Matt Goodwin has been announced as the official Reform UK candidate in the forthcoming Gorton and Denton by-election in Greater Manchester, UK.
Goodwin is a scholar, GB News presenter, and critic of Britain’s immigration policies.
The contest follows the retirement of the constituency’s Labour-turned-independent (i.e. suspended by Labour) representative, Andrew Gwynne, on health grounds. His resignation was widely seen as paving the way for the directly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, Labour’s Andy Burnham, to return to parliamentary politics.
Labour’s national executive has since prevented Burnham from being listed as a candidate, with the official rationale being that this would commit the party to two costly byelection campaigns.
This disappointed some in Labour circles, for whom the return of the ‘king of the North’ to Westminster would be a chance to unseat the increasingly unpopular Keir Starmer. However, this scenario would need Labour to win Gorton and Denton, from a position trailing Nigel Farage’s Reform—and often the Green Party—in most national polling. Burnham, the former MP for Leigh from 2001 to 2017 who performed a range of ministerial roles starting under then-Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2005, would then need to topple PM Starmer.
Whereas Burnham enjoyed a chameleon-like parliamentary life under various Labour leaders prior to becoming Manchester’s executive mayor, Goodwin has spoken out in favour of national conservatism, stating
We must work to build a completely new movement and ecosystem that transcends Left and Right.
As things stand, the likely date of the Gorton and Denton by-election will be February 26th, with a full slate of candidates yet to be announced.
