GB News presenter and former academic Matt Goodwin named as Reform UK’s candidate in Gorton and Denton
Reform UK has announced that Matt Goodwin, the campaigner and former academic, as its candidate in Gorton and Denton.
In a news release, Reform said:
Matt is a leading writer, broadcaster and academic. He was made by Manchester – which he calls ‘the greatest city in the world’. He lived in the city for many years and considers it home.
Matt’s family is from Manchester. His grandfather worked full time in a Manchester steel factory. His grandmother worked for the University of Salford, which Matt later attended.
Both his parents worked for the NHS in Manchester – his father ran the Greater Manchester Health Authority and his mother went to college in the city before working for the health board.
Matt was the first person in his family to go to university – he went to the University of Salford. He worked throughout his degree, even delivering fast food in the Gorton and Denton area.
As an academic, Goodwin made his name studying rightwing populism and, with Rob Ford, now a politics professor, he published an acclaimed book about Ukip in 2014, Revolt on the Right.
But over time Goodwin moved from being a student of national populism to being an advocate for it, and now he is a commentator and GB News presenter.
Commenting on his selection as a candidate, Goodwin said:
This byelection is a referendum on Keir Starmer. It is a chance for the people of Gorton and Denton to have their say on Keir Starmer and make history.
I will stand up for the local people of Gorton and Denton against the broken Westminster establishment. I will demand Britain fixes its borders, invests in our National Health Service, and clamps down on crime and antisocial behaviour.
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said the byelection would give voters a chance “to get rid of Keir Starmer and change the direction of this country”.
Key events
-
Afternoon summary
-
John Healey tells MPs he has identified ‘military options’ that could be used to seize Russian-linked tankers busting sanctions
-
Welsh government digs in after Shabana Mahmood rejects its call for full policing devolution
-
‘Not surprised at all’: Fareham voters size up Suella Braverman’s Reform switch
-
Labour says Reform has shown it is offering ‘division, animosity and hatred’ by having Goodwin as candidate
-
Labour activists in Gorton and Denton urge Starmer to lift ban on Burnham being candidate
-
UK ministers accept $1m from Meta amid social media ban consultation
-
Only 12% of Britons think Burnham would be worse PM than Starmer, poll suggests
-
Goodwin claims rise of Reform UK biggest insurgency in UK politics since Labour replaced Liberals 100 yeas ago
-
Goodwin ducks questions about whether he still thinks Britons for foreign heritage aren’t always fully British
-
Goodwin dismisses suggestions his record may make it hard for him to win minorty ethnic votes in Gorton and Denton
-
Pubs and live music venues to get support after business rates backlash, Treasury confirms
-
Treasury minister says every pub in England to get 15% off business rates bill from April
-
GB News presenter and former academic Matt Goodwin named as Reform UK’s candidate in Gorton and Denton
-
Labour’s Gorton and Denton byelection campaign hit by fallout from ‘vile’ WhatsApp chat
-
No 10 says it will ‘robustly’ defend interests of taxpayers as Rwanda sues UK over deportation scheme cancellation
-
Rayner urges ministers to take on ‘vested interests’ opposed to leasehold reform and their ‘outrageous’ scaremongering
-
Pennycook says getting rid of ground rents immediately would carry ‘significant risks’
-
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook makes statement to MPs about leasehold reform plans
-
SNP claims Scottish people ‘can sack Starmer’ in Holyrood elections in May
-
What survivor Mala Tribich told cabinet to mark Holocaust memorial day
-
‘Death knell for leaseshold’ – campaigner welcomes ground rents being capped
-
Leasehold reform plans will weaken UK’s appeal as ‘destination for global capital’, insurance industry claims
-
Burnham rejects claim he was told by No 10 in advance that, if he applied to be byelection candidate, he would be blocked
-
Manchester city council leader Bev Craig rules out standing to be Labour’s candidate in Gorton and Denton
-
Freehold investors should get compensation for ground rents being capped, says British Property Federation
-
Lib Dems call for ‘absurd, feudal system of leasehold’ to be abolished for good
-
Blocking Andy Burnham from Gorton and Denton byelection ‘real gift’ to Reform UK, Labour MPs tell Starmer
-
Capping ground rents means landlords won’t be able to fund essential repairs, and some could go bust, lobby group claims
-
Rayner urges government to be more ‘unapologetically Labour’
-
Green party says government should ‘scrap leasehold altogether’
-
Starmer ignores property investors’ protests and commits to capping leasehold ground rents at £250
Afternoon summary
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 Genton, it’s about using this place as a platform for their careers.
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
John Healey tells MPs he has identified ‘military options’ that could be used to seize Russian-linked tankers busting sanctions
Dan Sabbagh
Dan Sabbagh is the Guardian’s defence and security editor.
Britain has “identified further military options” that the UK could deploy to capture Russia linked oil tankers and is in discussions with Baltic and Nordic countries about possible joint seizures, the defence secretary said.
