Labour wins Holborn and St Pancras byelection; Polanski ‘absolutely’ intends to remain Green party leader – UK politics live

Jenny Jones, the Green party peer, said that the Greens should clarify what they meant by the “Zionism is racism” motion passed at their conference. Describing the vote “a rather big blip” for the party in an interview on Times Radio, she said: I actually chaired the session and I was astonished. It was very emotional, but it was also relatively polite, which was surprising. And I would like to see it reorganised. It is not clear exactly what we mean. Zack has been working with Jewish members of the party and with Jewish organisations to make it clear that we are not antisemitic. And nobody in the party will be disciplined for going to the synagogue or any sort of community centre. We have to work through it and we’ve got to make it clear exactly what that motion means. In his Today interview, Polanski also said that he would like the party to revise the motion. He said: At the earliest possible opportunity, I do want, at a conference motion, to see us go back to a process where Israelis and Palestinians decide the future of their region. Now, that’s up to members because we’re a grassroots party. On the Today programme (see 9.12am) Zack Polanski was being interviewed by Nick Robinson. At times, it got rather tetchy. When Robinson asked about Caroline Lucas saying that Polanski should have voted in the debate on the “Zionism is racism” motion (see 2.55am), Polanski said he was fighting a byelection. Robinson then told him not to “insult the intelligence of people listening” and said that of course he could have been at the debate. Polanski said he had in fact pushed to get the conference postponed. Asked how he would have voted if he had been there, Polanski said he wanted to amend the motion on two grounds. But those amendments fell. “And so I would have voted against the motion,” he said. Polanski backed taking out the reference in the motion saying there should be a one-state solution, and another amendment that would have ensured Jewish Green members were not penalised for belonging to synagogues that identify as Zionist. Asked if he believed there should be “a safe home for Jews in a state called Israel”, Polanski replied: I believe everyone deserves a safe home, and I’ve not dodged the question. When Robinson asked again if Israel had a right to exist, Polanski said: I believe Israelis and Palestinians should have equal rights in a democracy … Right now, Israel is a one-state, apartheid state. Palestinians don’t have democracy and they don’t have the right to vote for their government. Robinson asked why Polanski was not able to say he believed in Israel as a safe home for Jewish people, even if he loathed what its government was doing. Polanski replied: I don’t believe that any state has a right to oppress or to commit apartheid, and certainly not genocide, on another people. Now, it may be that in the future that there is a solution in which case Israelis and Palestinians can have equal rights. I believe my role as leader of the Green party, and more importantly the British government, is to uphold international law. But this is a context where we’ve seen 75,000 Palestinians murdered in the last few years, 1,500 murdered since the so-called ceasefire, and there are more child amputees than in modern history. I don’t believe that’s a state that anyone should be supporting. Robinson asked about the distinction between the Israeli government and the Israeli state. Was Polanski saying things were so terrible the state of Israel should no longer exist? Robinson said the motion passed at the Green conference implied this because it proposed a single Palestinian state. Did Polanski want to scrap the state of Israel? Polanski replied: No. What I want is to see a safe space for Israelis and Palestinians. And by the way, this isn’t a new position. We could go back to Edward Montagu, a Jewish man who was in the cabinet, who said at the time that he felt Zionism was a racist endeavour against Jewish people … Jewish people have always had different opinions about the state of Israel. Robinson intervened: I still don’t know what your position is, whether it has a right to exist or not. You could just give me a yes/no and we could move on. Polanski said he wanted to equal rights for Israeli and Palestinians. Robinson said that was not an answer to the question. Polanski replied: “At the moment Palestinians don’t have equal rights, so I think I’m answering your question really clearly.” And Andy Burnham has posted this message on the result. Yesterday, Holborn and St Pancras voted for hope. Congratulations @Sagal_AW and the whole team on a fantastic campaign. Looking forward to working together! Keir Starmer, the former PM, has posted this on social media about Sagal Abdi-Wali winning the byelection created by his resignation as MP for Holborn and St Pancras. Brilliant result. Congratulations