“I think more to the substantive point though, Manchester City Council who are obviously independent in this, have been really clear that there has been no irregularity.

“Police officers were at every single polling station and there’s no finding that anything untoward happened.

Speaking after the election result, Mr Farage said: “This election was a victory for sectarian voting and cheating.

“Matt Goodwin was a great candidate for us. Roll on the elections on May 7th. It will be goodbye Starmer and goodbye to the Tory party.”

Zack Polanski Breaks Silence on “Cheating” Claims with Furious Nigel Farage Swipe

Green Party leader Zack Polanski has hit back at Nigel Farage after the Reform UK leader accused the Gorton and Denton by-election of being a “victory for sectarian voting and cheating”, as the row over alleged family voting threatened to overshadow the Greens’ historic victory.

The controversy erupted after Hannah Spencer won the Greater Manchester constituency for the Green Party, overturning Labour’s previous 13,413-vote majority and defeating Reform UK candidate Matt Goodwin by 4,402 votes.

Spencer received 14,980 votes, equivalent to 40.69 per cent of the vote. Goodwin finished second with 10,578 votes, or 28.73 per cent, while Labour’s Angeliki Stogia came third with 9,364 votes, or 25.44 per cent.

The result was followed almost immediately by allegations concerning “family voting”, after Democracy Volunteers, an election-observation organisation, said it had witnessed what it described as unusually high levels of the practice at polling stations.

Farage responded by accusing the election of being affected by “sectarian voting and cheating”. Reform subsequently reported concerns to the police and Electoral Commission.

Polanski, however, rejected attempts to cast doubt on the Green victory and argued that the result demonstrated a substantial shift in political support.

The dispute has since developed into a broader argument about electoral integrity, Muslim participation in British democracy, tactical voting and the growing competition between Reform, Labour and the Greens.

Polanski’s response to Farage

Following Farage’s comments, Polanski defended the result and attacked the suggestion that the Green victory should be explained primarily through allegations of improper voting.

In his response, Polanski pointed to the scale of the Green swing and the collapse in Labour’s vote as evidence of a genuine electoral change.

He said Labour had fought what he described as a “shameful, dirty campaign”, accusing the party of spreading claims about Green policies and of creating what he alleged was a fake tactical-voting website.

Polanski also argued that many former Labour voters had moved to the Greens and would not necessarily return to Starmer’s party.

The Green leader presented the result as evidence that his party could now compete successfully in constituencies where Labour had previously dominated. He also argued that voting Green could provide an alternative to Reform in future contests.

These were political claims made by Polanski rather than independently established conclusions.

The official numbers, however, clearly show that the Greens achieved a very substantial increase in their support compared with 2024.

What actually happened in Gorton and Denton?

The scale of the electoral change is central to the dispute.

At the 2024 general election, Labour received 18,555 votes in the constituency, giving it 50.75 per cent of the vote and a majority of 13,413.

The Greens received only 4,810 votes, or 13.16 per cent.

Reform received 5,142 votes, or 14.06 per cent.

At the 2026 by-election, the picture changed dramatically.

The Greens more than tripled their vote share, reaching 40.69 per cent.

Reform more than doubled its share, reaching 28.73 per cent.

Labour’s share fell to 25.44 per cent.

The result was therefore not simply a case of Labour voters moving to Reform or Reform voters losing narrowly to the Greens.

It was a three-way contest in which both Greens and Reform gained substantially while Labour lost a large proportion of its previous support.

The Green majority was 4,402 votes.

That is an important figure when assessing the subsequent allegations.

The family-voting allegations

Democracy Volunteers said it had observed family voting at 15 of the 22 polling stations it monitored.

The organisation said its observers watched 545 voters and identified 32 instances that it classified as family voting. It described the level as unusually high compared with previous elections it had monitored.

The organisation’s director said the level observed was the highest recorded by the group in its decade of election monitoring.

The allegations were serious because the secrecy of the ballot is a fundamental principle of British elections.

Family voting can involve two people entering a polling booth together or one voter attempting to influence another person’s choice.

The Electoral Commission subsequently said it took allegations of family voting “very seriously” and encouraged anyone who believed an offence had occurred to report it to the police. The Commission said it was working with the returning officer and Greater Manchester Police to review the concerns.

However, observing family voting does not automatically establish that a criminal offence occurred.

Nor does it establish which candidate the voters concerned supported.

Most importantly, the observation figures alone could not establish whether the practice had affected the final outcome.

Farage’s accusation

Farage went beyond simply calling for an investigation.

After the result, he described the election as a “victory for sectarian voting and cheating” and said the reported level of family voting raised serious questions about the integrity of the democratic process.

He also connected the issue to what he described as predominantly Muslim areas.

That part of the argument became particularly contentious because Democracy Volunteers did not identify the religion of the people involved in the alleged family-voting incidents.

The observer group’s figures established that it had seen the practice in a number of polling stations. They did not establish that Muslim voters were responsible for the reported incidents or that the Green Party had organised or encouraged them.

That distinction became increasingly important as the political argument intensified.

Polanski rejected what he regarded as attempts to delegitimise the Green victory and defended Muslim voters’ participation in the democratic process.

The dispute consequently moved beyond the narrow question of electoral procedure and into a wider political argument about identity and representation.

The Greens’ historic victory

Against the backdrop of the controversy, the significance of Spencer’s victory remained substantial.

The Greens had never before won a Westminster parliamentary by-election.

Spencer’s victory also made her the party’s first MP representing a constituency in northern England.

The result overturned one of Labour’s large majorities and demonstrated that the Greens could win in an area where they had previously been a relatively minor electoral force.

