On 12 September, at two locations straddling Camden Road, the main contenders in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election held their campaign launches.
At Castlehaven Community Park, a sun-washed garden behind Camden Lock, the Green Party’s leader, Zack Polanski, kicked off his bid. Accompanied by the left-wing journalist Owen Jones, Polanski rallied the gathered members, sending them away to stuff leaflets through letter boxes.
A 15-minute stroll away – at the London Irish Centre on Camden Square – the Labour Party inaugurated its campaign. Candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali, leader of Camden Council, was joined by Vauxhall’s MP, Florence Eshalomi, and the Queen’s Park MP, Georgia Gould, Abdi-Wali’s predecessor as council leader. A source in the room described the mood as upbeat.
At the heart of north London, Holborn and St Pancras is a melting pot of the British left. Around 40 per cent of its residents live in social housing, with home ownership at a quarter, compared with a national average of 62 per cent. University College London, the London School of Economics and Birkbeck all have campuses here, and student voters tend to be more left wing.
The Holborn and St Pancras by-election was triggered by Keir Starmer’s resignation. It is deeply consequential for the British left. For Labour, this is the first chance to test the government’s shift leftward under Andy Burnham and to prove the existence of the “Burnham bounce”. For the Greens, another by-election victory against Labour in a seat that it has held since 1983 could rejuvenate their poll ratings. For Polanski, it is an opportunity to achieve a long-held ambition and win a seat in parliament.
This race is Labour’s to lose. Starmer won the seat in 2024 with an 11,572-vote majority, having held it since 2015. Frank Dobson, Starmer’s predecessor, was the MP for over 30 years. Almost 100 applied to be Labour’s candidate. Abdi-Wali is well liked and has been a councillor since 2022. A Somalian refugee who arrived in the borough as a child with her parents, she is tough competition for Polanski, who, though a former Camden resident, has most recently lived in Hackney North and Stoke Newington. Burnham’s arrival as PM, too, has boosted the party’s credentials with left-wing voters.
There are other factors which favour Labour. In 2024, Starmer’s closest competitor was the independent candidate Andrew Feinstein, who ran a campaign focused on the party’s approach to Gaza. This time, Feinstein is not running. Labour insiders say the government’s recent sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank are pulling voters who deserted Labour over Gaza back into the fold. At the May council elections, while the Green Party managed a decent showing, Labour retained its majority.
The by-election will be the third time this year a high-profile candidate who is a party leader – or expected to become one – has campaigned for a seat (see Burnham’s run in Makerfield or Nigel Farage’s win in Clacton). The Greens are banking on Polanski’s profile to help win over progressive voters.
Their messaging is focused on encouraging those who may want to “give Burnham a chance” to instead back Polanski, therefore returning an MP who will hold the new Prime Minister to account rather than just “another Labour backbencher”. Polanski’s party is taking credit for Labour’s shift leftward and hopes to win over voters by convincing them that a Green vote will ensure that continues.
Feinstein’s decision to sit this one out helps the Greens. On 14 September, the Camden People’s Alliance – the independent group that Feinstein founded – endorsed Polanski. At the local elections in May, the CPA and the Greens worked together and will now do so again.
And then there is George Galloway. On 14 September, the leader of the Workers Party of Great Britain announced that he too intends to run despite being in self-imposed exile in Russia. Galloway is a charismatic figure, capable of causing electoral mayhem, and one Green Party insider worried that if the Workers Party candidate took even 2 per cent of the vote it “could be make or break” for Polanski’s bid. Not everyone is concerned: another source thought the impact of Galloway standing would be “minimal”.
Defeat for Polanski would be embarrassing and could raise questions over his longevity as leader (though he may be saved by his lack of an obvious successor). It would also pour cold water on the party’s ambition to prove Gorton and Denton was more than a one-off.
Labour is thinking about the long-term impact too. On 13 September Labour sources suggested to the Independent that Burnham is viewing this race as a test-run for a general election. This head to head offers him the opportunity to see if the party’s shift leftward under his leadership has done enough to eat into the Green vote (No 10 sources denied this idea, pointing out that the Prime Minister has ruled out calling an early general election).
A senior Green source told the New Statesman: “This by-election should centre on the residents of Holborn and St Pancras and who they choose to represent them. Andy Burnham is making quite a habit of treating local by-elections as a ‘test run’ for different agendas… Ultimately, the true measure of the Labour government lies in its willingness to deliver genuine solutions.”
With just over three weeks to polling day, this result will have huge implications for the British left.
[Further reading: Will AI kill us all?]
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This article appears in the 16 Sep 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Will AI kill us all?
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Subscribe here to commentSurprised you didn’t mention Burnham pausing his drilling announcement until after the election. Otherwise, decent read of the situation. And I-Wali being filmed ignoring g*nocide protestors inside a council meeting she led that was purposefully ran over so they couldn’t discuss pension divestment is notable. As well as urdu-gate and the guardian mentioning The Green Party could be on track for 40 seats.
Further update is another endorsement from a local group Camden Muslim alliance for Zack… Green and Labour refugee policies, housing policies, international policies are night and day
There is g*nocide. The only g*nocidal act was that committed by the Palestinians who invaded Israel.
There is no g*nocide
The Greens are a threat to the stability of the nation. It is good that Zack’s bubble has burst.