to my friend @Sagal_AW, I know you are a brilliant champion for our communities and will be a fantastic MP. In an interview on the Today programme, Zack Polanski was asked about reports that Lubna Speitan, one of the Green party members proposing the “Zionism is racism” motion, was listed in court documents as a “close friend” of a man later jailed for supporting al-Qaeda. Polanski said that he was not aware of this at the time of the debate. But he said this was now being investigated by the party. When it was put to him that, given the importance of this motion, he should have looked who was proposing it more carefully, Polanski said there were 121 motions proposed at the conference. Asked about her friendship with Minh Quang Pham, who denied planning a suicide attack, Speitan told the Telegraph: “People are demonised for all sorts of things and wrongfully accused of all sorts of things.” She also claimed she was the victim of a “character assassination”. Here is an extract from Prof Sir John Curtice’s assessment of the Holborn and St Pancras byelection in an article for the Times. With 45 per cent of the vote, Labour was much further ahead of the Greens, on 33 per cent, than they had been in May. Yet, Labour’s tally was still four points down on the 49 per cent Sir Keir won in 2024 — a figure that, as in many constituencies with a substantial Muslim population, was well down on the 66 per cent the party won locally in 2019. In short, the result confirmed that, while it is enjoying a substantial recovery from the nadir to which the party fell in the final months of Sir Keir’s tenure, Labour still has significant ground left to recover before it is in a position where it might win another Commons majority. Curtice also points out that the results confirm that Restore Britain is a problem for Reform UK. (See 6.15am.) The Conservative party came third, but Reform UK would beaten the Tories if its candidate had also had just half the votes that went to Restore. Here is a Guardian graphic showing how the share of the vote changed in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection since the 2024 election. And this is what Bridget Phillipson, the Labour party chair, told Times Radio about the byelection result. I think it demonstrates that Labour’s message of hope is really cutting through, that people don’t just want parties like Labour to talk about the progressive change this country needs but they want to see it delivered in action, and that’s what we’re focused on every day as a Labour government. The things that really matter to people about the cost of living, about issues around homelessness as Sagal [Abdi-Wali] was talking about. In Sagal we had a fantastic candidate who really resonated with the public, backed up by Labour’s clear message of hope and I couldn’t be more pleased. Bridget Phillipson, the Labour party chair, told Sky News that the Holborn and St Pancras byelection result showed that Andy Burnham had “got off to an incredibly strong start” as PM. Here is Peter Walker’s assessment of the Holborn and St Pancras byelection result. He says Zack Polanski should be relieved his result wasn’t any worse. Here is an extract. Polanski got just under 33% of the vote, well above anyone else apart from Abdi-Wali, a proportion which shows that in an another election, and up against a Labour party not enjoying a Burnham bounce, the Greens could still be highly competitive in seats like these … It was notable that after the result, Polanski had to insist that he intended to stay as Green leader. “Yes absolutely, that’s what leaders do,” he replied. While some in the Greens had questioned Polanski’s decision to contest a seat in north London, rather than east London, where he lives, his allies make the point that Nigel Farage took eight tries to become an MP. Either way, the result has not made Polanski’s position any worse. Had the Green vote collapsed he would have been under very intense pressure. As it stands, he must try to reassure sceptics in the party before seeking re-election in a year from now, under the party’s policy of two-year terms for leaders. And here is the full article. Under Green party rules, leaders have to get re-elected every two years, which means there will be a contest next summer. Asked how confident he was of being able to win again, Polanski told Sky News: What I’m experiencing is the immense amount of people who are saying they’ve never been prouder to be a Green party member. It is being difficult being leader of any party, particularly the Green party or a decentralised party. Very often the media – and I think this is fine that they do that - talk about the Green -arty as if we’re like the other parties. But that is a different kind of party. We’re led by the grassroots and ultimately the leader is partly a primary spokesperson for the party. That is difficult. But I signed up for that difficult job, and I’m more than ready to continue. Asked