Labour did not simply lose; it disgraced itself. It has been accused of sending leaflets appearing to come from a tactical voting organisation that did not exist, which “recommended” voting Labour based on “a new prediction”. Labour attacked the Greens for their principled opposition to a failed “war on drugs” that leaves a multibillion-pound trade in the hands of criminal gangs and condemns many addicts to early graves.
…
Labour feared a Green victory would be existential. It is. Gorton and Denton ranked 127th on the Greens’ target list. If Polanski’s party can capture one of Labour’s safest seats, then no Labour MP can feel secure. And it is worse than it looks. Canvassers repeatedly told me they met voters – Muslim and non-Muslim alike – who were frightened into backing Labour to stop Reform. They would have voted Green had they believed victory possible. Next time, those people will.
The Starmer project rested on crushing the left. As a mere frontman for the most reactionary and personally toxic elements in his party, he secured power by assuring members he would preserve the radicalism they had voted for – and then buried it. They assumed they could get away with it, confident much of the media would applaud the destruction of socialists as sober statecraft.
But deceit is all Starmerism had – and events in Gorton and Denton show the vacuity of that. There was no animating vision, no reckoning with a broken economic order. What Starmer’s Labour did not anticipate was the re-emergence of the left beyond Labour’s institutional walls. It was comfortable competing with the Conservatives and Reform, aping their anti-migrant rhetoric. It did not regard the left as a legitimate political force: being devoured by the radical left was never in the script. In the end, its war on the left has consumed it.
Labour now faces a reckoning between a Blairite faction urging further defiance of an estranged electorate and others demanding a frantic pivot to win back disillusioned voters. Even if the leadership desired the latter, the parliamentary party is crowded with too many cynical careerists to make it credible. In my view, Labour cannot be saved: it must be replaced. Gorton and Denton suggests that is possible.
The Greens are on track to win over a hundred seats at the next general election, if the historic swing achieved to win Gorton and Denton is replicated nationwide.
Local candidate Hannah Spencer delivered a stunning by-election victory that more than tripled the party’s vote.
In 2024 the Green Party secured just 13.2% of the vote in Gorton and Denton – one of Labour’s safest seats – but Hannah Spencer has achieved 40.7% of the vote, 14,980 votes, with a swing of 27.5%.
New Green Party MP Hannah Spencer said: “I’m grateful, and thrilled, that the people of Gorton and Denton chose hope over hate and elected me as their new Green Party MP.
“This is the beginning of something massive.”
Green Party leader Zack Polanski said: “If we see a swing like this at the next general election, there will be a tidal wave of new Green MPs. When I was elected Leader of the Greens I said we were here to replace Labour and I meant it. Hannah was a fantastic candidate and I know she’ll make a brilliant MP.”
Hannah Spencer MP added: “I’m proud to have run a positive, inclusive campaign focused on the issues that matter most to local people: bringing down the cost of rent and bills, protecting the NHS, properly funding our public services, and ending Britain’s complicity in genocide.
“I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me. They know they can trust me and the Green Party to deliver on our promises.
“I also want to thank the thousands of volunteers who gave their time, skills and energy to help us reach as many voters as possible with our message.
“The Greens are the only party with a real plan to improve everyday life for the people in Gorton and Denton and across the country.”
Zack Polanski added: “This used to be one of Labour’s safest seats. In this by-election almost half of their 2024 voters abandoned them and many switched to voting Green, meaning they finished 3rd. The Green Party saw a record-breaking swing in our direction and more than tripled our vote.
“Labour fought a shameful, dirty campaign – spreading lies about Green policies and even faking a tactical voting website. They knew they couldn’t win, but they risked splitting the vote and letting Reform in.
“People everywhere will now know that voting Green is the way to defeat Reform. Many ex-Labour voters told our canvassers that they will never go back to a party that supports genocide, fuels racism, and has failed to deliver on its promise to improve life for people across the country.”
Hannah Spencer has won a huge victory for the Green party over Reform UK and the Labour party in Gorton and Denton. The left united in their support behind Spencer and the Green party to defeat the evil promoted by Farage and Starmer’s parties. Both nasty right-wing parties were properly rejected.
Congratulation to Hannah and the Green Party, champions of the left, defeaters of evil.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber at the Capitol on February 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)
“This is a plot to interfere with the will of voters and undermine both the rule of law and public confidence in our elections,” said Sen. Mark Warner.
A group of right-wing activists is crafting an executive order that would let President Donald Trump unilaterally ban mail-in ballots and voting machines ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The Washington Postreported on Thursday that the order being drafted by Trump allies would give him “extraordinary power over voting,” even though the US Constitution explicitly gives individual states the powers to run their own elections.
An advocate for the order, Florida attorney Peter Ticktin, acknowledged in an interview with the Post that the Constitution does not give the president any role in shaping elections, but he said Trump needed to act to prevent China from supposedly interfering with American elections.
“Under the Constitution, it’s the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections, and the president doesn’t have any power to do that,” Ticktin said. “But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes. That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.”
The activists drafting the emergency order said that they are working in coordination with the White House, although the extent of any cooperation isn’t clear.
However, the Post pointed to some evidence that the White House really is on board with such a strategy, such as the Trump administration’s efforts to investigate his 2020 election loss to former President Joe Biden, which the president has long baselessly claimed was due to foreign interference from a number of nations, including China and Venezuela.
As the Post noted, “a 2021 intelligence review concluded that China considered efforts to influence the election but did not go through with them.”
