Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, September 2025 (PA Images / Alamy Live News)
3 min read
Labour is increasingly confident that it could win the Gorton and Denton by-election – and it is relying on Andy Burnham to help hold the seat, despite blocking him as a candidate.
Labour activists and MPs who have been door-knocking in the Greater Manchester constituency ahead of the by-election later this month have reported that they are cautiously optimistic that Labour could hold the seat, which some party sources had briefed would be impossible when it was first vacated.
Gorton and Denton is a typically safe Labour area. The party won the constituency with a majority of over 13,000 at the 2024 general election, making it one of 70 seats that Labour won with an absolute majority. Defeat there would represent a major blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is trying to shore up his position in Downing Street. Both the Greens and Reform UK believe they can win it.
Andrew Gwynne stood down as the seat’s MP last month on health grounds. The former health minister took the decision after he was dismissed from his post and suspended from Labour over leaked offensive messages he sent on a WhatsApp group called “Trigger Me Timbers”.
Burnham announced his intention to seek the Labour candidacy, but he was blocked by the Prime Minister and his allies on the basis that the sitting mayor of Greater Manchester would trigger a costly mayoral by-election if successful in his parliamentary bid.
Although Burnham appeared to dismiss Labour’s chances of winning the by-election, after he was barred from running amid a bitter row, he has become central to the party’s efforts to hold the seat.
Burnham is making regular visits to the campaign trail and is featured prominently on some Labour campaign literature, which also centres the Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia rather than Starmer.
Angela Rayner, the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne – another Manchester seat – and former deputy prime minister, is also considered a key asset to the local campaign. She is widely thought to be a potential successor to Starmer, though she gave him her explicit support on Monday.
Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell, the MP for Manchester Central who has also been highly visible in the local campaign, is understood to be confident that the constituency is winnable for Labour.
The Prime Minister has not visited the seat so far, and a well-placed source said he has no plans to do so.
PoliticsHome understands that when canvassers come across a resident who is a Burnham fan on the doorstep, which is described by sources in the area as a frequent occurrence, they can tick a box to indicate that the party should send a letter from the mayor to that constituent.
Multiple people who had door-knocked in the seat said they did not find that the scandal around Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador was being raised by locals, but that residents were proactively bringing up the “Trigger Me Timbers” story and could even name the WhatsApp group.
Labour sources indicated they were increasingly confident of Labour holding the constituency because the party looked like it could be a “strong second” to the Greens and Reform respectively in different wards.
“Our vote in the Muslim community is holding up really well,” reported one Labour MP. “The by-election is anything but written off, and some of it will depend on getting out the vote – where one would assume Labour has an edge.”
“Nobody talked about the selection row, but people did praise Burnham,” they added.
On Monday night, a minister told PoliticsHome that the by-election on 26 February would be the next “trigger point” for the Prime Minister after a call by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar for the Prime Minister to resign failed to trigger a wider move against him.
