Holborn and St Pancras by-election voting opens in key test for Labour and Greens

Voting has opened in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, presenting the first major electoral hurdle for Prime Minister Andy Burnham and a high-stakes gamble for the Green party.

Voters across the north London constituency are choosing a successor to Keir Starmer, who vacated the seat shortly after stepping down as prime minister in July. Under ordinary conditions, the area is safe Labour territory. Starmer held it with a majority of 11,500 at the 2024 general election, having won by nearly 28,000 votes in 2019.

Labour has put forward Sagal Abdi-Wali, the 42-year-old leader of Camden council. Abdi-Wali arrived in Britain in the early 1990s as a child refugee fleeing civil war in Somalia with her family. Burnham endorsed her ahead of polling day, saying the neighbourhood provided refuge for her family and arguing that few candidates could match her local dedication.

Green challenge in inner London

Her main challenger is Green party leader Zack Polanski, who has led a relentless ground campaign aimed at reproducing his party's shock by-election victory in Gorton and Denton in February. Polanski has also secured the backing of an independent left-wing candidate who took a sizable share of the vote against Starmer in 2024 but decided against running this time.

Holborn and St Pancras has a demographic profile that the Greens have targeted closely. Around 48% of its residents are between the ages of 18 and 34, and roughly 45% were born outside the UK.

In a message to voters, Polanski described the contest as "looking close" and argued that sending a Green MP to Westminster would force the government to act on rent controls and public ownership of utilities, including Thames Water.

Shifting political headwinds

Despite the Greens' heavy canvassing operation, the race takes place under tougher conditions for Polanski than earlier this year. A YouGov poll following the Gorton and Denton win briefly put the Greens ahead of Labour on 21%. Recent polling from the same agency showed the Greens dropping back to 11%, trailing Labour by 16 points.

The Green campaign has also had to manage the fallout from its recent party conference. Members passed an internal resolution equating Zionism with racism and endorsing a single Palestinian state, triggering sharp public divisions. Four of the party's five MPs condemned the resolution, while several local councillors resigned. Polanski faced scrutiny after leaving the conference hall to return to campaigning in London before the vote was called, declining to state how he would have voted.

For Burnham, who used his speech at the Labour party conference to stake out a more assertive left-leaning agenda, maintaining a comfortable majority in Camden is essential to preserving his authority and demonstrating that Labour can protect inner-city seats against challenges from its left flank.