No tracking. No cookies
Subscriptions
Subscriptions
Read our Monthly Magazine
And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system
Labour MP Naz Shah has criticised claims by Reform UK that the legitimacy of the Gorton and Denton by-election – won by the Greens’ Hannah Spencer – was undermined by “family voting” and “Muslim sectarianism” in the Manchester constituency.
Shah, the MP for Bradford West – whose party’s candidate came third in a seat Labour won with a 13,400 majority in 2024 – told Byline Times that the claims by Reform’s candidate Matt Goodwin and his party leader Nigel Farage “demean” voters.
Reform has reported its allegations of ‘family voting’ – whereby a family member is seen to be influencing another person’s vote, such as by accompanying them in a polling booth – to Greater Manchester Police and the elections watchdog, the Electoral Commission.
Matt Goodwin posted on X ahead of the result: “Given the reports we are reading in the UK media about family voting and sectarianism, I am deeply concerned about the extent to which the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election is a free, fair, and democratic election.”
But Shah told Byline Times that what unfolded electorally in Gorton and Denton “was not sectarian voting”.
“This was people angry with mainstream parties on a range of issues, but also a deep feeling of not mattering and being taken for granted,” she said. “Those throwing around the sectarian label are not only factually wrong, they are normalising a narrative that demeans voters who made their voices heard democratically.
“The logic does not even hold. How do supposedly ‘sectarian Muslims’ end up voting for a radically progressive party with a gay Jewish leader?”
Shortly after the polls closed in Gorton and Denton, election observer group Democracy Volunteers issued a statement in which its director John Ault said it had seen “concerningly high levels of family voting” in the constituency – which amounted to “the highest levels of family voting at any election in our 10-year history of observing elections in the UK”.
Gorton and Denton’s acting returning officer dismissed these findings, noting that “no such issues have been reported” and that staff on the ground had not been informed of this during polling.
But, approximately 30 minutes after Democracy Volunteers’ statement, Nigel Farage cited its figures on X, claiming they raised “serious questions about the integrity of the democratic process in predominantly Muslim areas”.
Shah, who was subjected to a number of personal attacks by then Respect Party Leader George Galloway during the 2015 General Election in the Bradford West seat she has held ever since, told Byline Times that what is being characterised as sectarianism is merely those who feel “unheard” exercising their democratic voice.
“If voters angry about Gaza or any other policy are sectarian, what do we call politicians who appeal exclusively to other sections of society on immigration?” she said.
“To be clear, large sections of this electorate in Gorton and Denton also voted for Reform. These labels are demeaning and they build exactly the polarisation we should be standing to prevent.
“I know what Biradri and clan-based politics looks like, I have a history of fighting it and this is not what this is. What I am seeing now is largely young people convincing their parents to move away from the main parties. That is not coercion, that is a generation that feels unheard.
“We need to win them back, and we will not do it by alienating them further.”