Zack Polanski has confirmed he will remain leader of the Green Party after finishing second in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, a contest triggered by Sir Keir Starmer's departure from the seat he once held as prime minister. Labour's Sagal Abdi-Wali won comfortably, but Polanski's performance and his subsequent refusal to step aside have become the more consequential political story to emerge from the count.
A Strong Second Place, Not a Breakthrough
Abdi-Wali took the seat with 45.17% of the vote, a share down nearly four points on the previous result, underlining how contested this ground remains for Labour even in a constituency it has long considered safe. Polanski's Green Party surged by more than 22 percentage points to finish on 32.81%, a result that will be read inside Green circles as evidence of real momentum. Reform UK and the Conservatives trailed well behind, each losing vote share, while the Liberal Democrats also slipped. The fragmentation across fifteen candidates, including fringe and single-issue parties, reflects a wider pattern now familiar in British by-elections: traditional two-party dominance eroding even in seats with strong incumbent legacies.
Polanski was direct when asked by Sky News's Jon Craig whether he regretted contesting the seat or considered it a tactical misstep. He rejected both suggestions, framing the campaign as a platform to press Green priorities, including rent controls, climate policy and the nationalisation of Thames Water. His insistence that "that is what leaders do" when asked about his future signals a leader betting that vote share, not victory, is the metric that matters for his party's trajectory.
Abdi-Wali's Path to Westminster
The new MP's personal story shaped much of the campaign's tone. Abdi-Wali arrived in the UK as a child refugee fleeing Somalia's civil war, later becoming Camden's first black female council leader earlier this year. She has pointed to her record securing substantial investment in social housing during her time running the council's housing team, and has named homelessness and the housing crisis as her immediate parliamentary priorities, alongside pressing for Thames Water to be brought into public ownership.
Her victory speech addressed directly the racialised attacks she faced during the campaign, including comments from Reform UK's Zia Yusuf questioning her candidacy on the basis of her birthplace, remarks condemned as racist by senior Labour figures. Abdi-Wali described her win as proof that "diversity is strength" and said she hoped it would resonate with others who "look like me" navigating questions of belonging in British public life.
The Conference Motion Hanging Over the Result
Polanski's post-election comments were also dominated by questions about a motion passed at the Green Party's recent conference describing Zionism as racism, a decision that has drawn criticism from Jewish community figures. He defended the vote by describing his own shift away from a Zionist upbringing, characterising events in Gaza as genocide and displacement. He argued that criticism of the Israeli state should not be conflated with antisemitism, while declining to state a Green Party position on a two-state solution, instead calling for equal rights under international law regardless of religion.
That controversy, arriving alongside a strong but losing by-election result, leaves Polanski managing two simultaneous pressures: proving the Greens' electoral surge is durable, and containing a divisive internal policy decision that risks overshadowing it. How he balances those tensions will shape whether this by-election is remembered as a genuine staging post for Green growth or a high point followed by retrenchment.