LONDON — Britain’s Labour Party held the Holborn and St Pancras seat vacated by former Prime Minister Keir Starmer, fending off a challenge from Green Party leader Zack Polanski in a by-election seen as a test of Prime Minister Andy Burnham, The Guardian and Al Jazeera reported.
Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali, leader of the local council, won 12,292 votes, or 45 percent, to Polanski’s 8,928, or 33 percent. Turnout was 38.7 percent, the lowest for any by-election in England during this parliament, The Guardian said. Labour has held the central London seat since it was created in 1983, and Starmer won it with 49 percent of the vote in 2024.
Abdi-Wali, who came to Britain from Somalia as a child refugee, used her victory speech to hit out at “those who seek to divide us.” “I hope this moment says something about who gets to belong,” she said. “This is Camden and this is Britain.” Polanski, who is not an MP, said he would stay on as leader: “Of course I can carry on as leader of the Green party,” he told the BBC, according to The Guardian. “I’ve taken a loss tonight but our movement is so much bigger than one election or one motion and we’re going to grow.”
The defeat capped a bruising week for the Greens, whose members voted at their conference on Sunday to adopt a motion declaring Zionism a form of racism and calling for a single Palestinian state, despite opposition from four of the party’s five MPs. Polanski did not vote on the motion. Burnham was recently installed by Labour lawmakers who feared Starmer’s unpopularity was opening the way for Reform UK at the next general election, Al Jazeera said.
Sources: The Guardian, Al Jazeera
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