Prominent Your Party member and former Respect Party leader Salma Yaqoob has endorsed the Greens in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election.
Yaqoob will appear alongside Green leader Zack Polanski at an event in Manchester on Tuesday evening, as the Greens start to ramp up their campaigning for a seat they are currently the favourites to win.
READ NEXT: New Green Party broadcast hailed as one of the best ever
In a message on social media, Yaqoob urged the left to “work together to support” the Greens.
She wrote: “I want to see both a strong Your Party and a strong Green Party as a counterweight to the parties of war abroad and poverty at home.
“The billionaires have 4 parties to represent them, while the needs of millions are ignored.
“The Greens are best placed to win on Feb 26th in Gorton. The Left should work together to support them, regardless of party affiliation, to prevent Reform winning and not hand victory to Starmer’s genocidal and authoritarian Labour Party.”
Yaqoob is best known for having been the leader of the Respect Party from 2005 to 2012. More recently, she has been involved in the founding of Your Party and has become a prominent figure within the party.
It is not yet clear if Your Party will decide to stand a candidate in the election, which is expected to take place on 26 February.
Following Labour’s decision to block Andy Burnham from standing as their candidate in the seat, many expect the by-election to be a straight fight between Reform and the Greens.
At the time of writing, the bookies make Polanski’s party the favourites for the seat, which would give them their fifth MP in the House of Commons.
When the by-election was confirmed, some had wondered if Polanski himself would stand for election, however it seems that the party’s deputy leader Mothin Ali is instead being lined up to be the Green candidate.