if he would stand again to be an MP, he replied: I want to be an MP. I don’t think it’s the be all and end all. I think I’ve demonstrated over the last year that you can create change from outside of parliament. But, if another seat came up in London where he had a connection, he would stand again, he said. Asked about Caroline Lucas, the former Green party leader, saying that he failed to show leadership during the Zionism debate and that he should have voted (see 2.55am), Polanski replied: There was a national byelection going on, one of the most important elections in our recent history. And people in that election said they wanted to see me on the ground. They wanted to see me dealing with local issues. So I did exactly that. I went on the ground and dealt with local issues. In terms of me and Caroline, I think we’re actually united in making sure that we want to push this government for a two-way arms embargo to stop selling arms licenses and F-35 components to fighter jets, to make sure that we’ve got boycott, divestment and sanctions, and to push Andy Burnham. Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, has said many people were right about Gaza, but they’re still arresting pensioners for holding up cardboard signs saying I support Palestine Action. Polanski accepted that Lucas was still a “significant figure” in the party, but he said people in the party were entitled to hold different views. Asked about claims from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and others that the motion was anti-Jewish, Polanksi replied: I think that’s absurd. And I think it’s actually dangerous rhetoric, because we really need to separate antisemitism from criticism of the Israeli government. I say that as a Jewish man, but actually the co-composer of this motion was a Holocaust survivor. So I think we do need to respect that there’s a diversity of opinion amongst the Jewish communities. On Sky News, Sam Coates, the deputy political editor, said the Green vote in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection was broadly the same as it had been in the constituency in the local elections in May. He put it to Zack Polanski that this showed there was no evidence that Polanski was bringing “electoral stardust” to the campaign. Polanski said he had been party leader at the time of the May elections. And he claimed that, in the campaign, he felt people were “very excited” by his campaign. He also said the Greens had achieved their two best byelection results ever under his leadership. Asked if he accepted the Green party conference vote for the “Zionism is racism” motion had been disastrous for the party, he replied: I think what this demonstrated is that we do politics differently to the other parties. In other parties, [the] leadership decide the policy. They decide how everything goes. Polanski said Labour deliberately chose to hold the byelection a few days after the Green party’s conference. Asked if he regretted the fact that the “Zionism is racism” motion was passed, he replied: I grew up in a Zionist household. I grew up with this idea of a land without people, a people without a land [the Zionist argument that, when Jews moved to Israel to found a state, there was no one else living there.] But in recent years I’ve been discovering what happened to those people in the land. They were displaced. And at the moment there’s a genocide that our government is not just complicit in, but actively selling arms licenses to. And so I think that is a racist ideology. Asked if he supported the motion, Polanski said: I would have supported the motion as amended. It wasn’t amended. So no. Ultimately I agree with the substance of the motion. Where I disagree is the idea the Green party should be deciding what the future of the region looks like. When it was put to Polanski on Sky News that polling shows that the Green party is less popular now than it was (see 6.31am), Polanski offered this explanation. He said: Let’s look at why the popularity has waned. I would say it’s because people voted Green and then we moved Labour. In fact, at the May local elections, four times as many votes went to the Green party as they did to Reform. I always said that part of my mission was to make the Labour government more worried about the Green party than Reform. Mission achieved. We’ve now got a different prime minister who is in a honeymoon, who is talking a lot of the language I’ve been talking about for the past year. So I see that as a result. The real question now – and no one knows the answer to this – is does Andy Burnham really want to end neoliberalism? And if he does, why has he ruled out rent controls? Why is he talking about public control of water companies rather than national ownership? What we’re hearing is rhetoric. We’re not yet seeing action. If there is action, I’ll be the first to applaud him. But I suspect very quickly people will feel like they’ve been duped by this Labour