Some reflections on the Holborn & St. Pancras By Election
JVL Introduction
We are not surprised by the hysteria that has greeted the Green Party passing a motion about the racism Palestinians experience as a result not only of actual , living Zionism, but its historical roots too. This does not mean that everyone who consdiers themselves a Zionist or everyone who supports the idea of a Jewish State as a couinter to centuries of Jewish oppression, pogroms and the Nazi Holocaust is motivated by racism. The experience for Palestinians – and, indeed for many years for Arab Jews – has been discriminatory at best and murderous at worst.
The analysis of the Holborn and St. Pancras by-election is almost entirely focused on the fact that Zack Polanski did not win and that he lost because of that motion. Winning the seat was always a long shot and, as Paul Holden describes here, the figures show a much more nuanced picture. Certainly the much heralded “Burnham Bounce” should have led to a landslide rather than a reduced share of the votes even from 2024 and the lowest ever percentage majority. Numerically fewer than 1/3 of the 2024 Labour voters did so this time and Labour’s vote share was slightly down. Holden makes some other comparisons that are interesting.
The Greens got a higher share than their own 2024 vote even when including Andrew Feinstein’s vote. Why was there nothing about how terribly the right wing did and whose interest does this angle serve?
This article was originally published by X on Fri 9 Oct 2026. Read the original here.
Analysis of the Holborn & St. Pancras By Election REsult
Loading article text…
Apparently Sagal got in by the second-lowest vote of any MP this century! The worst candidate imaginable for Camden , as those of us who have followed her manufactured career have known for years, this is a total product of the party machine. If Camden Labour apparatchiks had not foreclosed a wider field of candidates they might have benefited from the Burnham bounce, but not with this one.
Are we now facing yet another local by-election in Camden, or is this sockpuppet going to hang around as councillor doing two jobs at once? I was appalled to hear that this is permitted. Mind you, there are still some replacements in the rump Starmerite Camden council who might be just as bad. I see a few of them already putting their faces forward in letters to our local Camden New Journal.
I agree that Polanski did very well. When Starmer was first elected he was part of the ’30k club’ of MPs with majorities of 30 to 40 thousand. Andrew and CPA had cut that down by half at the last general election. Now Sagal has a majority of just 4000+.
My only hope is that she is ‘flexible’ enough to ally herself with Burnham’s policies in future, but it feels unlikely.
Regarding the Green canvassers, yes they worked their socks off and cut down sizeable forests to make dozens of leaflets that came though our doors almost daily (I received more than 12, and a friend in the south of Somers Town ward got almost double that number). However, their leaflets were incredibly light on policy. I was glad to have the CPA leaflets which were more substantial altogether. But I would like our CPA alliance with the Greens to become more substantial too. There is a lot of discussion and work that needs to happen now.
This analysis is worth reading:
https://labourlist.org/2026/10/labour-holborn-st-pancras-byelection-victory/
Paul Hoiden as ever provides a cogent analysis. My experience of campaigning in Holborn and St Pancras these past few weeks is that residents are disillusioned with politicians – on the estates, their housing conditions are awful and no doubt this is contributing to more local government as well a central gvt votes turning Green. The challenge is to respond to residents’ housing concerns, and build a community movement through which the Green candidate in the next GE will have a good chance of winning. The critics, at least, will have to distribute their ill-informed invective between the number of constituencies the Greens have a chance of taking.
It is worth concentrating just on turnout , even if this risks oversimplifying. Labour’s voter turnout in Holborn this week was 12,292. During Corbyn team Labour traditionalist years in 2017 turnout was 41,343, and in 2019, 36,641. When Starmer campaigned in the 2024 GE without a supporting Corbyn team traditionalist agenda, turnout crashed to 18,884.
As can be seen from this the voter crash is consistent and not necessarily explained by differences between GEs & By-elections. Burnham despite all the hype, got 24,927 votes in Makerfield in 2026. In 2017 the Labour candidate got 28,245, When Kinnock was claiming to lead a socialist Labour Party the turnout there in 1992 was 32,832. And remember this crash in turnout is occurring despite an ever increasing population. Editorial team feel free to double-check these figures.
Labour retained the seat, at the expense of its candidate agreeing with the Green’s position in favour of Nationalism Thames Water, no drilling for oil in the North Sea and against homelessness.
Hence, one again the Greens are pushing the Labour Party to the left. Burham is on his “honey moon” period and it helped but still the seat previously a safe Labour’s seat is now a marginal.
Should Sagal Abdi-Wali decide to renegade her commitments to nationalise Thames Water, stop drilling and her position on homelessness, she cannot count on retaining the seat at the next general election.
Other Labour MPs representing London Constituencies, would have hopefully, learn the lesson that talking about “public control” of water isn’t enough, that they need to embrace nationalisation of Thames Water and stop further drilling for oil in the North Sea if they are to stand a chance of retaining their seats.