Holborn and St Pancras by-election

Peter John, 8 October 2026 Labour’s victory in Holborn & St Pancras represents more evidence that Andy Burnham’s leadership of the party is having a positive impact on its electoral fortunes.

Sagal Abdi-Wali obviously had a compelling story to tell about her own journey to the leadership of Camden Council, but this was also prime territory for the Greens to bring off the kind of by-election upset which they had achieved in Gorton and Denton earlier in the year.

The fact that they fell a long way short suggests that the Green electoral “bubble” is rapidly deflating due in part to the Burnham bounce, but also because Zack Polanski is now someone who himself excites very strong views - more than one voter on the doorstep yesterday told me that they wouldn’t consider voting for him in fairly colourful terms. As a party the Greens have caused themselves great harm by declaring that Zionism is racism - effectively arguing that Israel has no right to exist. It is a position which will harm their electoral prospects for as long as they retain the policy - and Polanski’s tacit endorsement of the policy just underlines his own extremism and distance from the political centre-ground.

But at the end of the day this was a great result for Sagal, for Andy Burnham and for Labour.