I have seen the scale of the mountain Labour has to climb in Gorton and Denton – but also the way it can do it | Polly Toynbee

2026-02-24 - 07:23

In focus groups, people are clear they want to stop Farage at all costs. Labour must now reach out to the progressives it has disappointed The great gulf between left and right yawns deeper and wider. One way or another, the Gorton and Denton byelection this week will reveal this profound tribal divide. Those in the progressive bloc – Labour, Lib Dem, Green, SNP, Plaid – are very different kinds of people to the blues, with diametrically opposed attitudes. In more centrist days there was some shifting across the red/blue line as both main parties stole some votes from each other. That’s over. Everyone now is in one or the other trench (or a non-voter), though many are undecided which party to back within their bloc. Ever since what psephologists call the “Brexit realignment”, the split has become unbridgeable. Labour has been getting this near-catastrophically wrong in the past 18 months, pursuing voters who will never support the party, while at the same time chasing away its own supporters. The architect of this blunder, Morgan McSweeney, is gone, though the leader is responsible for where his party is led – or misled. No more of that hippy-punching strategy that avoided anything sounding too leftwing. It was designed to attract the right but, of course, it didn’t. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...