Matt Goodwin Selected As Reform Candidate In Key By Election

Reform UK have chosen a right-wing GB News presenter as the party’s candidate in next month’s crunch Gorton and Denton by-election.

Academic and author Matt Goodwin will aim to become the party’s ninth MP when voters go to the polls on February 26.

He was chosen despite speculation that Reform’s policy chief and former chairman Zia Yusuf would be the candidate.

The by-election has been triggered by the resignation on health grounds of Andrew Gwynne, who retained the seat for Labour in 2024 with a majority of more than 13,000.

However, opinion polls suggest it will be a close three-horse race between Labour, Reform and the Greens.

After being unveiled by Reform MP Lee Anderson at a press conference in the constituency, Goodwin said: “I am not a career politician. I am not a Tory.

“I am not part of the establishment. I am not part of the Westminster blob.

“I am, like many people in this seat and millions of people in this country, hard-working taxpayers who are just fed up of watching what is happening to their communities and to their home.”

Anderson said the by-election was “a referendum on Keir Starmer”.

He said: “It’s a chance for hard-working, law-abiding people, tax-paying people from this seat to have their say on Keir Starmer and to make political history.”

Labour’s campaign has been overshadowed by a furious row over the party’s decision to block Andy Burnham from running to be its candidate.

Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell said: “Matt Goodwin represents the kind of politics that will drive a wedge between communities in Manchester.

“Reform have misjudged the mood around Manchester and they won’t put the priorities of working people first. They just offer division, animosity, and hatred – not the unity and pride which our city stands for.

“Only a vote for Labour can stop Reform’s toxic politics and guarantee residents have a local champion that will cut their cost of living as their new Labour MP.”

Green Party leader Zack Polanski said: “This by-election is a straight contest between hope and hate. The Green Party will be out campaigning every day, to improve the cost of living by taxing the super rich.

“We alone will be taking the fight to Reform, whose selection of a man with a track record of anti-Muslim bigotry in a community with a good history of community relations is an insult to the people of Gorton and Denton.

“It tells you everything you need to know that Reform are parachuting in this rent-an-extremist – this isn’t about representing the people of Gorton and Denton, it’s about using this place as a platform for their careers.”

Liberal Democrat cabinet office spokesperson, Lisa Smart said: “Reform UK’s selection of Matthew Goodwin proves they are a party built on a single foundation: division.

“Like Nigel Farage, Goodwin has made a career out of talking our country down. He is a professional wind-up merchant, more interested in chasing headlines than putting an end to the cost of living crisis facing families.

“We cannot allow the divisive politics of Trump’s America to become the blueprint for Farage’s Britain.”