Angeliki Stogia arrived in Manchester from Greece in 1995 as a student. Over the years, she has forged a path in politics rooted in community – and the lives of people she meets every day campaigning on the doorstep. It is there, she says, that the reality of division in this country becomes clear.“A woman that I spoke to from Bangladesh, who came here when she was four,” she recalls. “She was telling me ‘my children are getting abused, racially abused at school’.”
The woman had built her life here, investing her savings into extending her home, she says. “She was crying on the doorstep,” she adds. “She said ‘I left Bangladesh at four years old…I can’t return, but they want me to leave’.”
“Whatever happens on the 27th, there will be an MP, and that woman will be still thinking the same things,” she says. “I want her to think that she has someone watching her back. Because I will do that all day long, every day.”
But beyond the personal stories lies a harsher reality: many residents in Gorton and Denton are still waiting to see meaningful change from the Labour Party. And for some voters, the question is not whether someone is listening, but whether their lives will improve.