What really happened in Gorton & Denton
Reflections on what one campaign tells us about Britain
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What happened at the Gorton and Denton by-election, where I stood as a Reform UK candidate, was nothing short of extraordinary.
On one level, it was a political earthquake. We finished second, ahead of Labour, in what is the sixth safest Labour seat in the entire country.
We beat a party that has controlled this area for a century, preparing the ground for a major invasion of Labour’s heartlands at the local elections and next general election.
We more than doubled Reform’s vote in just eighteen months ago, securing 29 per cent in a highly diverse, urban constituency, and delivering a 14-point swing.
In a constituency ranked 440th on Reform’s target list, we pushed aside the political duopoly that has dominated for British politics for generations.
As Sir John Curtice observed, this is only the second time since 1945 that the top two places have not been held by Labour and the Conservatives.
We also built one of the most formidable grassroots campaigns seen in a modern by-election. More than 13,000 local pledges of support, hundreds of thousands of doors knocked, and thousands of volunteers mobilised in just four weeks.
If the numbers that we mobilised in Gorton and Denton were repeated nationally, at the next general election, then Reform would win a comfortable parliamentary majority. So, yes - I am very proud of what we achieved.
But on another level, the result exposed something that is much darker. Something more troubling. Something insidious. Something that should concern anybody who still believes in British democracy, no matter their personal political loyalties.
Because the Green Party’s victory was not a triumph of pluralism, democratic renewal, or people power. It was a triumph of a dangerous sectarian politics - something I have been warning about, right here in this newsletter, for some time.
The evidence appeared on polling day itself.
The impartial and respected group Democracy Volunteers was given access to polling stations by the Electoral Commission and could watch what was happening.
It found “family voting” was taking place in at least 15 of the 22 polling stations they observed, influencing roughly one in every eight voters.
Let us be absolutely clear what that means.
Family voting is illegal. It occurs when fathers or husbands exert coercive control over members of their family, telling them how to vote.
It is coercive. It is illiberal. It is unBritish. It is fundamentally undemocratic.
According to Democracy Volunteers, this was the highest levels of family voting they had witnessed “at any election in our 10-year history of observing elections in the UK”.
In fact, they were so deeply alarmed they took the rare step of publishing their findings on the night itself, right after polls had closed. That tells you something.
In modern Britain, an election monitoring group was so concerned about what it was witnessing it felt compelled to issue an emergency warning about malpractice.
And the contrast with previous contests is stark.
At the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, last year, family voting was recorded in 12 per cent of polling stations, affecting around 1 per cent of voters.
In Gorton and Denton, where we tirelessly campaigned in good faith, family voting appeared in 68 per cent of polling stations, affecting 12 per cent of voters.
Was I surprised? Sadly, not.
Consider the demography of the seat.
About one in ten voters were born in Pakistan, not Britain. In 10 of the 14 wards that make up the seat, more than 1 in 5 people were born overseas.
In the most diverse part of the seat, Longsight, which my own security team advised I avoid due to very real threats, close to half the local population are foreign-born.
On some nights, while canvassing local voters, I encountered entire streets where not a single person could speak English, and where the people living in homes did not match official records, and where community pressures were openly visible.
In such an environment, rampant family voting should not be surprising.
As Oxford University’s Dr Patrick Nash pointed out over the weekend, up to 50 per cent of the Muslim community in Gorton and Denton practice cousin marriage, which is “a good predictor of higher rates of electoral fraud allegations”.
None of this should be controversial to discuss.
It should be the starting point of a serious national conversation.
But instead, the political class pretends it isn’t happening and treats those who do dare talk about it as “divisive”.
Meanwhile, the Greens - while preaching “unity over division” - actively indulged and encouraged this sectarian identity politics at every possible opportunity.
They distributed leaflets in Urdu and Punjabi. They talked more about what was happening in Gaza than what is happening in Gorton and Denton.
They campaigned outside mosques. They adopted Islamic dress. They sent cards to mark Ramadan. Their messaging was constantly tailored to specific religious and linguistic blocs, even appealing to tribal conflicts by showing images of Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaking with India’s Narendra Modi.
Astonishingly, the Green candidate, Hannah Spencer, was so focused on not upsetting the local Muslim blocs that at one point she even blamed me - yes, me - for the Manchester Evening News Arena Islamist bombing, which killed 22 and injured 1,017.
Anything so as not to upset or offend local Muslims, who make up close to one in three of all voters in Gorton and Denton.