John Healey told MPs on the defence select committee that the UK would shortly host a meeting of the 10-country Joint Expeditionary Force to examine military and legal options to target sanctions-busting shipping linked to Russia.
Countries belonging to the Joint Expeditionary Force, traditionally chaired by the UK, include Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden as well as the three Baltic states – all the maritime nations nearest Russia’s Baltic and Arctic ports on which oil exports increasingly depend.
Healey told the committee:
I’ve now identified further military options that we can use to target shadow shipping. I’m discussing these with cabinet colleagues.
The UK will host a meeting shortly of JEF Nations, the military legal experts, that allow us to look at the legal basis on which we can act against shadow shipping and sanctioned ships, and the military options that we might use.
Earlier this month, the US military seized the Marinera or Bella 1 oil tanker with help from the RAF and the Royal Navy. The ship was sailing from the Caribbean sea towards Russia, having hastily reflagged itself under Russian jurisdiction.
The tanker had been accused of previously shipping sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil to China, so partly funding Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine. Healey told MPs he would like to see any oil seized “recycled and put into Ukraine in order to fight Putin’s invasion”.
Welsh government digs in after Shabana Mahmood rejects its call for full policing devolution
Bethan McKernan
Bethan McKernan is the Guardian’s Wales correspondent.
The Welsh government has reiterated that the Labour-led Cardiff administration seeks full devolution of policing and criminal justice after the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, rejected Welsh policing powers in sweeping proposed policing reforms.
In a response to Monday’s white paper, the cabinet secretary for social justice, Jane Hutt, said today that the administration and the Welsh Labour party’s long-term goal remains full devolution of policing and criminal justice, as per the recommendation of three independent commissions. She said:
I am encouraged by the constructive approach of the Home Office in engaging with the unique Welsh landscape, which is recognised in the paper. However, the mechanisms for achieving this [must] ensure that funds raised in Wales are retained in Wales.
Similarly, the introduction of centrally devised targets and changes to the oversight of police force performance may have merit, but it will be essential that any targets and oversight arrangements that apply in Wales are designed for the Welsh context, from the outset.
To support the review, at a minimum, we would expect to make the case that, given the difference in laws and working practices between Wales and England, no single regional police force should operate across both sides of the Anglo-Welsh border.
Hutt’s statement came after a Commons exchange on Monday in which Mahmoud replied “No, I do not” to the question “Does [the home secretary] not agree that this package of radical changes is exactly the right time for the devolution of policing to Wales?”
Incarceration levels and lengths of sentences are higher in Wales than the rest of western Europe, a phenomenon researchers attribute to gaps and overlap between the English and Welsh systems.
The Welsh government aims to agree a future form of governance with the Home Office before the Senedd dissolves in April ahead of elections, Hutt added.
The two Labour administrations will “need to build on what currently works well and strengthen the devolution settlement,” she said.
The Lib Dem take on Matt Goodwin’s selection as Reform UK’s candidate in Gorton and Denton is similar to Labour’s. (See 4.57pm.) Lisa Smart, the party’s Cabinet Office spokesperson, 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.
‘Not surprised at all’: Fareham voters size up Suella Braverman’s Reform switch
Priya Bharadia has been in Fareham, where Suella Braverman is the MP, finding out how people feel about her defecting to Reform UK. Not at all surprised is the answer.
Labour says Reform has shown it is offering ‘division, animosity and hatred’ by having Goodwin as candidate
Lucy Powell, Labour’s deputy leader, has claimed that, by selecting Matt Goodwin as a candidate, Reform UK has shown it is just offering “division, animosity and hatred”.
In a statement, 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.
Powell is referring to comments from Goodwin like those referred to earlier (see 2.47pm and 3.35pm), or this interview he gave last year, in which he said the British establishment should have paid more attention to the concerns being raised by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson from 2009.
(Ironically, this was not a view that Goodwin expressed about Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, when he wrote a critical article about him for the Guardian in 2013.)
Labour activists in Gorton and Denton urge Starmer to lift ban on Burnham being candidate
Some 17 members of the Gorton and Denton Labour party have written to Keir Starmer and Shabana Mahmood (in her capacity as chair of the national executive committee) asking them to lift the ban on Andy Burnham being a byelection candidate in the constituency, the Telegraph’s Dominic Penna and Robert White report. In their letter, the activists say:
Let the best come forward to represent our wonderful constituency and brilliant people. Let the brightest and most convincing campaigner be selected in what will be a nation defining by-election battle between Labour and Reform. Let Gorton and Denton not be the first domino in Greater Manchester to fall to Reform and instead the platform for the fight back against national populism.
As post holders and activists from across our CLP we demand simply that we decide who our candidate should be. In that way our campaigners will come out and work tirelessly for their candidate in their campaign to win and vanquish Reform. This means the NEC should reverse the decision to block Andy Burnham and allow him and anyone else to stand before us and make their case to represent our seat at this unprecedented political moment.
UK ministers accept $1m from Meta amid social media ban consultation
Ministers have accepted $1m (£728,000) from Meta, the US tech and social media company, to build AI systems for defence, national security and transport, sparking warnings about the UK government’s “alarmingly close relationship with Trump-supporting US tech giants”, Robert Booth reports.
