Manchester (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Britain’s ruling Labour party slumped to an embarrassing third-place finish as it lost a traditional northern English heartland to the left-wing Greens in a crunch local poll result Friday that heaps pressure on unpopular Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Labour also finished behind the hard-right, anti-immigrant Reform UK party in the by-election for the parliamentary seat of Gorton and Denton in Manchester, as the country’s traditional two-party system fractures.

The result in a seat that Labour has dominated for decades shows how the party is being squeezed by both ends of the political spectrum and is likely to increase chatter about how much longer the 63-year-old Starmer can stay in office.

It also suggests that Britons appear more willing to look towards insurgent parties for answers on long-standing, hot-button issues like the high cost of living and irregular immigration.

Labour won the constituency with almost 51 percent of the vote at the July 2024 general election that swept Starmer to power and ousted the Conservatives from 14 consecutive years in office.

But his government has since been beset by numerous policy reversals and several rows, including over the appointment of Peter Mandelson, an associate of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.

- Unpopular Starmer -

Polls suggest Starmer is the most unpopular British prime minister since surveys began and earlier this month he faced down calls from within his own party to resign.

Hannah Spencer, a 34-year-old plumber and plasterer won with almost 15,000 votes. She becomes the fifth sitting MP in the 650-seat British parliament for the Greens, which wants higher taxes for the wealthy and is avowedly pro-Palestinian.

“People in their thousands told me, on the doorstep and at the ballot box, that what we are sick of is being let down and looked down on,” she said in her victory speech, adding: “We defeated the parties of billionaire donors.”

Reform candidate Matt Goodwin, a 44-year-old political scientist registered some 10,500 votes, while Labour’s Angeliki Stogia won just over 9,300.

The Greens had never won a parliamentary by-election before and ran an impressive grassroots campaign that sought to mobilise the constituency’s 28 percent Muslim population.

The lead-up to polling day was fraught, with party leaders hurling insults at each other and activists accusing each other of misinformation and breaking campaign laws, highlighting the high stakes.

Goodwin, who has questioned if people from ethnic minority backgrounds can automatically be considered British, said “a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives” had delivered the Greens’ win.

- Immigration policies -

Labour chairwoman Anna Turley called the result “clearly disappointing” but claimed the upstart parties only offered “the politics of anger and easy answers”.

Starmer has spent much of his time in office targeting Reform, led by eurosceptic firebrand Nigel Farage, which leads national polls, by toughening Labour’s immigration policies and rhetoric.

But the stance has alienated elements of the party’s left-wing base and young people who are flocking to the Greens, led by the charismatic Zack Polanski, who some liken to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

The result is going to “make life for Keir Starmer even worse”, veteran pollster John Curtice told the BBC.

Curtice, writing on the BBC, said the result showed that “the Conservative-Labour duopoly that has long dominated post-war British politics has never looked weaker.”

The vote was triggered by the resignation of former Labour MP Andrew Gwynne on health grounds.

Starmer is likely to face scrutiny for helping to block the candidacy of popular Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, whose bid to become an MP was widely seen as a precursor for a potential leadership challenge from the party’s left against Starmer.

The premier faces another critical period in May with elections in Scotland, Wales and London that pollsters predict will be painful for Labour.

The next general election is not expected until 2029.