Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali defeats Zack Polanski in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election
Labour has won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, holding on to the seat and seeing off the Greens. Labour’s […]
Labour has won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, holding on to the seat and seeing off the Greens.
Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali won the by-election with 12,292 votes, while Green Party leader Zack Polanski came second with 8,928. Tory candidate Ewan Cameron won 1,922 votes, while Reform’s Pete Newman received 1,612 votes.
The by-election was triggered after the resignation of former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as an MP, and had been seen as a key test of whether Labour under Andy Burnham can win over voters who have switched to the Greens.
Green Party leader Polanski had a great deal riding on the by-election, but has insisted that he will stay on as party leader despite the defeat.
His party has hit the headlines in recent days over allegations of antisemitism after it passed a motion at conference declaring Zionism a form of racism.
In her victory speech at the count in Camden, Abdi-Wali, who came to the UK as a child refugee from Somalia, said her victory was a testament to the success of diversity in the borough.
“Whether you voted for me or not my commitment to this community runs deep,” 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.”
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