DENTON will have to get used to a new Green tinge after Hannah Spencer was elected as its new MP.
But The Correspondent understands many people in the town may be feeling green as it is believed ballot boxes from the area weighed towards Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin.
After weeks of campaigning, the group won its first ever parliamentary by-election as the result was called in the early hours of Friday, February 27.
The now Mrs Spencer MP vowed to work for the people she now represents, even those – including a vocal minority – who did not vote for her after defeating Mr Goodwin.
And after replacing the now disgraced former Labour parliamentarian Andrew Gwynne, whose involvement in the infamous Trigger Me Timbers WhatsApp group brought the by-election, she promised change.
She said: “People in their thousands told me on the doorstep and at the ballot box that what we are sick of is being let down and looked down on.
“That we are sick of our hard work making other people rich. I lived in this constituency at one of the most difficult and challenging periods of my life.
“I saw how strong the community was at holding things together. But I saw how much harder life is when the things around you are broken. The litter, the fly tipping, the dirty air.
“Whatever our beliefs, our backgrounds, our colour or our level of education, we stick up for each other.
“To those who voted for me, I know that earning your trust starts now. One vote on one night is not something I will take for granted or assume will happen again.
“And to those who didn’t, I will always work hard for you and I will always be honest and I will always be decent.
“To our white working class communities. We know how it feels to be looked down on, maybe because we didn’t do well at school, maybe because we do dirty manual jobs, because we are shut out of places we should be in.
“To people here in Gorton and Denton who feel left behind and isolated, I see you and I will fight for you.
“Because whilst our communities may sometimes be labelled in different ways, the thing everyone seems to have underestimated here is how similar we all actually are.
“How we have common ground, how we get along, how we stand up for each other.
“The cracks that are starting to show can be healed and I believe that it is through offering people hope and a chance to do things differently and do things better.”
Hannah Spencer’s victory saw Mr Gwynne’s Labour majority of 13,413 – making it the party’s sixth safest seat in the country – overturned after the Trigger Me Timbers scandal.
In fact, two Tameside Councillors found to have breached its code of conduct, Denton West’s Brenda Warrington and George Jones, were at the count backing Labour’s Angeliki Stogia, who came third in a result Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called ‘very disappointing.’
Ashton-under-Lyne MP and former deputy leader Angela Rayner said the party must now ‘really listen’ and ‘reflect.’
She added: “If we want to unrig the system, if we want to make the change we were sent into government to make, we have to be braver.
“That’s what all of us across our movement need to rededicate ourselves to.”
However, leader of Tameside Council, Cllr Eleanor Wills, told The Correspondent about Trigger Me Timbers: “It wasn’t something I experienced too much on the doorstep.
“People rightly might feel let down by that. If it did come from the doorstep, that’s not something we shied away from, because people were let down by people that they put into those positions.
“But it wasn’t hugely from the door, if I’m honest.
“It was an energetic campaign. Lots of people spoke to us on the doorsteps and were honest about how they’re feeling at the moment.
“I think there’s maybe a little bit of frustration from people and people want to see change.
“Having an opportunity to speak to people on the doorstep and hear their views was an opportunity.
“I’ve been running cabinet sessions within the community and that’s to try and hear people’s voices.
“But this campaign meant we were able to do that street by street with many more activists. We could do that at a larger scale, which has been great.
On Reform UK, she added: “The challenge that I’ve got is to identify what the Reform threat is for Denton. It’s a divisive party that destroys a community rather than rebuilds it.”
And Cllr Wills admitted working with Angeliki Stogia, herself a Councillor in Manchester’s Whalley Range area, highlighted certain issues in her borough.
She continued: “That’s the beauty of activism, isn’t it?
“That’s one of the real reflective things the cabinet and the community sessions have offered me.
“I don’t know every town within Tameside. I need people to tell me about where they live and what they want.
“I said when I first came in that I’m a leader who will listen. I’ve been doing that, but not just listening.”
Mr Goodwin, who was unveiled in Denton, was in no doubt about why he fell 4,402 votes short, citing reports of ‘family voting’ and ‘sectarianism’ – the former of which Reform UK says it has reported to Greater Manchester Police.
He said: “I think the progressives were told how to vote and I think what you saw was a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives that came together to dominate a constituency.
“And many people in this country will look at Gorton and Denton and be appalled by what they see.
“We more than doubled our vote in Labour’s back yard. This is the future of British politics. We can do it everywhere.”
GORTON AND DENTON BY-ELECTION RESULT
Hannah Spencer (Green Party) – 14,980
Matt Godwin (Reform UK) – 10,578
Angeliki Stogia (Labour) – 9,364
Charlotte Cadden (Conservatives) – 706
Jackie Pearcey (Liberal Democrats) – 653
Sir Oink A Lot (Monster Raving Loony Party) – 159
Nick Buckley (Advance UK) – 154
Joseph O’Meachair (Rejoin EU) – 98
Dan Clarke (Libertarian Party) – 47
Sebastian Moore (Social Democratic Party) – 46
Hugo Wils (Communist League) – 29