Labour has held Holborn and St Pancras, with Camden council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali defeating the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, in Thursday's by-election for the north London seat vacated by Sir Keir Starmer.
The result, declared in the early hours of Friday, ends a contest that had been treated as the sternest test yet of Polanski's strategy of attacking Labour from the left. He had sought to turn a seat Labour has held since its creation in 1983 into a demonstration that the Greens, who now have five MPs and a membership the party puts at more than 200,000, can win in Labour's urban heartlands.
HuffPost UK reported that Abdi-Wali took 12,292 votes to Polanski's 8,928, a majority of 3,364. Camden has yet to publish the full declaration covering vote shares and the placings of all 15 candidates.
On those figures Labour's margin is sharply down on the 2024 general election, when Starmer won the seat with 18,884 votes, 48.9% of the poll, and a majority of 11,572 on a turnout of 54.1%. The Greens polled 10.4% in 2024, finishing third behind the independent pro-Gaza candidate Andrew Feinstein on 18.9%.
Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors in Camden told the Press Association that voters had said they would not back the Greens after the party passed a motion at its conference declaring Zionism racism. Both parties were competing against the Greens in the by-election. No ward-level breakdown or constituency polling has been published to support the claim, and the Greens have not accepted it.
The motion was carried at the Green conference in Brighton on Sunday 4 October by 1,022 votes to 813, a vote of members present in the hall rather than a ballot of the membership. In a statement that day, the party said: "The Green Party has adopted a motion formally establishing it as an anti-Zionist party at its 2026 conference, following a vote by party members. The motion passed by 1022 votes, with 813 against."
Polanski did not vote on the motion. He had backed an amendment providing safeguards for Jewish party members, which was defeated. Responding to the result of the conference vote, he said he would "not accept any exclusion, or refusal to engage with anyone, because of the religious or communal body they are part of".
In a statement issued as polls closed on Thursday night, before the count, Polanski said: "To be the main challenger shows how far the Greens have come. We know that many want to give the new prime minister a chance and for the Greens to keep them on a progressive track, on issues like rent controls, water nationalisation and the climate crisis.
"Whether we win or lose, this evening, keeping the pressure on the Labour government to deliver on these priorities will be our focus."
Polanski has said he will remain Green leader regardless of the by-election result. He has led the party since September 2025, and under him the Greens added more than 440 councillors and took control of five councils at the May local elections, according to figures reported by ITV News.
The by-election followed Starmer's resignation from the Commons on 1 September, announced in an interview with his local paper, the Camden New Journal, in which he said it was the "right time" to go. Starmer was prime minister from July 2024 until July 2026 and was succeeded by Andy Burnham.
Abdi-Wali has represented Camden Square ward on the council since 2022 and became council leader this year. She was selected from a shortlist of three Camden councillors after the party received 96 applications.
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