In British politics, victory speeches are usually full of triumphalism and party slogans. Hannah Spencer chose something else entirely: an apology.Moments after claiming victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election, the 34-year-old plumber-turned-politician told supporters she may have to cancel plumbing appointments for clients.
The Times quoted Hannah Spencer as saying: “I think I may have to cancel the work I have booked because I am heading to Parliament.” In a political culture often characterized by heightened rhetoric, the 34-year-old plumber’s sober remorse was of a different kind.So, who is Hannah Spencer, the businessman-turned-politician who flipped a once-safe Labor seat?
From toolbox to ballot box
Born in Bolton in 1991 or 1992, Hannah Catherine Spencer left school at 16 and trained as a plumber, later completing qualifications as a gas engineer and, more recently, as a plasterer.
She founded her own company, Hannah’s House Plumbing, after participating in a Prince’s Trust programme.In February 2026, she pulled off one of the biggest upsets in recent British politics, winning the Gorton and Denton by-election with 40.7 per cent of the vote, overturning Labour’s long-standing dominance of the seat the party had held since 1931. The win made her the first female Green Party MP in the north of England and the first ever winner of a by-election for the party.
A Hill Ward councilor on Trafford Council since 2023, Spencer only entered politics in 2022, driven, she says, by anger at the widening inequality gap exposed during the pandemic and PartiGate. She finished fifth in both the 2024 Greater Manchester mayoral race and the Warrington North general election contest before making her breakthrough.
A campaign that has become toxic
Spencer’s meteoric rise has been marred by a painful, polarizing campaign. She and the Green Party in England and Wales have been accused by Labor ministers of mobilizing Muslim voters over the war in Gaza, with critics claiming they were deliberately raising the issue’s importance in an electorate where almost three in ten residents are Muslim.Spencer dismissed the claims as “disappointing”, saying she had spoken to “tens of thousands of people across the constituency” about everyday concerns, from NHS waiting lists to the cost of living.Her campaign also targeted online misinformation, including false claims that she was married to a top AstraZeneca executive. She is not married. The claim refers to a former partner. Other posts falsely suggested she lived in a multi-million pound property on the Hill.
The abuse became so severe that she appeared on some occasions accompanied by security.
Image on the left, complex profile
Spencer has been portrayed as a hard-left rival to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. However, her property interests have also come under scrutiny: she owns two houses in the wealthier area of Altrincham and Sale West, which together are estimated to be worth around £1 million. One is a terraced house in Salé purchased in 2019; The other is a separate upper portion under renovation.Green-controlled councils have supported second homes council tax premiums, and National Party policy includes expanding social housing, rent controls, and buying up older housing to convert them. Party sources said Spencer’s previous online comments about the monarchy were “normal conversations years ago”.
Greyhound savior
Aside from politics and plumbing, Spencer rescues greyhounds, a detail that has become central to her public persona.
On the green podcast Bold Politics, she spoke emotionally about her first rescue dog, Graham.“There’s a little bit of Graham in all of us,” she said. “We just want to be accepted and we just want to be happy and we just want to be safe.”The image of a trade balancing plastering lessons at Trafford College with bouts of canvassing, and then returning home to care for rescued dogs, helped craft a relatable outsider narrative.
A new kind of green politics
Spencer is seen as close to Zak Polanski, whose leadership has taken the Green Party towards a more populist focus on bread-and-butter issues such as the NHS and the cost of living, along with climate policy.Her wins in Gorton and Denton are widely seen as a warning shot for both Labor and Reform UK, and evidence that the Green Party is capable of breaking out of its traditional strongholds of Brighton and Bristol and making gains in working-class northern constituencies.Four weeks before polling day, few outside Trafford had heard her name. By dawn on Friday, after apologizing for the loss of plumbing jobs and thanking voters, Hannah Spencer had made history, a plumber who rescues greyhounds and now carries a wrench to Westminster.
