The shock result in Gorton incredibly pushed Labour into third place in one of its safest seats, sending the party into crisis mode — and a leading elections expert is now warning that the hard-left coalition that delivered that humiliation could be about to go national.
Keir Starmer has reportedly called a rare political Cabinet meeting for Tuesday morning to confront the fallout, as Lord Robert Hayward told a press briefing on Monday that a formal pact between Zack Polanski’s Greens, Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party and George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain carried “very substantial” potential to damage Labour across England on May 7.
The Gorton and Denton by-election this month demonstrated what that alliance can achieve. Corbyn and Galloway’s organisations stood aside to keep the hard-left and Muslim vote unified behind the Greens — and Labour, in a seat it had held comfortably for decades, finished third behind the Greens and Reform.
“In Gorton we saw the Greens, the Workers Party and Your Party work together successfully and there is potential now for them to do that again in a whole load of other places, including London,” Lord Hayward said. “If they work together and if the Greens are able to maintain their current poll ratings, then the potential threat for Labour is very substantial indeed.”
London in the crosshairs
The capital presents the starkest test, reports the Daily Mail. Labour holds 21 of London’s 32 boroughs and senior figures within the party are quietly conceding that a Green advance could strip away hundreds of seats. Lord Hayward said no corner of the city was safe — even Starmer’s own North London patch, where every council seat is currently Labour, could see Green gains.
The results could also reshape the field for Labour’s next leadership contest. Lord Hayward pointed specifically to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, whose local authority in Redbridge, north-east London, is in danger of falling. Streeting scraped back into Parliament at the last election by fewer than 500 votes after a fierce pro-Gaza independent campaign. “If you are arguing you want to be party leader it is slightly harder if Labour has just failed to hold your own local council,” Lord Hayward said.
Farage’s party faces its own headwinds. Despite pledging to land heavy blows on both Labour and the Conservatives in May, Reform is reportedly encountering a growing “anything but Reform” sentiment on the doorstep — with voters across the country apparently telling canvassers they will back whichever candidate is best placed locally to keep Reform out.
Starmer’s moment of truth
May 7 will see more than 5,000 seats contested across 136 English councils, with the devolved governments in Scotland and Wales also up for grabs — the most comprehensive national verdict on any government since the 2024 general election.
Lord Hayward left little doubt about the personal stakes for the Prime Minister.
“He may have felt that he survived a few weeks ago, but the question now is will he survive May 7?” he said. “It is the most truly national elections, and also multi-party and multi-location elections.”
