Keir Starmer has made the highly unusual move for a serving prime minister of campaigning in a by-election as desperation mounts over the contest in Gorton and Denton.
With his premiership on the line in Thursday’s vote, Sir Keir joined Gorton and Denton candidate Angeliki Stogia in the Greater Manchester constituency.
It is almost unheard of for prime ministers to be seen at by-elections unless they arrive in the aftermath if their candidate wins.
But Labour has been trailing in third place to the Greens and Reform according to pollsters and bookmakers.
However, Labour sources have told The Independent that the PM’s surprise visit is because the team “is confident”, adding that responses on the doorstep “have not been nearly as bad as expected”.
It came as Labour criticised Nigel Farage for excusing his Reform candidate Matthew Goodwin for not quickly distancing himself from Tommy Robinson after the far right activist endorsed him.
Mr Farage told The Independent at a press conference in Dover that responding to Robinson would “only give the story oxygen n”
A Labour spokesperson said: “It shouldn’t be difficult for Reform to distance themselves from the support of a far-right thug like Tommy Robinson. Yet Nigel Farage hasn’t got the backbone to do it.”
Sir Keir used his trip to hit out at the Green Party’s “disgusting” drugs policy and “toxic” Reform UK on a campaign visit ahead of the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Labour faces a battle to save the previously rock-solid Greater Manchester constituency in the face of a double electoral threat from both Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Zack Polanski’s Greens.
In 2024 Labour won the seat with a majority of 13,413 and more than half the vote, but the party’s plummeting popularity since Sir Keir entered No 10 means it could be vulnerable.
Sir Keir warned would-be Green supporters they could split the anti-Reform vote and allow the party’s candidate, GB News presenter Matt Goodwin, to enter Parliament.
Sir Keir said: “In this by-election a vote for the Green Party is, in effect, a vote for Reform.
“And we saw in the by-election in Runcorn last year, where Labour lost by just a handful of votes, we got a Reform Member of Parliament. We mustn’t let that happen again.”
Sir Keir also took aim at Mr Polanski’s support for the legalisation of drugs.
“When it comes to the Green Party, look at their drugs policy: they say we should legalise heroin and crack cocaine,” he said.
“Imagine what would happen in every park and every playground in this constituency if that happened.
“I have to say, as a father of a boy who’s 17-and-a-half, the idea that the Green Party would make the argument that just, in a few months’ time, it should be perfectly lawful to sell him heroin and crack cocaine… I find that disgusting.”
Hannah Spencer, the Green Party’s Gorton and Denton by-election candidate, has previously said she thought “decriminalising is a conversation that we need to have”.
Mr Polanski has said he wants to “legalise, regulate and control drugs”, arguing for a “public health approach by public health professionals”.
Sir Keir appeared alongside Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell, who he previously sacked from his cabinet, and the party’s by-election candidate Ms Stogia at a campaign event.
His decision to visit the seat, where potential leadership rival Andy Burnham was blocked from standing, comes after he did not hit the campaign trail in last year’s Runcorn and Helsby by-election, where Reform’s Sarah Pochin won by six votes.
