Holborn and St Pancras, United Kingdom – Voters will head to the polls in the central London constituency of Holborn and St Pancras on Thursday in a by-election that is widely seen as a two-horse race between Green party leader Zack Polanski and Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali.
The contest was triggered when the previous sitting MP for Holborn & St Pancras, former Labour leader and Prime Minister Keir Starmer, announced his resignation on September 1.
The election marks a significant test both for Polanski and new Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who has been enjoying a political “honeymoon period” since coming to office in July.
The seat is a traditional Labour stronghold, having only elected Labour candidates to parliament since its creation in 1983. However, the contest between Polanski and Abdi-Wali, the leader of the local Camden council, is widely expected to be close.
As of October 6, Burnham’s approval ratings are higher than those of any other leader of the major British political parties, including Polanski. Favorability figures show Burnham enjoying a net approval rating of +7.9%, compared to Polanski’s -24.8%.
National polls also paint a positive picture for Labour, with recent figures showing the ruling party currently enjoys more than double the support of the Greens across the country.
However, Polanski has also seen significant political success since becoming leader of the Green Party last year; membership of the left-wing outfit has surged to record levels – 230,000 as of April – under his tenure. By membership, the Greens trail only far-right Reform UK and Labour in size.
If Burnham’s Labour wins, it will prove that the party is capable of defeating both left- and right-wing opponents at the ballot box; Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election in June came at the expense of Reform UK, who were expected to do well in the euroskeptic northern English constituency after beating Labour in the local elections there in May.
If Polanski’s Greens win, it will mark their second by-election victory against a Labour candidate this year, cement the party as a viable electoral alternative to the left of Labour and show that the Greens can win in urban, traditionally Labour-voting seats.
Polanski faces a winnable, but uphill battle
Image Source: Raphael McMahon (own image)
Holborn and St Pancras is a very progressive constituency, ranking 634th and 639th out of 650 constituencies respectively on measures of economic and cultural right-wing attitudes. However, the centre-left Labour appear to hold a slight advantage over the far-left Greens going into Thursday.
A GB Politics prediction released on Tuesday showed Burnham’s party leading Polanski’s 45% to 36% in the constituency, while Survation polls of Labour party members have found that two thirds of respondents were optimistic about Thursday’s result.
Some Green Party campaigners have acknowledged the scale of the challenge facing them.
In conversation with EU Reports, Hamza Chowdhury, a Camden councillor who initially challenged Zack Polanski for the Green party’s nomination for the by-election, said that he was fully aware that the Greens are underdogs.
“This is a Labour hold. There are a lot of voters who will just vote Labour regardless of the candidate, regardless of what Labour stands for, they are loyal to Labour.”
Experts also attribute Labour’s likelihood of success to a more favorable national political picture.
“We know that the Labour party is a lot more popular than it was on May 7 [during the local elections], and we know that the Greens are less popular. Therefore it becomes quite a substantial challenge [for the Greens to win],” UK polling guru John Curtis told news site Left Foot Forward.
In May, the British political scene which Curtis referred to looked significantly more favorable for the Greens. With Starmer in charge, Labour suffered significant losses in the local elections, whereas the Greens gained 441 new councillors.
Data showed that Labour’s poor performance at the local polls directly correlated with Green success, with Labour losing almost four times the number of votes to the left-wing Greens as they did to the right-wing Reform UK.
Labour’s poor showing in the local elections caused large numbers of Labour MPs to publicly express their disapproval of Starmer’s premiership, which catalyzed the former Labour leader’s downfall.
During the last months of Starmer’s tenure, Polanski gained significant political momentum by portraying his party as a left-wing alternative to Labour for disillusioned progressive Labour voters who felt that Starmer was shifting the party rightwards.
Polanski even began his leadership by warning Starmer that the Greens would “replace” Labour, a pledge he repeated various times during Starmer’s final months in office.
This strategy worked, and propelled the Greens to record high poll numbers.
However, Burnham’s reversal of Labour’s fortunes in the polls has caused Polanski to shift his messaging.
In the Holborn and St Pancras campaign, he and local Green campaigners have emphasized that the election of a sixth Green MP would mean holding Burnham’s government to account more effectively and pressuring them to shift left on key issues, such as introducing rent controls, stopping new oil and gas drilling and expanding the UK sanctions regime against Israel.
The election of one more Labour MP to the hundreds-strong Labour backbenches would change little, the Greens argue.
Chowdhury echoed and defended this message to EU Reports.
“Can we make massive change [if Polanski wins]? No, but can we be a voice for the voiceless? Yes. Can we make Labour more left-wing? Yes.”
Although Chowdhury praised Abdi-Wali’s candidacy, he also stressed that Polanski would have a much greater national impact.
“Labour has put up a great candidate. She is the leader of this council … [but] Sagal will be another backbencher, she will possibly make a load of promises but she can’t make massive change in national government.”
Polanski, on the other hand, would “change the dynamic of [national] UK politics” from inside the House of Commons, Chowdhury argued.
Image Source: Raphael McMahon (own image)
Other parties contesting the election include the centrist Liberal Democrats and the right-wing Conservatives, Reform UK and Restore Britain, none of which are expected to achieve a significant proportion of the votes.
Featured Image: Zack Polanski (R) and current Green MP for Bristol Central Carla Denyer (L) in 2022.
Image Credit: Bristol Green Party via Wikimedia Commons
License: Creative Commons Licenses
