The Green Party's Hannah Spencer, a plumber and gas engineer by trade, has secured a landmark victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election in a huge blow to Keir Starmer's Labour Party.
The 34-year-old's win overturned a historic 100-year Labour stronghold in the Greater Manchester constituency, seeing the Green Party emerge as a credible alternative to Reform in Westminster.
The win, which saw the Green Party secure 14,980 votes - a majority of 4,402 - is further evidence of growing dissatisfaction for Labour under Starmer, whose party was knocked into third place in the vote, with Reform UK's Matt Goodwin coming in second with 10,578 votes.
Spencer is the Green Party's first-ever candidate to win a Westminster by-election and takes the party's representation in the Commons to five MPs. She is also the Green Party's first-ever candidate in the north, much of which has previously gone to Labour.
The by-election was called following the resignation of former MP Andrew Gwynne, over ill health. It was expected that previous mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham would stand as the constituency's Labour candidate in his place, but Burnham's efforts were blocked by the prime minister.
Questions around the prime minister's future have mired his leadership for some time. Starmer has most recently faced calls to resign following questions over his decision to appoint Peter Mandleson as US ambassador in 2024, despite being aware of Lord Mandleson's friendship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. This latest election serves another jolt to his premiership.
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So, who is Hannah Spencer, the new member of parliament for Gorton and Denton, and what does she stand for?
Who is Hannah Spencer MP?
The newest woman to take her seat in the House of Commons is a plumber and gas engineer by trade, who goes by @hannahtheplumbermcr on Instagram.
On the platform, she describes herself as a "plumber + gas engineer, marathon runner, housemate to four rescued greyhounds". Two weeks prior to the vote Spencer also qualified as a plasterer.
Like a true millennial, her page is a mixture of her work and the lives of her beloved greyhounds (one of whom is called Judy). Spener has previously posted about being child free and opposing recent comments about a "fertility crisis" by Reform candidate Matt Goodwin.
Spencer celebrated the Lunar New Year earlier this month, in a reel in which she announced:
"The year of the horse, the year of change and a fresh start" - which has certainly been the case for her.
What does Hannah Spencer MP stand for?
Spencer was previously the leader of the Green Party group on Trafford Council and ran for mayor of Greater Manchester in 2024, though lost out to Labour's Andy Burnham.
Spencer's down-to-earth, approachable style is a breath of fresh air in politics which she has said she has felt "totally shat on and disregarded" by in the past.
She has publicly condemned the messaging around migration from far-right politicians, dispelling disinformation while accepting that "the asylum system is entirely broken". As part of her campaign for Gorton and Denton, Spencer has promised to "keep providing solutions" to support asylum seekers coming to the UK.
On 3 September, while celebrating Zach Polanski's election in a landslide win as leader of the Green Party, Spencer said "we need strength, courage and a shit load of bravery to fight the division and intolerance that is growing in this country. We need Zach, and we've got him. This is just the start of something fucking unstoppable."
Spencer is also - perhaps unsurprisingly - campaigning to end greyhound racing as part of her political work.
In her victory speech, Spencer said "I didn't grow up wanting to be a politician", but "things have changed over the last few decades, because working hard used to get you something. It got you a house, a nice life, holidays - it got you somewhere".
"People who work hard but can't put food on the table, can't get their kids school uniforms, can't put their heating on, can't live off the pension they worked hard to save for, can't even begin to dream about ever having a holiday [...] because life has changed. Instead of working for a nice life, we're working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry. And I don't think it's extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life."
Harriet Hall is an award-winning journalist and the Features Director at Cosmopolitan. Most recently she was awarded Best Feature for her investigation into Andrew Tate and online misogyny at the 2023 Write to End Violence Against Women awards and the BSME for Best Lifestyle Journalist in 2022 for her work covering women’s safety, women's health, politics and pop culture. As a journalist of over a decade, her work has seen her interview celebrities from Zendaya to Zac Effron and politicians including Jeremy Corbyn (just five days before the 2017 general election); report on fashion weeks and take on stunts in the name of feminism. She has written for a range of publications including The Independent where she ran the lifestyle desk for four years, Evening Standard, Vogue, BBC News and Stylist. Harriet also regularly appears across numerous platforms to discuss her work, from Sky News to Radio 4 Woman’s Hour and on panels such as at the prestigious Woman of the World Festival. Her first book ‘She: A Celebration of 100 Renegade Women’ was published by Headline Home in 2018 and you can find her Tweeting, Instagramming and on Linkedin when she isn’t curled up on the sofa with a good book and the smallest dog in the world.
