Camden Council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election for the Labour Party (Alamy)
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Labour figures believe the Holborn and St Pancras by-election result has punctured the idea that Zack Polanski’s Greens are an unstoppable force on the left, but they remain cautious about how far it can be extrapolated to the rest of the country.
Labour’s victory in Holborn and St Pancras has come as a relief to a party that has spent much of the past year watching its support fragment across the political spectrum.
Sagal Abdi-Wali, Labour’s Camden council leader, won the north London seat with 12,292 votes, securing 45 per cent of the vote. Green leader Polanski came second with 8,928 votes, or 33 per cent.
However, there are still reasons for Labour to be concerned: the party’s majority in the seat fell from 11,572 at the 2024 general election to 3,364, and the Greens managed to more than triple their vote share.
The result is therefore a mixed one for both parties. Labour has held an incumbent seat while serving in government, where a Green victory would have represented a significant symbolic breakthrough. However, Green figures insist the seat was never a top target seat to begin with, with many in the party anticipating a loss before the votes were counted.
Morale boost for London Labour
For Labour MPs in London, the immediate significance of the result is how it will impact the psychology of voters and activists.
PoliticsHome understands that some London Labour MPs are emailing members to encourage them that now is the best time to get involved in the party, buoyed by the notion that the result has challenged the perception among progressive voters that it is embarrassing to vote Labour in the capital.
One London Labour MP described the result as a “boost” for the party, after the Greens’ victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election and their strong performance in May’s local elections helped create the impression that Polanski’s party was becoming a viable alternative across the country.
“If we want to win these seats again, we need to have people who voted Green in May voting Labour in the next general election, and that is still TBD, but this is a really good sign,” the MP said.
There is, however, considerable caution alongside the optimism. MPs and activists recognise that a by-election in a safe Labour seat cannot simply be extrapolated into a national recovery, especially when it does not resolve the wider problem of voters abandoning Labour for other parties, including Reform.
More in Common external affairs manager Louis O’Geran said Labour had performed well in the context of by-elections, which are usually punishing for incumbents and governing parties, but cautioned against reading too much into the result.
O’Geran argued that winning back Green and independent voters in London was only “half the story” for Labour. “What we’ve seen is him [Prime Minister Andy Burnham] not making enough progress, winning back right defectors,” he added.
Labour MP for Middlesbrough Andy McDonald said that despite representing a seat where Reform came second in 2024, he feels that Labour’s success in the by-election result “applies across the country, whether it’s Greens in the ascendancy or Reform”.
“There has been a response to Andy arriving and just setting out that message of not just hope but ambition as well,” he said.
“That has really resonated across all the constituencies, and I’d like to think that’s reflected in the changing polls in my own seat as well.”
He described a “bullishness” in Labour ranks, tempered by “realism” that the economic consequences of international conflicts remained a major challenge for the government.
How did Labour win?
In Holborn and St Pancras, Labour sources credited the party’s ground campaign with delivering the win, pointing to a strong activist operation and conversations with historic Labour voters who said they were happy to vote for the party again.
The biggest factor, though, was described by both Labour and Green sources as the ‘Burnham bounce’ for Labour since the former Greater Manchester mayor took over as prime minister in July. Many Labour figures felt encouraged by a party conference last month that felt positive and forward-facing, with little evidence of in-fighting among conference attendees as national polls showed Labour showing signs of electoral recovery.
Labour MP for Croydon East Natasha Irons, who served as an aide in the campaign, argued that it successfully combined a national message with a candidate rooted in the constituency.
“It has shown that the future of progressive politics sits with the Labour Party, and it always has,” she told PoliticsHome.
Irons added that “uncertainty about Zack Polanski’s Green Party” had come through on the doorsteps.
Labour MP for Streatham and Croydon North and former Cabinet minister Steve Reed described the mood among Labour activists as “very calm”, with most expecting the party to win – a contrast with the “manic” atmosphere surrounding the closer Gorton and Denton by-election contest in February, which was won by Green candidate Hannah Spencer.
“If Polanski stays, then the Greens don’t have a future,” Reed said.
“They’ve peaked and they’re sliding backwards because the public have seen what the Greens have become and they don’t like it one bit.”
Why did the Greens lose?
While the Greens fell short of victory, their 33 per cent vote share represents a substantial advance in one of Labour’s safest seats.
Former Green leader Baroness Natalie Bennett acknowledged the result was disappointing, but said the party remained within reach of Labour.
“This is one of Labour’s safer seats,” she told PoliticsHome.
“Their vote, you know, just if you look at the graph, just keeps going down. We’re certainly within striking distance of them in that seat next time. But it certainly won’t be our top target by any means.”
However, at the 2024 general election, pro-Gaza independent candidate Andrew Feinstein won 18.9 per cent of the vote in the seat, splitting the anti-Labour left. Feinstein backed Polanski this time around. Combining Feinstein’s previous share with the Greens’ latest performance suggests the wider vote on the left has increased by only around three and a half percentage points since 2024.
The swing to the Greens was also less than half the 13 per cent recorded in the Gorton and Denton by-election.
For Russell Warfield, Polanski’s biographer and close ally, the result should not be interpreted as evidence that the party has run out of road.
“If you zoom out from this ‘this is the end of Polanski psychodrama’ kind of framing of the by-election, what it shows is that even in a really bad week for the Greens, and at the height of Burnham’s popularity… they can still get the sort of swings that would get them dozens of seats in the next general election,” he told PoliticsHome.
“In that regard, we’re where we expected to be. It’s a strong position for the Greens to be in.”
Warfield argued that the party had not necessarily lost momentum so much as reached a plateau. He described the low turnout as one of the most damaging aspects of the campaign for the Greens.
“The ability to motivate your vote was the route to victory here,” he said.
“So that is obviously disappointing for the Greens.”
The Greens also faced questions over the political consequences of their conference motion declaring Zionism to be racism. Former leader Caroline Lucas had previously described the motion as “dangerous” and “divisive”, criticising Polanski’s leadership. After the result, she said that “tripling our vote share was huge”, while urging him to address internal problems.
Green activists acknowledged the motion might have had some impact, although the short period between its passage and polling day made it difficult to assess its overall significance.
Former party co-leader Jonathan Bartley told PoliticsHome the by-election result would “demand some serious soul searching”, warning of a “toxicity of the Green party brand”.
Impact of tactical voting
Tactical voting may also have helped Labour. More in Common’s O’Geran pointed to the Liberal Democrats being squeezed since the local elections, with some voters apparently switching to Labour to keep the Greens out.
“From our conversations in Holborn and St Pancras, there is this sense of real risk aversion from a lot of people around Zack Polanski,” O’Geran said.
“There is just this sense that he’s potentially dangerous and divisive.”
A person close to the Lib Dem campaign told PoliticsHome prior to the by-election that the conference motion could encourage voters to back Abdi-Wali instead of the Lib Dems in order to keep Polanski out of Parliament.
A Green Party spokesperson insisted the party remained “here to stay and just getting started”, arguing that voters had sent Labour a message demanding rent controls, action on privatised water and justice for Palestinians.