government. Asked if it was a mistake to stand as the party’s candidate, given that he lost, Polanski told Sky News: Not in the slightest. I think it was a really good opportunity to get back on track, talking about the things we really need to be talking about: rent controls, nationalising Thames Water, keeping oil and gas in the ground. These were all on the ballot paper. And actually Sagal [Abdi-Wali], who’s now the MP, she’s pledged to oppose new oil and gas. She’s pledged to nationalise Thames Water or to push for [the] prime minister to nationalise Thames Water. People have told me they want to give Andy Burnham a chance. He’s got a chance now. He also claimed that he had turned a safe Labour seat into a marginal Labour/Green seat. He went on: I think the idea that this is some shine coming off me, or some difficulty, I think is overblown. Zack Polanski has also been on Sky News. This is what he said explaining why he thought it was a good result for his party. We tripled our vote share in this election. And John Curtis this morning has said that this seat demonstrates that we are going to be more of an electoral threat to Labour than we ever have [been] in our history. [See 6.31am.] This was our second best ever byelection result in history, so of course I wanted to win it. We didn’t win it, we didn’t do enough. But it’s still it’s a huge momentum. On BBC Breakfast, asked if he supported the “Zionism is racism” motion passed at the Green party conference on Sunday, Polanski said that he “grew up in a Zionist household” but now understood the impact this had had on Palestinians. He said: It’s very obvious to me that if there is an ongoing genocide, then that is underpinned by a racist ideology. Asked if he agreed with the motion that was passed, Polanski said that he agreed with some parts of it, but that it was “imperfect” and he disagreed with other bits. He said he agreed that the “displacement and genocide” of the Palestinian people was underpinned by a “racist ideology”. But he said he did not agree the British government should push for a single state solution. If he had been at the conference, he would have voted to amend the motion, he said. Zack Polanski is doing a media interview round this morning. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said he was “incredibly proud” of the campaign he ran in Holborn and St Pancras and he said it showed the Greens were “more of an electoral threat in [Labour] seats than we’ve ever been before”. That was a “foundation we’re looking to build on”, he said. As Bridget Phillipson prepares for her media round (see 6.34am), she may be reading this post by Peter Kellner on his Substack blog. Kellner, a former president of YouGov and a leading polling expert, argues that this is not just a standard byelection win for Labour in a safe seat, but instead a historic win for the party. And he says that it is misleading for the Greens to claim they have had a great result on the basis of their vote share rising by 22%. (See 4.23am.) Kellner explains: Last night [Polanski’s] team crowed that the Greens had trebled their share of the vote. This is an example of “paltering”, a useful, underused word for a statement that is technically correct but seriously misleading. I wrote about this last year, with Labour and Conservative examples of this shoddy practice. The Greens can make their “trebling” claim only because the left-wing vote two years ago was divided between the Greens’ 10.4 per cent and an independent, Andrew Feinstein’s, 18.9 per cent. Together, they won 29.3 per cent. Feinstein stood aside this time to support Polanski, who won 32.8 per cent: a true increase of just 3.5 percentage points. That’s not all. The same issue arose in Gorton & Denton in February. There, George Galloway’s Workers Party stood aside, having won 10.3 per cent two years ago. So the combined Green/Workers baseline was 23.5 per cent. In the by-election, the Greens’ Hannah Spencer won 40.7 per cent, a hefty 17.2 point increase on the combined left-wing share in 2024. Kellner has this chart illustrating his point. Kellner also points out that, when Hannah Spencer won Gorton and Denton for the Greens in February, the total number of people voting for her as the Green/left was up by more than 6,000 on the equivalent vote at the general election. That was a sign her campaign had generated huge enthusiasm. In Holborn and St Pancras, the overall Green/left vote was down by more than 2,000 on the 2024 result. Kellner points out that Polanski’s personal approval ratings have fallen sharply over the past eight months, and he says this byelection is only the 10th when Labour has been in government and defending a seat in a byelection with the main opposition coming not from the right but from either the Lib Dems or the Greens. He says Sagal Abdi-Wali’s share of the vote fell by just 3.7 percentage points – which was less than in any of those other contests. There is more in Kellner’s