Additionally, Trump has publicly stated numerous times that he wants to completely do away with mail-in ballots and voting machines, both of which he has baselessly claimed are riddled with fraud.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the draft order was simply an attempt by the president’s allies to block democratic accountability in future elections.
“We’ve been raising the alarm for weeks about President Trump’s attacks on our elections and now we’re seeing reports that outline how they may be planning to do it,” Warner told the Post. “This is a plot to interfere with the will of voters and undermine both the rule of law and public confidence in our elections.”
Government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said that the drafted order was plainly unconstitutional and would fail in court.
“The Constitution gives states power over election law with oversight from Congress,” CREW wrote in a social media post. “Notice who’s missing? The president. Trump may try to cook up a sham national emergency to try to seize control of elections but it won’t stand up to scrutiny.”
MS NOW national security contributor Marc Polymeropoulos called the draft order “batshit authoritarianism” and cautioned that “this crazy shit is possible as Trump knows Congress is all but lost at this point in a free election.”
“To save himself,” Polymeropoulos added, “anything is possible.”
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker pointed to the Post report and warned, “Donald Trump’s c”
Rep. Rosa De Lauro (D-Conn.) accused Trump of “setting the stage to steal the midterm elections and set fire to our democracy,” while vowing that Democrats would “fight for our democracy and safeguard the right to vote.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Original article by republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, was dropped miles from his home in Buffalo, New York by US Border Patrol agents after he was released from jail on February 19, 2026. His body was found on February 24. (Photo via missing person poster/Investigative Post)
“There must be a full investigation and real accountability from US Customs and Border Protection,” said one lawmaker.
The latest chapter in what one historian called “the ongoing horror story of American immigration enforcement” unfolded in Buffalo, New York this week after Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a 56-year-old Rohingya refugee from Myanmar, was released from a county jail where he’d been held for a year.
As Buffalo-based outlet the Investigative Postreported Wednesday, the nearly blind man was found dead on Tuesday evening, five days after US Border Patrol agents who had picked him up from the jail dropped him off at a coffee shop. They neglected to inform his lawyer or family where he was, making it impossible for Shah Alam to find his way home in sub-freezing temperatures.
Shah Alam, who was blind in one eye and had partial, blurry vision in the other, had gotten lost one day in February 2025 and ended up on a woman’s porch with a curtain rod he used as a walking stick.
The woman called the police, who ordered Shah Alam to drop his “weapon”—the walking stick—and then Tasered, beat, and arrested him.
Shah Alam, who could not speak English and did not understand the police officers’ orders, was charged with assault, trespassing, and possession of a weapon and taken to Erie County Holding Center.
His family, which includes a wife and two sons, chose not to bail him out of the county jail. His arrest had come a month into President Donald Trump’s second term, and they feared US Immigration and Customs Enforcement would detain him if he was released and send him to a detention center out of state.
Benjamin Macaluso, an attorney with Legal Aid Bureau who was representing Shah Alam, told the Investigative Post that he had been released on bail last week after reaching a deal with the Erie County District Attorney’s office, agreeing to plead guilty to trespassing and possession of a weapon. The agreement allowed him to avoid detention by federal immigration agents even though authorities had previously placed an immigration detainer on Shah Alam.
Despite that, the Erie County Sheriff’s Office contacted US Border Patrol to pick Shah Alam up from the Holding Center. When the agents determined Shah Alam was not eligible for immigration detention, Border Patrol told the Investigative Post, they “offered him a courtesy ride, which he chose to accept to a coffee shop.”
An agency spokesperson claimed the nearly blind man “showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance.”
Mohamad Faisal, one of Shah Alam’s two sons, toldAl Jazeera that his father was not able to read, write, or use electronic devices.
Macaluso told the Investigative Post that Shah Alam’s family spent days searching for him in the cold before his body was found. The lawyer also said he had expected Shah Alam to be taken to an ICE detention center in Batavia, New York to be released.
A spokesperson for City Hall in Buffalo told the Investigative Post that homicide detectives were “investigating the circumstances and timeframe of events leading up to his death, following his release from custody,” but said homicide and exposure to the elements had been ruled out as the cause of death by a medical examiner.
US Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) was among those who called for a “full investigation” into Border Patrol’s decision to leave Shah Alam miles from his home despite his disability.
I am disturbed by the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam in Buffalo. Leaving a nearly blind man who didn’t speak English stranded far from home without telling his family was a shocking breach of responsibility and basic humanity by federal enforcement. There must be a full…
Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan, a Democrat, accused US Customs and Border Protection, which oversees Border Patrol, of a “dereliction of duty” and said the agency’s treatment of Shah Alam was “inhumane.”
“US Customs and Border Protection must answer for how and why this happened,” said Ryan. “Buffalo is a city that welcomes refugees and believes government should protect human dignity, not endanger it. US Customs and Border Protection failed that basic standard.”
Chuck Park, a Democrat who is running for Congress in New York’s 6th District, said the New York for All Act, which would prohibit state and local law enforcement from collaborating with federal immigration agencies, would have prevented the sheriff’s office from calling Border Patrol upon Shah Alam’s release.
This blind refugee wasn't just "picked up" by Border Patrol before he died. The Erie County Sheriff honored an ICE detainer & handed him over.
This is exactly what "New York For All" would prevent.
Alexandre Burgos of the New York State Hate and Bias Prevention Unit invited community members to a gathering to demand accountability to Shah Alam’s death.
“We are coming together to demand accountability and transparency in the case of Nurul Amin Shah Alam,” reads a flyer for the event, scheduled for Thursday evening at 5:30 pm Eastern at Lafayette High School in Buffalo.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
