Climate change may not have been central to the campaign in the Gorton and Denton byelection, but its implications are central to the future of British climate policy.
While the Green Party’s victory in the Gorton and Denton byelection may not signal a decisive shift in public support for climate action, it definitely sends the message that there isn’t any widespread hostility to increasing climate ambition.
This hard-fought byelection also gives us new electoral signals on how UK climate policy can become more socially just,. The clearest implications are for housing, transport and economic regeneration, and there is growing clarity that these areas must emphasise social justice dynamics.
Dramatic electoral volatility
The background for this byelection has been a period of unprecedented electoral volatility in British politics.
The 2024 election result was both a resounding victory for Labour and one which signalled its future fragility. Labour gained 63% of the parliamentary seats on only 33% of the popular vote, meaning it won many constituencies with tiny majorities.
Since then, however, polls have produced a decisive and sustained rise in popularity for Reform UK, which polled 16% overall in 2024 but has led systematically since April 2025, often with double digit leads. Reform UK then won several county councils in the 2025 local elections. Since August 2025 we have also seen a sustained rise in support for the Green Party, rising from around 8% on average to around 15%, and coming second to Reform UK in a substantial number of polls.
Gorton and Denton confirms the transformation of Britain into a multiparty democracy, with five parties competitive across the UK. It also confirms that there is literally no safe seat – it was one of the safest Labour seats in the country in 2024. If Labour can lose there, it can lose anywhere. The UK still, however, has a first-past-the-post electoral system. This ‘should’ deliver a two-party system, but is no longer doing so, although it is in principle possible that this two-party logic re-emerges with Reform UK and the Green Party as the two dominant parties. This multiparty dynamic dramatically changes how electoral competition shapes the pressures on climate policy.
How the campaigns (don’t) talk about climate
Climate politics has not been remotely central to the campaign for the byelection, or to this increased volatility. In a large sample of leaflets collected by JUST Centre colleagues in the constituency, it appeared precisely three times, once by Labour, twice by Reform UK, and not at all by the Green Party.
But, it has lurked throughout this period of political volatility, most clearly seen in relation to what Reform UK has done when it has been elected. It has disbanded climate change committees in several of the County Councils it won in 2025, and announced it will abandon existing net zero targets in some. Reform UK has also stated its intention to scrap net zero as well as specific policy measures such as subsidies to energy efficiency or heat pumps.
Housing, transport and everyday life: New battlegrounds for climate policy
Many of the key areas of action for UK climate policy are in housing and renewable energy generation. These are also either policy areas where action is acutely needed to address inequalities and injustices in so-called ‘red wall’ areas, or because they will provide key future flashpoints over climate policy.
The poor state of housing and transport has been an important manifestation of widening inequalities and the ‘cost of living’ crisis. It is thus a component in the rising distrust of politicians, intersecting with the more visibly conflictual issue of immigration. This has been especially in ‘red wall’ areas where Reform UK is thriving and where housing stock is particularly poor. Gorton and Denton is half ‘red wall’, as Rob Ford has demonstrated.
Improving this housing stock by retrofitting it to improve energy efficiency and switch to heat pumps is not only critical to keeping the UK’s emissions on a downward trajectory, but it would enhance the chances of rebuilding the trust in political institutions that is key to addressing the challenge of populism. Existing policy design to promote this is both too weak to accelerate the transformation and fails to benefit those on low incomes. It is dominated by householder subsidies where people need some of their own money as well.
If you want to reach Denton and places like it, you need to both scale up policies like the recent Warm Homes Plan and transform its design to ensure everyone benefits.
Reform UK has also made clear that it will oppose new renewable energy development. As it gains control of planning authorities in May 2026, as it will surely do as the polls stand, it is likely to refuse planning applications for new solar, wind energy, or expanded electricity infrastructure such as pylons. Developers will appeal to the Secretary of State, Ed Miliband, who is certain to over-ride such planning decisions. This will fuel populist resentment about ‘elites’ preventing ‘the people’ from exercising their rights.
While the Green Party avoided directly discussing climate policy in the byelection, they did focus heavily on peoples’ everyday lives and how people are struggling because of exactly these issues – housing costs and quality, transport, jobs. Hannah Spencer’s acceptance speech exemplified this, focused on people’s experience of how working hard no longer enables them to live a ‘nice life’.
Perhaps this tells us that the way to communicate climate action effectively is through focusing on everyday lives, on enabling people to thrive, and how climate action contributes to that.
The Green threat to Labour
The Gorton and Denton byelection doesn’t fully resolve our understanding of any of these issues, but it does signal what is to come. If anything, it should tip the government’s scales much more towards trying to compete for Green votes than Reform UK ones.
There were 40 seats in the 2024 general election where the Green Party came second –Labour ministers in the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero are in some of those seats, like Kerry McCarthy in Bristol East. They know they are now fighting for their political lives, and competing for Green votes is the only way they will survive.
After Gorton and Denton, the huge raft of local elections in May 2026 are looming, which will tell us even more about this rapidly evolving situation in British politics.
