Zack Polanski has confirmed he will remain leader of the Green Party despite losing the Holborn and St Pancras by-election to Labour's Sagal Abdi-Wali, the contest triggered by Sir Keir Starmer's departure from the Commons. Speaking to Sky News, Polanski was unambiguous about his future: "Yes absolutely. That is what leaders do." The result, and the political fallout from it, offers a window into how smaller parties are recalibrating their strategy as Labour's electoral dominance in traditionally safe seats comes under sustained pressure.
A Result With Two Readings
Abdi-Wali's win was comfortable in absolute terms - 12,292 votes against Polanski's 8,928 - but the underlying shift tells a more complicated story. Labour's vote share fell by nearly four points compared with the previous contest, while the Green vote surged by more than 22 points, the largest movement of any party on the ballot. Reform UK, by contrast, barely moved, finishing fourth behind the Conservatives. For a seat Labour has held through multiple leaders, including Starmer himself and Frank Dobson before him, a result this close is the kind that party strategists tend to study closely rather than dismiss.
Polanski rejected any suggestion that contesting the seat had been a misstep. "I think it's been an opportunity to present the Green Party values, to talk about rent controls, tackling the climate crisis, nationalising Thames Water," he said, framing the campaign as a platform rather than a gamble. Whether a strong second place without the seat itself counts as momentum or as a near-miss will likely shape how the Greens approach future by-elections.
Abdi-Wali's Path to Westminster
The new MP's personal story featured heavily in her campaign and her victory speech. Abdi-Wali arrived in the UK as a child refugee from Somalia during the 1990s civil war, later becoming a Camden councillor, leading the borough's housing team, and this year becoming Camden Council's first black female leader. She described her win as "deeply personal," saying she hoped it signalled something about "who gets to belong" in British politics.
That framing became sharper after comments from Reform UK's Zia Yusuf, who questioned her candidacy by highlighting her birthplace - remarks condemned as racist by figures including business secretary Jonathan Reynolds. Abdi-Wali addressed this directly in her victory speech, arguing that her win represented "winning not by making people afraid of each other, but by bringing people together around a positive vision." She named homelessness and the state of Thames Water, which she called "appalling," as immediate priorities, alongside a call to bring the utility into public ownership.
The Conference Motion Still Hanging Over the Greens
Polanski's first public remarks after the defeat were not only about the result but about a motion passed at the Green Party's recent conference declaring "Zionism is racism," a decision that has drawn criticism from Jewish community groups. Asked directly whether the motion was antisemitic, Polanski pushed back, saying "we always need to make sure that we don't conflate anti-Semitism with criticism of the Israeli state," and arguing that conflating the two "makes us less safe." He also declined to back a two-state solution explicitly, saying instead that "any state should have equal rights" under international law rather than religious or national identity.
This positioning carries real consequences for the Greens as they try to consolidate the kind of protest vote that pushed their share up sharply in Holborn and St Pancras. A party attempting to present itself as a serious contender in seats vacated by senior Labour figures will need to manage internal policy positions that generate controversy without losing the broader coalition of voters who delivered Saturday's swing.
What the Result Signals Nationally
By-elections in symbolically significant seats - this one vacated by a sitting prime minister - tend to attract outsized scrutiny relative to their single seat in Parliament. The scale of the Green surge here, combined with a flat performance from Reform UK in a seat where its messaging became a national story, suggests that smaller parties are drawing support from different and sometimes unpredictable pools of discontent. For Labour, holding the seat is the headline result, but the shrinking majority is the detail worth tracking ahead of any wider electoral test.