was me: merging the culture we were taught at school with the one I knew at home. For once, I feel like I could confidently say I am part of that story, somebody who has existed in this liminal space rather than just someone who doesn’t quite ’fit in’.
So, when Reform says that this is reinforcing sectarian politics, I’d say it’s anything but that. Hannah Spencer won, I believe, because she offered a voice for everyone. For the working class who feel they can’t climb the ladder, for the students who are questioning if their degree is even worth it, for the people who came to contribute and were promised a better life, for people born here or raised here, and were promised to be taken care of.
For the old and the young, the middle and working class – she has said that ‘working hard should get you a good life, but if you cannot work, you deserve a good life too. Everyone should be entitled to decent living standards.
There has long been a shift towards a middle-ground politics from both sides over the last few decades. It’s an approach to politics that has meant the needs of many have been fulfilled by none. In an exclusive interview, Robert Ford, politics professor at the University of Manchester and frequent writer for the Guardian, pointed out that this was the first ever win for the Greens in a by-election – they had never even come close to winning a seat before.
This Gorton and Denton by-election may just be a sign that the Green Party is beginning to fill a space that feels abandoned by the traditional left, and answering to the concerns many have felt overlooked for what might have now been just too long. People are tired.
This is not to say who I would vote for in the next general election, but it is a historic turning point in British politics. The Greens just won a historically Labour seat – that speaks surmounts. Hannah Spencer is not only offering a solution on a practical, economic level (implying she wants to improve the opportunities and life standards people get) but she is also offering a social solution in her rhetoric. She is reiterating that everyone in this country is a part of this country – your neighbours, even if they do not look or sound like you, are not your enemy.
It’s similar to when TikToker Aydan Banks suggested we all want the same thing, and is also in line with what academic Yael Tamir writes about in her work: we must understand the other side, meet them in the middle, show them that we want the same things… but the direction they are being told to follow is not the one that will help us all in the long run. We cannot fight one another – your peers are not to blame. So Hannah Spencer is providing solutions to the economic and social grievances people face; making sure everyone is involved. Is that the sectarianism Labour and Reform make it out to be?
Hannah Spencer says we can demand better without hating each other, and I think it is this kind of narrative that will drive British society forward in the most positive, peaceful manner we can hope for.
