Party leader launches make-or-break campaign for Holborn amid plummeting poll ratings
Daily Telegraph 11/09/26
Zack Polanski has been confirmed as the Green Party candidate in the by-election to replace Sir Keir Starmer.
The Green Party leader will launch a high-stakes campaign for a seat in Parliament after seeing off a challenge from Hamza Chowdhury, a Green councillor for Camden council, to secure the nomination in Holborn and St Pancras.
The contest on Oct 8 is expected to be a two-horse race between the Greens and Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali, the leader of Camden council and a former Somali child refugee.
It is a make-or-break moment for Mr Polanski, who is facing a confidence crisis as the Green Party plummets in the polls.
Sir Keir triggered the by-election when he resigned from Parliament, two months after he was ousted as prime minister.
Voters moving away from Labour
Labour has held the seat continuously since it was created in 1983, but voters there have moved towards Green and independent candidates in recent years.
If Mr Polanski succeeds in taking the Labour stronghold, it will signal an end to Andy Burnham’s honeymoon in office and the limits of his appeal to voters on the Left on issues such as Gaza and the cost-of-living crisis.
However, defeat for the Green Party leader would be a blow to his faltering leadership and opponents would seize on it as evidence of his plummeting popularity during the “Burnham bounce”.
Mr Polanski was announced as the Green candidate on Friday morning having won a local party members’ vote after an online hustings on Thursday night.
He was forced to compete for the nomination after Mr Chowdhury, who represents Holborn and Covent Garden, threw his hat in the ring last week.
In an apparent swipe at Mr Polanski, Mr Chowdhury said he had decided to put himself forward because “we don’t need another MP who arrives during an election campaign, puts out a few leaflets, makes a few promises and disappears once the votes are counted”.
The comments provoked a backlash on social media, with Green Party supporters urging Mr Chowdhury not to block Mr Polanski’s path to Parliament.
Mr Chowdhury later struck a more conciliatory tone, insisting he would back the outcome of the contest “whoever wins”.
Mr Polanski – who became leader of the Greens on Sept 2, 2025 – has overseen a tumultuous 12 months for the eco-populist party, in which it initially soared in the polls, tripled its membership and won its first parliamentary by-election.
However, the tide has turned in recent months – with the Greens’ net favourability plunging to its lowest recorded by YouGov after Mr Polanski’s first year in charge.
Mr Polanski, a London Assembly member, has previously said he was “excited” by the prospect of winning the Holborn and St Pancras seat and entering the Commons.
Ms Abdi-Wali, who has led Camden council since May this year and been a councillor for Camden Square since 2022, will seek to retain the seat for Labour.
Mr Burnham visited the constituency on Thursday to support Ms Abdi-Wali on her first day of campaigning.
Only two Labour MPs have ever represented Holborn and St Pancras: Frank Dobson, the former health secretary, from 1983 to 2015, then Sir Keir.
At the most recent general election in 2024, Sir Keir held the seat with 48.9 per cent of the vote, ahead of Andrew Feinstein, a pro-Gaza independent candidate, on 18.9 per cent and the Greens on 10.4 per cent.
The Conservatives came fourth on 7.2 per cent, Reform finished fifth on 6.1 per cent and the Liberal Democrats were sixth on 5.8 per cent.
The Green Party also made gains in the May local elections in the London Borough of Camden, the local authority that covers the constituency.
Mr Polanski said he was confident “but not complacent” about his chances. “I think people will struggle to get excited about another Labour MP,” he said. “There’s not really much stakes in that.
“But sending our sixth Green MP to Parliament, London’s first Green MP, and having an MP who will be a voice for things like rent controls, water nationalisation, to make sure that it’s a local voice for Holborn and St Pancras that speaks independently with a Green voice, not for the Labour Government, but challenging them constructively.
“I think that’s a vote that people can get behind. I’m confident, but not complacent. I’ll be out there campaigning for every vote.”
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