Polanski loses Holborn and St Pancras: will Green members let him stay?

The by-election followed Sir Keir Starmer's resignation in September 2026. The seat has been held by Labour since its formation in 1983. Abdi-Wali is a former child refugee from Somalia and, as the Mirror describes her, the Camden Council leader. Andy Burnham said constituents had "voted for hope"; Starmer congratulated his successor.

The result was framed, before polling day, as a personal test for Polanski. He positioned the contest as a measure of his own brand and of the Greens' strategy of pressuring Labour from outside — a strategy that now has to survive a high-profile defeat in a seat he was expected to contest seriously.

Polanski says he will not resign. He accepts, however, that Green party members will decide his future, after the odds on him being replaced before the next general election were slashed. That is the immediate question: not whether the result counts as a setback — the numbers make that plain — but whether his members treat it as one they can live with.

What the result does not settle is the wider claim the Greens have been making: that they are replacing Labour as the main left-of-centre alternative. One by-election in a seat Labour has never lost is thin evidence either way.

What is established is narrower and clearer. Labour held the seat comfortably. The Green leader staked his reputation on taking it and did not. His future is now in his members' hands, and he has said so himself.

- https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2026/october-2026/sagal-abdi-wali-elected-as-member-of-parliament-for-holborn-and-st-pancras/ - https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/holborn-st-pancras-labour-election-37752148 - https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/should-zack-polanski-resign-green-37753116 - https://www.politico.eu/article/polanskis-greens-look-for-their-next-opening/ - https://www.aol.co.uk/articles/breaking-labour-candidate-sagal-abdi-020242000.html