The Labour party has selected its candidate to fight the Gorton and Denton byelection.
Angeliki Stogia, a Manchester city councillor, was chosen to fight the seat after a hustings event and vote by local members at the Jain community centre in Levenshulme, in the south of the constituency.
Stogia beat Eamonn O’Brien, the leader of Bury council in Greater Manchester, who had been said to be the favourite of No 10. Labour insiders said the contest was closely fought, but Stogia was seen as the more local candidate which, in the end, gave her the edge. She is a ward councillor in nearby Whalley Range, also in south Manchester.
Labour’s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, said: “I’m absolutely thrilled that my good friend Angeliki Stogia has been selected as Labour’s candidate today. She’s a local girl, she’s Mancunian, she’s up for it.
“She’s been delivering for people in this area for a long time, and that’s what we’re going to be going out on the doorsteps to say to people.”
Stogia said she was “absolutely thrilled and excited” to have been chosen as Labour’s candidate.
“I am a proud Mancunian woman,” she said. “I have walked the streets of this constituency. This is about Manchester. Manchester is a city united, we are rejecting division. I am so looking forward to going out on the doorstep and winning this for Labour.
“I am so excited that I got selected, and I am raring to go,” she added. “We’ve got a right fight on our hands, but we’ve got the people with us, and we will win this.”
The byelection was triggered by the resignation of the former Labour MP Andrew Gwynne because of ill health.
Gwynne remains under a parliamentary standards investigation into a scandal involving a WhatsApp group, called Trigger Me Timbers, that shared inflammatory comments about constituents, local party members and other MPs, which led to him being suspended by Labour.
Labour is facing competition in the seat from Reform, which has picked Matthew Goodwin, a former academic who is now a hard-right activist to be its candidate, and the Green party, which is vying for the anti-Reform vote with its candidate Hannah Spencer, a Manchester plumber.
The Labour party chair, Anna Turley, told Labour activists who had gathered for the announcement: “Look at the toxic divisive challenge we face here, and it’s such an important campaign that we have to face down Reform and the kind of divisive politics that they stand for.”
From left: Lucy Powell, deputy leader of the Labour party, Angeliki Stogia and Anna Turley, chair of the Labour party, in Denton. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA
Stoggia added: “I know we’ve got a mountain to climb, but look around you, we have got so many activists, we are absolutely going to win this election, and we are taking nothing for granted.
“We are going to be knocking [on] every door, we’re going to be talking to everyone, because we need everybody’s support.”
Labour has set out the battleground as being between itself and Reform, but it is also fighting the Greens for progressive votes. Both Labour and the Greens have positioned themselves as the party to beat Reform.
The Greens’ leader, Zack Polanski, was in Levenshulme on Saturday with his own party activists. In a post on Facebook, he wrote: “What a turning point we can make happen for our country!”
Powell said: “The Greens aren’t being entirely straight with people about this. They’ve got no councillors in this constituency at all, they’ve got no real base here at all.
“You might look at the national polls, but here in Manchester, the Labour brand is particularly strong and resilient, and in Denton as well, because of what Andy [Burnham]’s been doing, with better buses, more housing, more skills, opportunities for people. But also we’ve got a really good Labour council here.
“So we’ve got a very strong, resilient brand and we’ve spoken to over 15,000 people in a week,” she added. “We know that this race is between us and Reform. The Greens aren’t really in this race at all, and they’re not being straight with people about that.”
Labour’s chief whip, Jonathan Reynolds, said there was “no complacency” about the scale of the challenge, and that the party was ready to defend the seat.
Angela Rayner attended the announcement at the Jain community centre in Denton. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA
He said: “It is definitely a Reform-Labour head-to-head. I don’t say that to disrespect any other political party, but I think the sense is, had the Greens really thought they were in it, Polanski would have been the candidate.
“And frankly, people will remember what happened in Runcorn, where six votes made the difference,” he added, “and I think there’s a lot of people in that constituency who have seen what a Reform MP says and does for them.”
Labour’s candidate selection came amid a high-profile row after Burnham, who wanted to surrender the mayoralty of Greater Manchester to contest the seat for Labour, was denied the chance by the national executive committee.
The briefing war has continued, with a cabinet member telling the Times: “He’s been handed everything on a plate for his whole career. He’s now angry because people won’t make way for his second coming. It’s typical Andy.”
The latest remarks prompted the mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotheram, to defend Burnham, saying: “Enough already. I’ve kept my counsel so far because there were assurances from the prime minister that anonymous briefings against Andy Burnham would stop.
“These gutless people hide behind the cloak of anonymity, just like the keyboard warriors they rail against. These anonymous attacks help nobody but our opponents. For the sake of our party, please, just stop.”
