Labour has comfortably won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election with 45 per cent of the vote, leaving Zack Polanski a distant second on 32.7 per cent. In the contest caused by Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to quit the House of Commons, Sagal Abdi-Wali retained much of her party’s vote, down only four points from the party’s 2024 triumph. The result will further bolster Andy Burnham’s credentials, cheer Labour activists after his rousing conference speech and exacerbate the existing wounds within the Green party about the future of Polanski’s leadership.
It was just five weeks’ ago that Starmer resigned – but he has already been totally airbrushed out of history by his local party. Abdi-Wali ran a campaign focused on three issues: homelessness, water companies and opportunities for young people around the theme of ‘the Camden way’. The first two neatly dovetailed with Burnham’s own national priorities. Campaigners were cheered by the Prime Minister’s threats to take Thames Water into public ownership, with many local residents affected in August by one of the company’s burst water mains. Unsurprisingly, Starmer did not feature on any Labour literature, with the party preferring to talk about its record in local government – something that worked well in the May elections.
The Greens, by contrast, tried to make this campaign about the past. Much of their rhetoric was focused on the legacy of Starmer, with various Green outriders and sympathisers asking about Abdi-Wali’s links to the unpopular ex-PM. A ‘dyed in the wool Starmerite, who is one of Keir Starmer’s closest friends,’ is how journalist Paul Holden described her to the left-wing news site Novara. Over the course of the campaign, there was a subtle shift in party literature, as the Greens moved away from framing it as a two-horse race to keep out Labour to instead trying to positively influence the Burnham government. ‘Vote Green and watch Labour move’, was Polanski’s explicit pitch in his conference speech last week.
This result serves as a complete contrast to the Gorton and Denton contest at the beginning of the year. Back then, it was Labour losing their traditional votes in droves, the victims of tactical voting as the Greens stole their message of hope and change. Now, it is they who are resurgent as Polanski’s forces fight a backward looking campaign, centred on Starmer’s legacy. In February, it was Hannah Spencer, the plucky plumber, talking of how voters deserved a ‘nice life’: this morning it is Abdi-Wali, all smiles, speaking of how she wants to give ‘people something to believe in’. After a bruising twelve months for Labour, this cathartic result will bring great relief and joy: one senior aide confessed to feeling ‘very emotional’ after his party’s triumph.
Polanski now faces big questions about his own political future. As the polls were closing, his predecessor, Caroline Lucas appeared on Newsnight to quietly damn his record as leader. Polanski declined to vote on the Greens’ motion condemning ‘Zionism as racism’ at last week’s conference vote, something bitterly opposed by Lucas and most other long-standing Greens. Asked whether Polanski should now stand down, she paused before saying quietly, ‘let’s just see what happens in the coming days and weeks’. Amid reports that some of the Greens’ five MPs are considering quitting the party, Polanski’s failure to win here further damages his credibility among his troops. Having chosen to stand, he then made several gaffes, including a cringe-worthing video of him attempting to speak Urdu. Polanski has gambled big – and lost.
For the first time since the war, five different established parties have won Westminster by-elections this year. That statistic is a stark indication of the fragmented electoral landscape and a reminder of the fickle fortunes of political volatility. The same forces that built the Greens up have now left them halted in their tracks. This seat was always going to be a left-on-left scrap: urban, progressive, highly diverse and stuffed full of graduates. But it is worth noting that the Tories managed to beat Reform and keep their deposit – the first time they have been the leading right-of-centre party in a by-election in England this parliament.
Labour will be left cheered for parliament’s return on Monday, when Sagal Abdi-Wali will take her seat on the green benches. Her victory is a reminder of Burnham’s signal achievement since succeeding Starmer as Prime Minister: uniting much of the left of centre bloc behind him, as he bids to lay the ghosts of the past two years to rest.
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