Gorton and Denton Constituency

Will they won't they? Reform should be busily sharpening their bayonets.

The rumours that Andrew Gwynne, the elected Labour candidate (suspended and now sitting as an independent) might stand down due to ill health to afford Andy Burnham the chance to stand, might, in reality, be a poisoned challis.

The story is, that Burnham wants to be Prime Minister and replace Kier Starmer. To do this he has to become an elected MP and Gorton and Denton would seem to be a safe enough seat with just over 50% of the vote for Labour in the 2024 election. However, the Gorton and Denton constituency is remarkable for another, slightly worrying reason. It had the lowest turnout of all 650 constituencies in 2024 (47.8%) and that is amongst the sea of apathy that befell the 2024 election overall. One thing is certain and that is the next election will be supercharged by comparison.

The 18,000 votes that Labour received was a flattering figure when 40,000 people didn’t bother to vote. In the next election three things are certain, that the Reform vote will explode here, having come second in 2024 with 5142 votes, the Conservative vote will disappear entirely from a very poor 2888 votes in 2024 and the Labour vote will decline.

I’m guessing that Reform are already on this for, not only does it present an opportunity to snatch another Labour ‘red wall’ seat, but also to puncture Burnham’s ambitions. Oddly, The Prime Minister, assuming he’s still there, if and when the by-election is called, would benefit from a Reform UK win. Who knows, he might even help, limited funding, not turning up, or turning up, depending on your view, little assistance etc. and so on.

The Conservatives don’t even feature. An honourable position would be to not contest the seat in much the same fashion as Nigel Farage courageously did for Johnson in the 2019 election. Whilst the optics aren’t good, neither Badenoch now, nor Farage in the past will lose or lost anything material, though for the Conservatives it does smack a little of surrender, but standing and losing a deposit in a very public by-election could look even worse. At least there’s the ‘for the good of the nation’ kudos to be had from such a seemingly selfless act, as opposed to another very sharp nail in the Conservative Party’s death throes coffin.

Will Gwynne step down or not? Maybe a lifting of his suspension might do the trick and If I were Starmer, I’d be on this like a shot, bang, Burnham’s plot scuppered. However, our politicians aren’t very bright and we’ve currently got a fair few who aren’t even as smart as that, so maybe not, maybe it will play into Reform’s hands, actions that both Badenoch and Starmer seem unable to avoid.

For my money, I would like to see a by-election. I would; like to see a general election even more, but we may have to wait a year or so for that. When, we run out of money, can’t borrow more, and those very slightly visible signs of a collapsing economy become obvious, the government will fall. I don’t know if the by-election will happen, but I do know that it will be a very interesting affair if it does.