analysis, which is well worth reading in full. And here is his take on how significant this is. Only three times in the party’s history has a Labour government been able to cheer a by-election night as a boost to its prospects of remaining in office. The first was retaining Kingston-upon-Hull North in January 1966, ahead of its big national victory two months later. The second was four months ago, when Andy Burnham won Makerfield (though some ministers were happier than others). The third was last night. Here is Bridget Phillipson, the Labour party chair, commenting on the byelection result on Bluesky. The best news to wake up to ahead of the morning round. Congratulations to Sagal, who has led such a positive campaign. Thank you to the brilliant Labour team and members who made this win possible. Britain is backing Labour’s message of hope. “Morning round” means she is giving interviews later. Prof Sir John Curtice, the BBC’s lead elections expert, has said the Holborn and St Pancras byelection result reflects what is happening in national opinion polls. He said: Labour are in a much better position than they were six months ago, but they are still not as popular as they were in 2025, and holding a general election now would look an extremely risky project for them. But [the result] also indicates that the Greens, while, yes, a more significant player than historically they have ever been, they have lost a significant portion of the ground that they had managed to gain during the first year of Zack Polanski’s leadership. This chart, from Politico’s Poll of Polls, illustrates Curtice’s point. Nationally, the Greens are polling at about 10% – which is broadly where they were before Polanski became leader in September last year. Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Hamish Mackay. Here are the full results for the byelection, including vote share and how it has changed since the general election, plus the results from 2024. The figures are from the Press Association. Sagal Abdi-Wali (Lab) 12,292 (45.17%, -3.75%) Zack Polanski (Green) 8,928 (32.81%, +22.37%) Ewan Cameron (C) 1,922 (7.06%, -0.13%) Peter Newman (Reform) 1,612 (5.92%, -0.22%) Patrick Stillman (LD) 924 (3.40%, -2.40%) Tyler Johnson (Restore) 692 (2.54%) George Galloway (WPB) 314 (1.15%) Briony Kapoor (Rejoin) 236 (0.87%) Barmy Brunch (Loony) 87 (0.32%, -0.10%) Helen Spiby-Vann (CPA) 63 (0.23%) Clare Fischer (Climate) 51 (0.19%) Ben Walker (UKIP) 51 (0.19%, -0.01%) Ketankumar Pipaliya (Voice) 23 (0.08%) Jonathan Silberman (Comm Lge) 9 (0.03%) Tom Darwood (ND) 7 (0.03%, -18.92%) Lab maj 3,364 (12.36%) 13.06% swing Lab to Green Electorate 70,449; Turnout 27,211 (38.63%, -15.52%) 2024: Lab maj 11,572 (29.98%) – Turnout 38,602 (54.14%) Starmer (Lab) 18,884 (48.92%); Feinstein (ND) 7,312 (18.94%); Stansell (Green) 4,030 (10.44%); Malik (C) 2,776 (7.19%); Roberts (Reform) 2,371 (6.14%); Clinton (LD) 2,236 (5.79%); Islam (Ind) 636 (1.65%); Brick (Loony) 162 (0.42%); Poynton (UKIP) 75 (0.19%); Scripps (Soc Eq) 61 (0.16%); Kumar (Ind) 40 (0.10%); Smith (ND) 19 (0.05%) Sagal Abdi-Wali, Zack Polanski and the other candidates have now left the count. Here are some of the latest images from Holborn and St Pancras: Speaking to the Guardian after her win, Abdi-Wali said local people at the school gates found the Greens’ Zionism motion “divisive”, adding: It just speaks to the larger divisive discourse that set off and I don’t want to engage in that kind of thing. On Labour’s stance on Palestine, she said: The work Ed Miliband has been doing on Gaza, Palestine and Israel has resonated really well with local people. He’s been taking action and not just speaking. Asked after the result whether he believed Zionism was racism, Polanski said he “grew up in a Zionist household” with the “idea that region was a land without a people and a people without a land”. But he said after educating himself he doesn’t “believe that’s true, and what we’re seeing is an ongoing genocide and the displacement of the Palestinian people. I believe that’s clearly racist.” Ahead of the vote, former Green leader Caroline Lucas suggested Polanski could face a threat to his leadership if he lost. Lucas, the three-time former Green Party leader who was its first MP, said people should “see what happens in the coming days and weeks” when asked about his future the previous evening on BBC Newsnight. (See 2.55am.) She pointed to Polanski’s failure to take part in the controversial anti-Zionism motion on Sunday, saying he “should have been there and he should have voted”. Polanski did not directly answer when asked if he believed that Zionism is racism after the by-election result, but said: The displacement of the Palestinian people, the genocide is clearly racist. He also denied he had lost control of his party. I don’t think that’s true at all. I’ve got a party that was 55,000, 60,000 members when I was running for leader, it’s now 220,000. Any member is entitled to their