2017 Manchester Gorton by-election

Location of Manchester Gorton within Greater Manchester

Location of Greater Manchester within England

The UK Parliament constituency of Manchester Gorton is located in Greater Manchester in North West England. The constituency is a borough constituency,[1] which means that it is mostly urban;[2] it consists of the wards of Fallowfield, Gorton North, Gorton South, Levenshulme, Longsight, Rusholme and Whalley Range in the city of Manchester.[1] In 2016, 68 per cent of adults in the constituency aged 16 to 64 were economically active, which was lower than both the regional and national averages.[3] The constituency's population at the time of the 2011 census was 29% Asian, mainly of Pakistani origin;[4] later, the 2021 census found that the consistuency was 41% white, 36% Asian (including 25% Pakistani and 5% Bangladeshi) and 12% Black, while England and Wales as a whole were 82% white and 9% Asian.[5]

Like all UK Parliament constituencies, it elects one member of parliament (MP) to the House of Commons using the first-past-the-post voting system.[6] Gorton has, with various boundary alterations, been held by the Labour Party since the 1935 general election,[7] and by Gerald Kaufman from 1983 until his death (he previously held the constituency of Manchester Ardwick from 1970 to 1983).[8] At the previous general election in 2015, Kaufman was re-elected with a large majority of over 24,000 votes, making the constituency a safe seat for the party.[9] The Green Party came second, followed by the Conservative Party, UKIP and the Liberal Democrats,[9] whilst the Liberal Democrats had finished second in every general election before that since 1997.[10] In 2017, Labour held every Manchester City Council seat in the constituency.[10]

In the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, Manchester voted 60% in favour of remaining in the European Union (EU);[11] the country voted in favour of leaving the EU (known as Brexit).[12] As Gorton was only part of the Manchester counting area, the exact result in the constituency is unknown,[13] but through demographic modelling the Remain share in the constituency has been estimated to be 62% by Chris Hanretty of the University of East Anglia,[14] and 61% by Number Cruncher Politics.[8]

Sir Gerald Kaufman, who held the seat from 1983 until his death.

On 26 February 2017, Kaufman died after a long illness, triggering a by-election in his constituency.[15] Kaufman was the Father of the House of Commons (the longest-serving MP), having been in office for 47 years, and many politicians paid tribute to him, including the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, who described him as "a brilliant speaker, a compelling writer, an acerbic wit and a conscientious constituency MP".[15]

Levenshulme Community Association hustings

The Liberal Democrat Deputy Director of Campaigns and Elections, Dave McCobb, claimed on 15 April that private polling suggested that the Liberal Democrats had returned to 31% support in the constituency versus Labour's 51%, similar to the results of the 2010 general election in the constituency, in which the Liberal Democrats received 33% of the vote and Labour polled 50%.[38] Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, later told The Observer that he believed that Jackie Pearcey, the Liberal Democrat candidate, would have won the seat from Labour had the poll gone ahead; Farron affirmed that he still expected her to take the seat in the 2017 general election.[39] In the event, Pearcey finished in fourth place.[9]

A hustings arranged by the Levenshulme Community Association on 22 April went ahead despite the postponement of the vote, and was attended by eight of the candidates.[40][41]

On 18 April, Theresa May, the Conservative prime minister, announced a plan to seek an early parliamentary general election on 8 June, meaning that Parliament would be dissolved at the time the by-election was scheduled to take place.[42] David Lidington, the Leader of the House of Commons told MPs that there was no statutory power to cancel a by-election when a general election was in progress, but that there was a precedent from 1923 when a by-election writ was regarded as having been superseded.[43] His expectation was that the Acting Returning Officer would regard that as being the case.[44] There was doubt as to whether the by-election would or would not go ahead, however, with the Acting Returning Officer saying that she had no legal power to cancel the poll.[45] MPs were then asked to overturn the writ for the poll, cancelling the by-election, which they did on 20 April,[46] leaving the seat vacant until the general election.[43]

At the general election on 8 June, Afzal Khan won with a majority of 31,730 to become the new constituency MP.[9] At the election, the constituency was the 9th-safest seat (in terms of majority as a percentage), with every safer seat also being held by Labour; the seat also had the lowest vote share for the Conservatives of any seat outside Northern Ireland.[48] George Galloway's 5.7% was the 10th highest vote share achieved by an independent candidate in the election.[48]

Khan was re-elected at the next general election on 12 December 2019, increasing his vote share to 78% of the vote, though his absolute majority over the Conservative candidate in second place decreased slightly.[9] The constituency had the 7th-highest vote share for Labour in the election and was the party's 6th-safest seat.[49]