A British Election Shows the Consequences of Mass Migration

Last night, Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party suffered a devastating by-election loss to the far-left Green Party. In the historic Labour stronghold of Gorton and Denton, a largely impoverished and working-class constituency on the outskirts of Manchester, the prime minister’s candidate took third place with 25.4 percent of the vote — falling short of the right-wing Reform UK candidate, who took 28.7 percent, and the victorious Green candidate’s 40.7 percent.

The result is a gut punch to the prime minister, who has been reeling for months from a poisonous cocktail of historically low approval ratings (he is the most unpopular British head of government in modern history), Reform’s continued dominance in the polls, and ongoing controversy surrounding his appointment of known Jeffrey Epstein confidant Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States. This defeat, coupled with what are expected to be catastrophic losses in Britain’s May local elections (loosely analogous in terms of political ramifications to the U.S. midterm elections), will, in time, probably suffice to force the prime minister from office at the hands of his own party.

Still, while Britain’s media is focused on the implications of the by-election defeat for Starmer’s personal future, the real story here is why the Green Party won. Yes, it was a repudiation of Starmer. But there’s more to the picture.

The Greens centered their campaign on two principal arguments: that Labour’s posturing on illegal immigration went too far (the Greens have demanded amnesty for all illegal migrants in Britain), and that Labour’s generally anti-Israel policies did not go far enough to avoid “complicity” in Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who, among other policies, wants to legalize hard drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, permit unlimited migration into Britain, and abandon NATO for a “Global South” alliance of countries like Brazil and Mexico to challenge “American imperialism,” has repeatedly accused Israel of “genocide” and has suggested that support for the Jewish state’s continued existence is racist. His Gorton and Denton candidate, newly elected parliamentarian Hannah Spencer, followed his cynical lead; Urdu and Bangla-language advertisements cut by her campaign sought to tie Labour and Reform to support for Israel and deportations of illegal migrants.

The by-election presented a grim picture of Britain’s future. Never has the country seen an election so marred by sectarian appeals and explicit attempts to divide the electorate along ethno-religious lines. The consequences of mass migration have ravaged Gorton and Denton; just 82 percent of the constituency’s population speak English as their main language, and about a third of residents are Muslim. The Green Party’s success here will surely prompt it to replicate its nihilistic strategy in future elections across Britain — targeting foreign-born, low-English, ethnic-minority, and Muslim voters with bad-faith claims about what a Reform government would do and cheap promises to take performative stands against Israel, further liberalize migration rules, and expand already-unaffordable social welfare programs.

Still, there is some cause for optimism. That the Reform candidate managed to take a strong second place in such a tough seat bodes well for the party’s national prospects; there are hundreds of parliamentary constituencies across Britain where demographic realities place the insurgent right-wing party in a far better political position. Furthermore, the candidate of the official opposition Conservatives took just 1.9 percent of the vote, cementing the once-dominant party’s status as the opposition-in-name-only and the clear second fiddle to Reform. While other parties are attempting to challenge Reform’s status as the standard-bearer of the British right, the Gorton and Denton result demonstrates that it remains in the driver’s seat to win Britain’s next general election.

This by-election will have enormous political consequences within Britain; opposition to immigration across the political spectrum, but especially on the right, will likely harden. But this election should also serve as an important warning for the entire Western world: the Gorton and Denton result demonstrates how mass migration rapidly transforms the substance and tone of political conversations, forcing politicians and parties to adapt their positions to sectarian ethno-religious interests rather than what they believe to be the national interest.