opinion. We’re a democratic grassroots party. We’ve got a bit from Polanski on his future after the defeat. He told PA: Of course I can carry on as leader of the Green Party. Of course, I wanted to win. No-one runs an election to lose. Of course, we didn’t get over the line, but the point here is that ultimately, I want to make sure those were the options that people have. So many people told me on the doorstep, so they want to give Andy Burnham a chance. Well, he’s got a chance now. Let’s see what he does with it. New Labour MP Sagal Abdi-Wali said her win in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection was a victory for diversity and warned cohesion should not be “casually undone”. Her comments came after Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf attacked her candidacy as a British-Somalian shortly after the byelection was called. Abdi-Wali said she hoped “people like (her)” would feel like they also “belong here”. Speaking after her victory was announced in Camden council’s headquarters in north London, she said: I hope this moment also says something about who gets to belong, for people who look like me, I hope they see themselves reflected in this place and know that their path too belongs here. This is Camden, and this is Britain. We have a responsibility to defend what we’ve built, and pass it on. Hope is not naive. Without hope there is nothing to build on, and nothing to build for. People need to believe that politics can make their lives better and that their communities can thrive and that tomorrow can be better than today.” The Holborn and St Pancras turnout of 38.76% is lower than in some other recent byelections, including 47.62% at Gorton and Denton in February. At that one, Hannah Spencer won for the Green party and took the seat from Labour. There was 58.7% turnout at the Makerfield byelection in June that paved Andy Burnham’s way to become prime minister. And it was 44.37% in Clacton in August, when Nigel Farage kept his seat but Count Binface took more than a quarter of the vote. Here’s a full rundown on the byelection results – sorted alphabetically – and who the votes went to. Sagal Abdi-Wali (Labour) – 12,292 Barmy Brunch (Monster Raving Loony party) – 87 Ewan Cameron (Conservative party) – 1,922 Tom Darwood (independent) – 7 Claire Fischer (Climate party) – 51 George Galloway (Workers’ party) – 314 Tyler Kurtis (Restore) – 692 Briony Kapoor (Rejoin EU) – 236 Peter Newman (Reform UK) – 1,612 Ketankumar Pipaliya (UK Voice) – 23 Zack Polanski (Green party) – 8,928 Jonathan Silberman (Communist League) – 9 Helen Spiby-Vann (Christian Peoples Alliance) – 63 Patrick Stillman (Liberal Democrats) – 924 Ben Walker (Ukip) – 51 PA Media While Zack Polanski has vowed to stay on as Greens leader, the party put a bright spin on what it called an “incredible result” with the increased vote share he brought the party in the byelection. “Achieving a huge swing in one of Labour’s safest seats – an increase of 22% in vote share since the general election – is an incredible result for the Green party, and during a honeymoon period for the new PM,” a Greens spokesperson quoted by PA Media said. We are disappointed to miss out tonight but any ideas of a return to the cosy two-party system is just wishful thinking on the part of the establishment. We are here to stay and just getting started. The voters have delivered a message to the Labour government today. They want real change. Zack Polanski has said he definitely intends to stay on as leader of the Greens despite his byelection defeat. Asked on Sky News if he would continue as party leader, he said: “Yes absolutely, that’s what leaders do.” He also said after the poll result that it had not been a mistake standing in the north London seat, saying he was happy to stand in elections. I don’t think it was a mistake at all, I think it has been an opportunity to present Green party values, to talk about rent controls, tackling the climate crisis, nationalising Thames Water. It’s been amazing to speak to people in Holborn and St Pancras, I’ve really enjoyed that. Here’s a fuller rundown on Labour’s win in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection that has been a high-stakes battle for the left of British politics. The byelection, called after the former prime minister Keir Starmer resigned from the seat in September, was considered a two-horse race between the Labour candidate, Sagal Abdi-Wali, and the Green party leader, Zack Polanski. Abdi-Wali recieved 12,292 votes to Polanski’s 8,928, Sammy Gecsoyler reports. Turnout was 38.7%, the lowest for any byelection held in England during this parliament and 15.4% down from 2024. The Greens conceded defeat shortly before the result was announced, with a party spokesperson saying “taking the fight to Labour in one of its safest seats shows just how far the Greens have come”. Labour’s victory will be a relief for Andy Burnham in his first big electoral test as prime