Labour holds Holborn and St Pancras seat, beating Green party leader

Labour's Sagal Abdi-Wali has won the byelection in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency in London, taking 12,292 votes. Green party leader Zack Polanski came second with 8,928. The contest was triggered when former prime minister Keir Starmer resigned the seat in September. It was seen as a test for the left of British politics and the first major electoral challenge for Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

Low turnout

Turnout was 38.7%, the lowest for any byelection in England during this parliament and 15.4 points lower than in 2024. The Greens conceded shortly before the result was declared. A party spokesperson said challenging Labour in one of its safest seats showed how far the Greens had come.

Victory was not guaranteed, even though Starmer won a majority of 11,572 at the 2024 general election. The leftwing independent Andrew Feinstein finished second then, and in May's local elections the Greens took some Camden council seats from Labour.

Candidate and campaign

Abdi-Wali leads Camden council and is a former child refugee who came to the UK from Somalia in the 1990s. Reform UK's home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, said she was being "foisted" on voters and suggested she was not British; Labour accused him of "straightforward racism". The Greens sent thousands of members to knock on doors in the constituency.

Turmoil in the Greens

The defeat caps a bruising week for Polanski's party. On Sunday, members at the Green conference voted to adopt a policy treating Zionism as a form of racism and calling for Israel to be replaced by a single Palestinian state. Four of the party's five MPs opposed it. Polanski missed the debate and did not vote, as he was campaigning in the constituency. Caroline Lucas, a former Green leader, would not say whether he should stand down, but said she wanted him to show the leadership that was missing on Sunday.

George Galloway, running from self-exile outside the UK, also stood and received 314 votes.