Gorton and Denton is an area with high levels of deprivation, a lower than the UK average education, low income and a large non-British-white population. Traditionally the constituency had been a strong Labour foothold.
The present by-election has eleven candidates fighting for support and votes. We found out a bit more about one of the candidates who did not answer our questions.
Who is Matt Goodwin?
Matt Goodwin is one of the candidates who is standing for the job of MP for Gorton and Denton this Thursday, 26 February2026 having been selected as the Reform 2025 Ltd candidate. He is a political scientist, right-wing activist, conservative political commentator and former academic best known for his research on right-wing populism and right-wing movements in the UK. Born in 1981, he built his academic career studying why established political parties struggled with voter dissatisfaction. He first came to widespread attention for his research on UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) which analysed the economic and social roots of the party’s support, co-authoring a book with Robert Ford entitled Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain. As an academic he held senior posts including an associate professorship at the University of Nottingham and a professorship at the University of Kent. Over time he has become an outspoken media commentator, writing for national newspapers as well as featuring regularly on television and radio, specifically his tenure as a GB News host. In recent years he has become increasingly more controversial in his statements particularly surrounding immigration, culture and free speech. Observers have noted that his political beliefs have shifted considerably in recent years from centre-right to ethnonationalist, anti-immigration right-wing populism.
Is Matt Goodwin a controversial candidate?
Goodwin has been in the news recently after some strong and controversial statements, notably about “young women and girls” needing a “biological reality check” (which caused many people to see a parallel with The Handmaid’s Tale), universities being full of ‘childless women’, and punishing childless people by making them pay more tax (Matt believes British women should have more children, and suggested removing personal income tax for women who have two or more children (but men wouldn’t get punished or rewarded for the amount of children they have), as well as having been accused of sexual harassment.
In an interview last year, Matt Goodwin stated that having a British passport does not make someone British, for that you need to be able to trace your family as having lived on the British Isles “for generations” (one or two generations isn’t enough for him). ‘White Britons’ seem to be important to him, and he feels ‘white Britishness’ is in decline.
Recent research by Byline Times has revealed even more facts about Matt Goodwin that should worry a lot of people. It seems Matt Goodwin is a visiting professor at the Centre for Heterodox Social Sciences at the University of Buckingham (this university is dedicated to “the prioritisation of free inquiry and expression above ‘social justice’.” The Heterodox Centre aims to “question commonly held beliefs” and dogmas, such as those “around sex and gender”, race and gender achievement gaps, egalitarian principles, and to concentrate on happiness and excellence, beauty and human flourishing.
And of course immigration, Matt Goodwin wants to stop all immigration for 40 years and throw at least 600,000 non British passport holders out of the country, even if present law guarantees them the right to stay. It remains to be seen how he intends on circumventing the law but this may explain why Reform is so keen to withdraw the UK from the ECHR.
The constituency
Gorton and Denton is made up of two distinct parts, with Gorton being a mixed demographic, and Denton predominantly white.
Gorton and Denton is in the 10% of areas that are most deprived nationally.
In total, 71% of people in the wards were born in the UK, and only 17.7% have a non-UK passport. 30% of households are single people, 60% are one family households. Of all residents, a quarter are schoolchildren or full-time students. Almost 25% of people 16 and over have no professional qualifications. 5% of people struggle with the English language, 18% are classed as disabled and 47% of people over 18 do not have a job. Over 60% of households are said to be deprived in one or more dimensions (employment, education, health/disability, or housing), with 33% in fuel poverty, 47% child poverty, and 46% stating their mental health is affected by the cost-of-living crisis.
So an area of mixed ethnicity, varying but lower than the UK average in education and employment, and households who are struggling to make ends meet.
What would Matt Goodwin and Reform do for the people in Gorton and Denton?
If you are a Muslim woman, you might be banned from wearing a burka if Goodwin gets his say.
For young British women: Start having children at a young age, all those childless women in universities are creating a hotbed of “politically correct authoritarianism”. And we can’t be having political correctness now, can we? So forget going to university, stay home, start a family (with whom if you’ve not found a good partner yet?) and stay together as a family. This is at total odds to Goodwin’s own family situation having split up and subsequently been divorced from his wife and mother of his child.
Those who are good British citizens and have children: Do Not have more than two, as Reform will re-introduce the two-child limit on Child Benefits, in order to reduce the price of a pint by 5p.
To anyone living near a flood plain, or who thinks the environment is important: Reform plans to scrap net-zero, which is likely to result in more flooding, more pollution, more climate change.
If you are in the 23% of people who immigrated to Britain and now identify as British: Matt Goodwin does not agree. He feels YOU are not British, and your children and grandchildren won’t be either. Even if you have been granted a British passport. And that means any rights you have now could be taken away if Reform manages to change the laws.
If you have a friend, dentist, doctor, carer, or colleague with an EU passport: Reform 2025 Ltd is considering whether they can strip them of many of their Settled-Status rights, which were guaranteed under the Withdrawal Arrangement.
Conclusion
It is without a doubt that Matt Goodwin’s views are highly controversial, the fact that he was chosen as a candidate even though Farage knew of the allegations of sexual harassment by a former staffer at GB News throws into question the integrity of the Reform 2025 Ltd vetting system.
In fact Farage has distanced himself recently from some of Goodwin’s views and yet he remains their candidate. Is Goodwin the best candidate for Gorton and Denton? For an area that is so diverse not just culturally but also in terms of gender the jury remains out
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