Only 12% of Britons think Burnham would be worse PM than Starmer, poll suggests
YouGov has released on Andy Burnham and it suggests that 30% of Britons think he would do a better job as PM than Keir Starmer. Only 12% think he would be worse. Among people who voted Labour in 2024, 40% think Burnham would be better.
Asked the same question about Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting or Shabana Mahmood, Burnham’s three main rivals as potential alternatives to Starmer, in each case only 12% of people, or fewer, think they would do better than Starmer.
The poll also suggests that almost half of Britons think it would be good for the country if Starmer were replaced.
Goodwin claims rise of Reform UK biggest insurgency in UK politics since Labour replaced Liberals 100 yeas ago
At his press conference Matt Goodwin also said that he did not accept the Reform UK was just a new version of the Conservative party. Instead, he said, it was part of the biggest insurgency in British politics since the rise of the Labour party.
Goodwin, who spent more than a decade as a politics academic at the universities of Manchester, Nottingham and Kent, explained:
I’ve never personally viewed, and I don’t think people at the top of Reform view it this way, as a Tory party. 2.0.
I’ve got lots of friends in the party who are former Labour people, former Lib Dem people, none of the above people.
And to me, that’s where the power of this movement really lies, because what we are living through is truly historic.
This is the most significant insurgency since the rise of the Labour party 100 years ago, when it replaced the Liberals. This is a seismic political revolution that we are all living through.
And I think the reason it is so strong and persistent is because the people in seats like Gorton and Denton are saying, these two parties, they don’t come close to representing my values any more.
They’re both they’re both OK with mass migration. They’re both OK with net zero. They’re both OK with woke ideology, which they’ve jammed down our throats for the last 20 years. They’re both OK, basically, with staying in the European convention on human rights. They’re both OK with the status quo. And I think many people now can sense that.
So I think it’s about a broad tent and getting that broad tent together, but keeping the British people at the heart of it.
For an alternative take on whether Reform is a new version of the Conservative party, this is from the Telegraph’s Ben Riley-Smith.
Reform now has Boris Johnson’s…
– chancellor (Zahawi)
– communities sec (Jenrick)
– culture sec (Dorries)
– attorney general (Braverman)
– political sec (Kruger)
– skills minister (Jenkyns)
– Northern powerhouse minister (Berry)
– health minister (Caulfield)
– parliamentary private sec (Nici)
– assistant whip (Holloway)
– Scottish minister (Offord)
The old band getting back together
Goodwin ducks questions about whether he still thinks Britons for foreign heritage aren’t always fully British
Josh Halliday
Josh Halliday is the Guardian’s North of England editor.
Matt Goodwin, the Reform UK candidate in the crucial Gorton and Denton byelection, has ducked questions about whether he stands by his claim that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British.
Goodwin has been criticised for claiming recently that being born and brought up in the UK did not mean that people from black, Asian or other immigrant backgrounds were always British, saying: “It takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody ‘British’.”
Speaking at an event in Denton, the GB News presenter declined twice to answer when asked by the Guardian whether he stands by those views – which have been described by the Lib Dems as “racist” and “abhorrent”.
Nearly half of the Gorton and Denton population – 44% – identify as coming from an ethnic minority background, while 79% of the constituency identifies as British, according to the latest census.
Goodwin refused to answer the Guardian’s questions as he posed for photographs alongside Lee Anderson, the Reform UK MP, at a bar in Denton.
Anderson, the party’s chief whip, described the Manchester-born former academic as a “fearless” activist who would “debate anybody at any time”.
Goodwin dismisses suggestions his record may make it hard for him to win minorty ethnic votes in Gorton and Denton
At his press conference, Matt Goodwin, the new Reform UK candidate for Gorton and Denton, was asked what his message would be constituency’s minority ethnic population. Around a quarter of the population there is of Asian heritage, and another 9% are black, according to census figures. Goodwin has been criticised in the past for suggesting that some UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not fully British.
In response, Goodwin said:
My message to everybody in this seat is if you are working hard, paying taxes, contributing to this economy, you should be as concerned by what’s happening in 10 Downing Street as I am.
We have got a government under Keir Starmer that is clearly not in touch with the people in this seat.
It’s not about what your religion is, it’s not about what your race is, what your ethnicity is.
It’s about whether or not you play by the rules, whether or not you feel that you’re being respected, you feel the system is being fair to you, whether you can set up a business and make it thrive, whether you’re are safe, whether your high street is actually a place that fills you with pride.
I don’t view it in that in those divisive terms.
Pubs and live music venues to get support after business rates backlash, Treasury confirms
Here is our updated story on the rescue package for pubs – which doesn’t just cover pubs.
The Treasury has unveiled a support package worth tens of millions of pounds for pubs and live music venues in England and Wales, in a climbdown that follows a fierce backlash against plans to overhaul business rates, Rob Davies and Mark Sweney report.