minister, and reinforces polling that shows he has recovered some public support lost by Starmer, his predecessor in Downing Street. See the full report here: Labour campaigned hard in this byelection, fielding the 42-year-old leader of Camden council as the party’s candidate. Sagal Abdi-Wali arrived in London in the early 90s – speaking no English – after fleeing war in Somalia with her four brothers and her mother, who trained as a lawyer in Somalia. In a pre-poll message to byelection voters, prime minister Andy Burnham said: This area gave Sagal a home when she arrived here as a refugee in the 1990s. Camden gave Sagal and her family hope. Now she wants to give that back to the communities that have always been there for her. It’s hard to think of someone more committed to their local area and the care of people than Sagal. Returning to Sagal Abdi-Wali’s acceptance speech, the newly elected Labour MP said that whether people voted for her or not, “I promise that I will work every day to do whatever I can and all I can to improve your life”. This moment means something deeply personal to me – to represent the place that gave me a home, and my family a home, gave me opportunity and helped shape the person I am today. Camden gave me a community and instilled in me a belief in social justice, in equality and in fairness. And to now have the privilege of representing this same community in parliament is something that I will carry with enormous pride and humility. I hope this moment also says something about who gets to belong. For people who look like me, I hope they see themselves reflected in this place, and know that their path too belongs here. This is Camden, and this is Britain. Sagal Abdi-Wali is speaking and saying she is “deeply honoured” to be chosen by her constituency and that her commitment to it “runs deep”. From the bottom of my heart I want to say thank you. More soon. Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali has been declared the byelection winner with 12,292 votes. Zack Polanski came in second for the Greens with 8,928, while the Conservatives’ Ewan Cameron polled third with 1,922. The byelection candidates have gathered in the vote tally room at Camden Council headquarters in north London and it appears a declaration of the results is imminent. Circling back to Caroline Lucas, the former Green party leader said shortly after the byelection polls closed that Zack Polanski had made a “mistake not to show leadership” over the Zionism policy vote, but she declined to say if he should resign over it. “He should have been there and he should have voted,” she told BBC Newsnight. I would’ve hoped that he would have really been a very strong critic of this motion, because the motion was flawed from top to bottom, in my view. Lucas said she expected he would face a lot criticism from fellow Greens now the byelection was over. But asked if he should resign, she said: I think let’s just see what happens in the coming days and weeks ... obviously he has been completed taken up with this byelection. I want him to speak now about what’s happened, I want him to show the leadership that was frankly missing on Sunday. I think the jury is out about whether or not he will do that but I very much hope he will. Activists in Camden have suggested the Greens’ decision to back the anti-Zionism motion has cost them votes in the byelection. Councillors for both Labour the Liberal Democrats told the Press Association that voters had informed them they would not be backing the Green party after it passed the motion last weekend calling Zionism racism. One councillor said people had been “clearly angry” about the issue when they had spoken to them while canvassing. The Greens have conceded defeat in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection, saying they have come a “close second” in the contest. A party spokesperson said: It is clear now we will come a close second in this by-election. Taking the fight to Labour in one of its safest seats shows just how far the Greens have come. Voters want us to keep Labour’s feet to the fire on affordable housing, public ownership of water and the climate crisis. Greens will be there every single day, holding Labour to account and demanding the change people voted for. The loss will be disappointing for Zack Polanski, who was hoping to replicate the party’s seismic win in Gordon and Denton earlier this year. Thousands of party activists descended on the north London constituency to knock doors but it appears their efforts fell short. The results caps off a bruising week Polanski and his eco-populist party, which fell into turmoil after it voted on Sunday to adopt a policy declaring Zionism as a form of racism, sparking internal division that continued after polls closed. Former party leader Caroline Lucas refused to say whether Polanski should stand down within an hour of polls shutting while speaking to BBC Newsnight. The Greens have conceded