Sky News described the result as a major development for Polanski’s leadership, noting the 26-point swing from Labour to Green and the fact that the Greens had moved from third place in 2024 to first in 2026.

Polanski used the result to argue that the Greens had entered a new phase in British politics.

He said there were now “no no-go areas” for the party and portrayed the victory as evidence that voters were looking for alternatives to the established parties.

Those statements reflected the Green Party’s political interpretation of the result rather than a prediction about future elections.

Reform accepts the result

Despite Farage’s initial criticism, Reform UK subsequently accepted the legitimacy of the election result.

The party’s chairman, David Bull, said Reform accepted the result after the allegations were raised and referred to the authorities.

That distinction matters.

Reform’s concerns about possible electoral offences were not the same as a formal claim that the entire election was invalid.

The party’s candidate, Matt Goodwin, nevertheless continued to make strong political claims about the result and about what he described as sectarianism.

Goodwin finished with 28.73 per cent of the vote, putting Reform ahead of Labour but 4,402 votes behind the Greens.

The figures therefore demonstrate both an increase in Reform support and a Green victory.

The police investigation

The subsequent police investigation became a crucial part of the story.

Greater Manchester Police reviewed the allegations after Reform reported concerns over family voting.

On March 27, police concluded that there was no evidence of an intention to influence or refrain another person from voting in the alleged incidents.

ITV News reported that police found no evidence of criminality connected with the family-voting allegations in the Gorton and Denton by-election.

This does not mean that the observations made by Democracy Volunteers did not occur.

Rather, the police conclusion addressed the question of whether the available evidence established criminal conduct.

The distinction is important because an observer can record behaviour that appears inconsistent with the secrecy of the ballot without the evidence necessarily proving that someone deliberately coerced another voter.

The police finding therefore provides an important qualification to the political claims made immediately after the election.

A debate over evidence and political rhetoric

The episode illustrates how quickly an allegation about electoral procedure can become part of a wider political confrontation.

Farage’s comments were framed around electoral integrity.

Polanski’s response was framed around the legitimacy of the Green victory and the participation of voters who had previously supported Labour.

The two arguments addressed different aspects of the same election.

The question of whether family voting occurred was a legitimate matter for electoral authorities and police to examine.

The separate question was whether those alleged incidents changed the result.

The official margin was 4,402 votes.

There was no evidence presented showing that the alleged instances of family voting were sufficient to overturn that margin.

The subsequent police conclusion further weakened the basis for treating the allegations as an established explanation for the result.

Tactical voting enters the debate

Another explanation discussed after the election was tactical voting.

With Labour, Reform and the Greens all competitive, voters had an incentive to consider which candidate could defeat a party they particularly opposed.

Polanski argued that former Labour voters had moved to the Greens and that the result demonstrated that the Greens could defeat Reform.

That interpretation was supported by the scale of the change in the vote shares, although the official result cannot reveal each voter’s motivation.

A person who voted Green may have done so because they preferred the party’s policies, because they opposed Labour, because they wanted to stop Reform, or for a combination of reasons.

Election results record choices, not individual motivations.

That makes it difficult to establish precisely how much of the Green victory was caused by tactical voting.

Labour’s role in the controversy

Labour also became involved in the aftermath.

Polanski accused Labour of running a negative campaign against the Greens and alleged that the party had sought to manipulate tactical voting.

Labour rejected the broader characterisation.

The defeat was nevertheless politically significant for Starmer because Labour fell from more than 50 per cent of the vote in 2024 to 25.44 per cent.

The party finished behind both the Greens and Reform.

Sky News noted that the result created pressure on Labour from both the left and the right, with the Greens taking first place and Reform taking second.

For Polanski, this created an opportunity to argue that Labour’s traditional electoral dominance was weakening.

What the controversy tells us

The Gorton and Denton dispute contains several separate facts that should not be confused.

The Greens won the by-election.

Reform finished second.

Labour finished third.

Democracy Volunteers reported observing family voting at a number of polling stations.

Reform reported its concerns to the authorities.

The Electoral Commission said it was taking the allegations seriously.

And Greater Manchester Police subsequently found no evidence of criminality connected with the allegations.

Those facts leave room for political disagreement, but they do not establish that the Green Party cheated or that improper voting caused Reform to lose.

Polanski’s response was therefore not simply a defence of one by-election result. It was also an attempt to shape the wider political interpretation of the contest.

He presented the victory as evidence that the Greens could replace Labour as a major force on the left and compete directly with Reform.

Farage, meanwhile, used the allegations to raise broader questions about electoral rules and voting practices.

A new phase of political competition

The Gorton and Denton result has become an important episode in Britain’s increasingly fragmented electoral politics.

The Greens moved from third place to first.

Reform moved from second to second but substantially increased its vote share.

Labour moved from first to third.

The result showed that support can shift dramatically between a general election and a by-election, particularly when several parties are competing seriously.

The dispute over family voting added another layer to an already highly contested election.

But the subsequent police finding means that the strongest allegations should be treated as allegations rather than established facts.

For Polanski, the immediate political message was that the Greens had won a seat that Labour had previously held comfortably and had defeated Reform in a direct contest.

For Farage, the episode became an argument about electoral integrity and the rules governing secret ballots.

The two leaders therefore emerged from the same election with very different interpretations of what it meant.

The official result itself remains straightforward: Hannah Spencer won Gorton and Denton with 14,980 votes, defeating Matt Goodwin by 4,402 votes. The allegations surrounding family voting were investigated, but police found no evidence of criminality.

That distinction between political accusation and established evidence is likely to remain central as the parties prepare for the next stage of Britain’s increasingly competitive multi-party politics.

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