Gorton and Denton is a taste of what is to come – but that could mean two very different things

Until yesterday Labour could still plausibly insist that challenges from its left were geographically contained – Brighton, Bristol, and come the next General Election, possibly a few seats in east London. The unsaid assumption is that these are bohemian enclaves, not representative of the country at large. A small enough concern for it to be worth sacrificing these seats to the Green Party, in favour of defending a greater number of Labour seats in the North and Midlands from an insurgent Reform UK. 

Gorton and Denton was in Labour’s top 40 safest seats at the last election. For the Greens to take it comfortably and Reform to squeeze Labour into a narrow third place finish signals a recalibration that Labour can’t shrug off. 

The timing of this political tremor matters. Reform still sits comfortably atop the polls as we look ahead to the next General Election. Nigel Farage and Richard Tice radiate the confidence of a party leadership that believes it is marching towards power with the wind at its back. They have branded green policy as “Net Stupid Zero”, promised to tear up the Contracts for Difference agreements secured by renewable energy developers at the last government auction, and pledged to scrap the 2010 Equality Act. They have also vowed to repeal the new Renters’ Rights Act – Labour’s attempt to rebalance a precarious housing market in which renters, usually younger adults, often get the thin end of the wedge. For business, workers, investors, activists and communities, it is a shopping list of reversals that would redefine Britain’s trajectory on climate, sustainability, and equalities for a generation. 

This is the backdrop against which Gorton and Denton should be read. Yesterday’s result wasn’t merely inconvenient for Labour; it was instructive for everyone else. If the Greens can win here, they can win - or at least threaten - almost anywhere that Labour can. And if they can do so at a moment when Reform appears poised to form the next government, then tactical voting is no longer a hypothetical. It is happening, and it is happening in the sorts of places where Labour long assumed that its biggest challenge came from apathy rather than alternatives on the left. 

The Caerphilly byelection in the Senedd last year was the first demonstration of this ongoing shift. Plaid Cymru’s win there was attributed by some to unique Welsh dynamics, but that explanation was always too dismissive and missed the implications of the result for constituencies across the whole of Britain. Voters across the centre left ecosystem have begun doing the electoral maths for themselves. They know that Reform’s rise presents not just a challenge to Labour, but to the entire established policy architecture around decarbonisation, equalities legislation and worker protections. This direction of travel is entirely misaligned with their world view, and there are signs that they are beginning to behave with the urgency this implies. 

What Gorton and Denton demonstrates is that these groups of voters are likely to be willing to lend their votes to whichever progressive or centre left party has the best chance of defeating Reform in a given seat. The question for Labour is no longer whether it can consolidate the anti Reform vote behind itself; it is whether it can earn the confidence of voters who now feel empowered to choose alternative progressive parties rather than swear loyalty to their area’s historical party of choice. 

For the sustainability and energy sectors – along with every business navigating ESG reporting demands, workforce transformation, and long-term investment decisions - this is not just political theatre. It is a proxy for the policy landscape the UK of the future will inherit.  

Under a Reform government, the renewable energy pipeline would likely slow down dramatically. The CfD auction cancellations alone would introduce a level of political risk not seen in UK energy markets for two decades (even despite the fact that it is far from legally certain that Reform would actually be able to invalidate contracts signed as a result of a CfD auction that has already happened.) Investors who currently view the UK as a stable, bankable environment for offshore wind, grid infrastructure, or industrial decarbonisation would have to price in volatility. It is realistic to assume that many projects in development could stall; that international capital could go elsewhere; and the UK’s reputation as a climate leader would slip into something more ambiguous. 

Equalities and workers’ rights would face similar turbulence. Scrapping the 2010 Equality Act would upend the legal foundation for workplace protections relied on by HR leaders, compliance teams, and employee networks across every major employer.  

On the other hand, a minority Labour government supported by the Greens and/or the Liberal Democrats is far from an implausible outcome come the next general election. It is, after yesterday, well within the scope of rational prediction. Such a government would look dramatically different to the one set out in Reform’s platform. The Greens would likely seek to negotiate a more interventionist climate agenda, likely pushing for accelerated decarbonisation timelines, greater nature protections and a renewed national commitment to environmental and social justice. Even if Labour moderated some of those ambitions, the gravitational pull would be unmistakably green rather than grey. 

The choice before Britain is crystallising with unusual clarity. On one path lies a sharp ideological reset – towards deregulation, towards a retreat from the net zero agenda, and away from legal equalities frameworks. On the other lies a patchwork coalition of progressive parties whose common ground is suddenly looking more substantial than their differences in the eyes of their supporters. 

Yesterday’s byelection was just one result. But it was also a reminder that political landscapes can shift in ways that it is hard for the polls to capture – and that voters, when faced with the prospect of a radically different Britain, might be more willing to act with strategic intent than current predictions have yet taken into account. Would this be enough to push Reform into second place behind a patchwork of left of centre parties, led by Labour? It’s too early to say. The fact that voters are clearly starting to think along these lines presents a challenge to every major political party – a challenge that none have yet begun to answer.