This is the real danger Britain now faces. A politics no longer organised around shared citizenship, common values, or national interest - but around tribes, religious identity, and imported conflicts from faraway lands.
What we witnessed in Gorton and Denton, in other words, is a microcosm of what we are now witnessing across Britain.
The rise of sectarian ‘independent’ Muslim MPs. The growing dominance of communal lobbying. The increasing willingness of politicians to frame domestic politics through foreign conflicts.
And a radical woke left that lectures everybody about ‘tolerance’, ‘liberalism’ and ‘openness’ while encouraging a deeply illiberal, dogmatic, and closed-minded politics.
Just look, for example, at what happened in the 24 hours after the Green victory.
In one day, we learned that the deputy leader of the Greens, Mothin Ali, had joined protests in London to express support for an Iranian regime that has planned some 20 terror plots against Britain, while the Green’s new spin doctor, Abi Wilkinson, had denied Jews had been raped on October 7th.
This is the bleak new reality that we are being pushed towards by people who simultaneously present themselves as the guardians of morality and virtue.
Unless we change course, this trajectory will only accelerate.
As mass immigration and rapid demographic change continue at record speed - as the share of the foreign-born in Britain rockets from just under 20 per cent today to more than 60 per cent by the 2070s - the incentives for political parties to mobilise voters along these sectarian lines will intensify.
The result will not be a more vibrant national democracy, but a far more fractured and divisive one - less unified, less accountable, less stable.
Increasingly, British politics will come to resemble the far more fractious and divisive politics seen in the likes of Lebanon and Sierra Leone than the politics we once knew.
Already, the philosophically incoherent alliance of Muslims and the radical woke left could plausibly win a few dozen seats; but soon it will be hundreds. And at that point our entire democracy risks falling into the abyss.
So, what should be done?
First, we need to urgently restore confidence in the integrity of the ballot. Postal voting should be tightened and restricted to those who genuinely need it, such as the disabled, the very elderly, and those serving our country overseas.
The rapid expansion of postal ballots in the early 2000s, by Tony Blair, has clearly stripped away safeguards and made family voting and coercion harder to detect. Blairism opened our democracy to rampant fraud.
If Democracy Volunteers are observing ‘family voting’ at polling stations then what on earth is taking place with postal votes behind the closed doors of homes and mosques?
Nigel Farage told me during this campaign that he once saw a man carrying a Sainsbury’s bag stuffed with 1,000 postal votes. To be honest, I didn’t used to believe him but having gone through this campaign I am now convinced he is right.
Second, voting rights need to be linked far more strongly to citizenship.
A democratic system depends on a shared civic bond. Extending voting rights to people from Commonwealth nations such as Pakistan risks importing external conflicts tribal loyalties into our national democracy. It needs to be stopped.
And, third, we need to keep explaining to the British people through platforms and newsletters like this one what is really happening in their own country.
Now that the by-election is over, and I’m far more experienced as a result, I plan to double down and dramatically expand our work before the next general election.
I will be standing again. I will continue to fight for what I believe is in the best interest of our country and people. But until then I do need your support, which you can provide by becoming a paid subscriber - it will help us reach many more people.
None of what I am suggesting is extreme. These are merely the kinds of reforms that any democracy must consider if it wishes to remain just that - a democracy.
Because the lesson of Gorton and Denton for me is simple: Britain is now rapidly entering an entirely new political era.
An era in which the old party system, dominated by the Tories and Labour, is now collapsing. An era in which new forces are rising.
But also an era in which the very foundations of our national democratic life - a sense of trust, cohesion, shared identity, and political stability - are under increasing strain.
We can choose to ignore these warning signs and be bullied into silence by the powers that be, some of which are fully invested in maintaining the status-quo.
Or, we can choose to confront these warning signs and do something about them, while there is still time to do so.
Because make no mistake: if we do not save our democracy from these forces then we will have absolutely no chance at all of saving our country.
Thank you for being patient with me while I campaigned in Gorton and Denton. But now, I am back and we have a lot of work to do.
Matt I’m very proud of you and all from Reform and all the hundreds and hundreds of supporters who joined you to campaign. I would have joined you too but because of my age I would have been a liability rather than as asset. Brilliant result for Reform just a shame this sectarian voting was allowed. You’re always victors in my eyes. 🩵
Gutted you didn't win Matt but your standing for election has highlighted so much of what is actually happening. Horrified to see our "fluffy Greens" supporting the wrong side of the Iran issue over the weekend. Good to see you back and I feel sure it's only a matter of time until you win your deserved place in the HOC. Good luck with your future.