A Green Party candidate has won a shocking by-election victory in Greater Manchester, humiliating Labour in one of its northern heartlands and sending a chill through Scottish Labour just 18 months before the Holyrood election.
Hannah Spencer took the seat for the Greens with a swing that stunned Westminster watchers. Labour, which held the ward comfortably before, saw its vote collapse as anger over Gaza, winter fuel cuts, and the general sense that Keir Starmer’s government has lost its way boiled over.
For Scottish political strategists watching from Glasgow and Edinburgh, the result feels like a fire bell in the night.
Labour’s Nightmare Is Back
Scottish Labour delegates gathered in Paisley last weekend already knew bad news was coming. Many had seen the canvass returns from England. They were not surprised. They were gutted.
Anas Sarwar had spent months publicly warning Keir Starmer that the UK party was drifting into dangerous waters. The Manchester result proved him right in the worst possible way.
Labour is now bleeding votes on both flanks, exactly the same pattern that destroyed the party in Scotland after the 2014 independence referendum.
Back then, centre-left voters walked to the SNP. Centre-right unionists walked to the Ruth Davidson Conservatives. Labour woke up in 2017 with just one Scottish MP and seven MSPs.
History is rhyming again. Only this time the challengers are the Greens on the left and Reform UK on the right.
One veteran Labour MSP told me in the Paisley conference corridor: “We’ve seen this film before. We know how it ends. And it’s not with us in government.”
The Gaza Factor Cuts Deep
The Manchester result was not just about local issues. Activists say Gaza dominated doorstep conversations for weeks.
In areas with significant Muslim populations, Labour’s refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire has become toxic. The Greens, unburdened by government responsibility, campaigned hard on Palestine and reaped the reward.
That same dynamic exists in parts of Glasgow, Dundee, and Edinburgh. Scottish Labour sources admit privately they are “bracing for impact” in seats with younger and more diverse electorates.
One Glasgow Southside organiser told me returns from recent canvassing show the party’s vote among under-35s has “fallen off a cliff” since the general election.
Can the Scottish Greens Cash In?
The Scottish Greens are separate from their English and Welsh counterparts, but the ties are getting tighter. Co-leader Ross Greer and England’s deputy leader Zack Polanski are genuine friends who speak regularly.
A popular, youthful UK Green leadership could become an asset north of the border, especially among voters who want to “punish” Labour but still lean progressive.
Yet Holyrood uses a different voting system. The regional list is where the Scottish Greens win nearly all their seats. That requires a national message, not the hyper-local, single-issue campaigning that worked so well in Manchester.
The Greens will contest only a handful of constituency seats in 2026, maybe 12-15 at most. Their real target is pushing their list vote above 10% in several regions.
Manchester shows that is possible when Labour stumbles badly.
Reform UK: The Joker in the Pack
The other big winner from the night was Reform UK.
Nigel Farage’s party did not win, but it took a huge chunk of the former Labour vote, people who feel ignored by the political class.
Reform now says it will stand in every Holyrood constituency and on every regional list in 2026.
That changes everything.
In tight three- or four-way marginals, particularly in the central belt and northeast, even 8-12% for Reform could hand seats to the SNP on a plate by splitting the unionist vote.
Labour sources fear Reform will hurt them worst in working-class former heartlands: places like Coatbridge, Airdrie, and parts of Ayrshire where voters once backed Brexit and now feel betrayed by both main parties.
One senior Scottish Labour figure put it bluntly: “Reform doesn’t have to win seats to damage us. They just have to exist.”
The Clock Is Ticking for Anas Sarwar
Scottish Labour’s entire 2026 strategy rests on one proposition: that voters are fed up with the SNP after 19 years in power and want change.
That message still resonates in many places. But it works only if Labour looks like a credible government-in-waiting.
Every week that UK Labour remains unpopular drags Scottish Labour down with it.
Sarwar has tried to distance himself from Starmer on winter fuel payments, on the two-child benefit cap, on Gaza. But voters are not stupid. They know who the prime minister is.
The Manchester result is the latest data point showing Labour’s UK vote is soft, perhaps very soft.
If that continues into 2025 and 2026, the path back to power at Holyrood becomes brutally narrow.
One thing is clear: the Manchester by-election was not just a local difficulty. It was a warning shot across the bows of every Labour activist in Scotland.
Whether they heed it in time remains to be seen.
What do you think this result tells us about the mood of voters heading into the Holyrood election? Are Labour’s troubles terminal, or can Anas Sarwar still turn it around? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