defeat in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection. A party spokesperson is quoted as saying: “It is clear now we will come a close second.” More details soon. Party officials are gathering as the result is expected imminently. From the count here in Camden council’s swanky headquarters, signs suggest a Labour-win is imminent. After the polls closed, the Greens issued a fairly downbeat statement on the “positive campaign” the party ran in “what is one of Labour’s safest seats” – hardly a barnstorming comment suggesting confidence in their chances tonight. A Green loss could spell further disquiet in the party after a motion terming Zionism as a form of racism passed at its conference. Shortly after polls closed, former Caroline Lucas refused to say whether Polanski should stand down. Speaking to BBC Newsnight, the former Green leader said: “I want him to show the leadership that was frankly missing on Sunday,” when the motion was voted on. Polanski was campaigning in the constituency instead. Turnout is 38.7%, the lowest for any byelection held in England during this parliament and 15.4% down from 2024. Green party leader Zack Polanski has been seen arriving at Camden Council chambers in north London as the byelection count continues. Here are some scenes from the room. Zack Polanski’s had a tricky week leading up to the byelection amid criticism he showed a lack of leadership over a policy equating Zionism with racism adopted at last weekend’s Green party conference Polanski missed the vote on it in Brighton in order to campaign in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection. But the Greens’ adoption of the policy has been highly contentious – drawing sharp rebukes from mainstream UK parties, British Jewish groups and Israel – while also prompting four of five Green MPs to publicly reject the move. The motion said Zionism – the movement for a Jewish state – should be “treated as any other form of racism” and called for Israel to be replaced by a single Palestinian state. The head of the Jewish Greens condemned it and said she might leave the party, although it was supported by some Jewish Greens. Even members who supported large parts of the motion were unhappy about its narrow conception of Zionism which some fear could brand those in favour of the idea of a Jewish homeland – but not specifically the modern-day state of Israel – as racist. The English and Welsh Greens are facing international ostracism after their adoption of the policy drew dismay from the group representing European Greens. A quick reminder of the byelection candidates in Holborn and St Pancras: Labour – Sagal Abdi-Wali Green party – Zack Polanski Conservative party – Ewan Cameron Reform UK – Peter Newman Liberal Democrats – Patrick Thomas Stillman Restore Britain – Tyler Kurtis Johnson Workers party – George Galloway Rejoin EU – Briony Anne Lonbay Kapoor Climate party – Clare Fischer UK Voice – Ketankumar Pipaliya Ukip – Ben Walker Monster Raving Loony party – Barmy Brunch Communist League – Jonathan Silberman Christian Peoples Alliance – Helen Spiby-Vann Independent – Tom Darwood Holborn and St Pancras is, under normal circumstances, a Labour stronghold. Keir Starmer won it with a majority of 11,500 at the 2024 general election despite strong challenges from the Greens and a leftwing independent candidate, who is not standing again and has endorsed Zack Polanski. In 2019 Starmer won by nearly 28,000 votes. Polanski has run a highly energetic campaign. He has mobilised a large numbers of supporters to knock on doors, mimicking February’s Gorton and Denton byelection, where the Greens overcame an even bigger Labour majority to take the seat. However, the political landscape has changed. Shortly after Gorton and Denton, YouGov polling put the Greens briefly above Labour, on a peak of 21%. The most recent equivalent had Polanksi’s party on 11%, 16 points behind Labour. Burnham, who succeeded Starmer as prime minister in July, is seen as having revitalised Labour, and used his speech at the party’s annual conference last month to set out a more ambitious and left-leaning collection of policies. Polanski’s fortunes, in contrast, appear to have declined, especially since last weekend’s Green party conference where a vote by members to adopt a policy equating Zionism with racism and calling for Israel to be replaced by a single Palestinian state prompted condemnation and splits in the party. Hello and welcome to the UK politics live blog. Counting is currently under way in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection in north London, where voters are choosing a replacement for former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer. Starmer announced his decision to step down as an MP in September after being ousted from No 10 by Andy Burnham. Camden council has said the result is expected to be called between 2:30-4am UK time. We’ll bring you the latest developments as we get them.