By-election blues: can Zack take the flak?

Thursday’s by-election in Holborn and St Pancras threw up a number of  surprises. First of all, there was such a low turn-out. Just 39%. This is not unusual for a by-election but this was the first significant by-election since Andy Burnham became Labour Prime Minister three months ago. So it was a  chance to assess his popularity. It was also the first time the Greens had been tested in a by-election since the controversial “Zionism is racism” vote at their party conference earlier this month.

That vote, which passed by a clear majority, had revealed what a nasty, toxic party they have become and what a cowardly leader Zack Polanski is. He refused to  answer key questions about that vote and claimed that he was too busy to turn up and vote because he was standing in a by-election, almost a week later? If only someone had invented trains which could have got him to central London in time to campaign.

Finally, the by-election was a chance to see how the Conservatives and Reform would compare with Labour and the Greens, albeit in a multi-racial, inner city constituency which has been solid Labour since it was created in 1983, more than forty years ago, first under Frank Dobson, then under Sir Keir Starmer.

What other surprises emerged from Thursday’s vote? Labour’s new MP won barely 12,000 votes, with a majority over the Greens of just over 3,000. Where was the famous Burnham bounce? Bear in mind, Labour were not fielding a middle-aged white candidate like Frank Dobson or  Keir Starmer but Sagal Abdi-Wali, a Somalian refugee who has lived in the borough of  Camden for 35 years. As she said, “Camden has been my home since I moved here with my family as a child refugee, fleeing war-torn Somalia. This new home is where I was raised and educated.” She was elected Leader of Camden Council earlier this year.

However, the media  were curiously  silent about some of the  criticisms the Labour candidate has been receiving recently. Analysis published by the Left-wing Tribune magazine in October presented a critical assessment of Abdi-Wali’s tenure as housing cabinet member. It noted that by 2025, 678 council homes had been built under the 15-year Community Investment Plan, while 492 had been demolished — a net increase of just 182 council homes. Recorded rough sleeping in Camden rose by 133% between May and June 2026, reaching 240 people, despite the council having spent £39 million on homelessness services in the 2024–25 financial year. In October 2026, the grassroots homelessness group Streets Kitchen expressed “extreme anger” after Abdi-Wali did not attend or send a representative to a dedicated hustings event on housing and temporary accommodation, citing prior commitments. This may explain why the Greens focused so much on homelessness as a key issue in the by-election.

Finally, there is Abdi-Wali’s position on Gaza. In January 2025, a petition signed by over 4,000 residents calling on the council’s £2.4 billion pension fund to divest from companies identified by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign as complicit in the Israeli occupation was debated by the council. Interestingly, Abdi-Wali, a Muslim, did not speak during the debate. Abdi-Wali did not sign the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s 2025 candidate pledge. Her first public comment on the issue came in September 2026, when she told The Guardian that “if Greens stir up community antagonisms over Gaza, that would be disgraceful.”

This by-election could hardly have come at a worse time for the Greens and, in particular, for Polanski, just days after the “Zionism is racism” vote. And yet in a very safe Labour seat, Polanski won nearly 9,000 votes,  barely 3,000 fewer than Labour. The media coverage treated this as a humiliation for Polanski, calling into question his leadership. But is this true? He won a third of  the vote and was the only serious challenger to Labour, streets ahead of all the other parties, none of whom reached even 2,000 votes. Yes, apart from Labour and the Greens, the vote was split four ways. Welcome to multi-party, multi-ethnic politics.

However, there are good reasons why the  media focused so much on Polanski. The Greens’ Conference was a PR disaster. Even the former Green leader and MP, Caroline Lucas, boldly criticised Polanski on Newsnight. Asked if Zack Polanski should resign over his handling of the “Zionism is racism” motion at the party’s conference, she declined to rule it out. “I want him to speak now about what’s happened, I want him to show the leadership that was frankly missing on Sunday. I think the jury is out about whether he will do that…” Polanski emerged from the Greens’ Conference as evasive on this central issue, which is now at the heart of the Greens’ new identity and which has attracted so many young members to the party, but may repel older members and will certainly alienate Jewish members.

The three most recent by-elections, in all of which the Greens have done well, have been in constituencies which suited their protest vote identity. Will they have any appeal elsewhere in the country? And if not, who will? Suddenly, Reform UK and the Lib Dems are looking precarious. But after a successful party conference, the Tories under Kemi Badenoch seem to have a new spring in their step.

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