Analysis: How close was the Holborn and St Pancras by-election?

Following Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali’s victory in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election yesterday, the media’s focus is firmly on the Greens’ defeat. 

“Why this is the beginning of the end for Zack Polanski,” reads the headline of a comment piece in the Independent, which goes on to outline how yesterday’s by-election was “a crushing defeat” for the Greens. Several outlets are reporting that the Green Party leader intends to stay on at its helm, as though he is on his way out the door. But just how close was the vote? 

​​To put the by-election into context, it is a Labour stronghold, which the party has held since 1983 when the seat was created. Before that, it was Holborn and St Pancras South, which Labour held since 1950, apart from a five-year period where it had a Conservative MP.

The likelihood that Labour would secure a win was therefore high. However, Labour’s vote share in the seat has fallen in the last three elections. In 2019, Keir Starmer’s vote share was shaved by 5.6%. At the 2024 election, it went down by a further 17.4%. This time around, Abdi-Wali won 45.2% of the vote, which is 3.7 points down on Labour’s vote compared to 2024.

Meanwhile, the Greens have steadily increased their vote share in the last two elections, with Polanski winning 33% of the vote yesterday. This is despite him and his party battling highly negative coverage after the Zionism is Racism motion passed at the party’s conference over the weekend. It is also despite Labour enjoying a ‘bounce’ in the polls after Andy Burnham took control of the party in July.

Labour won by 3,364 votes, but turnout was very low. Voter turnout dropped from 54.1% in the 2024 general election to 38.8% yesterday. 

The Greens vote share went up by 22.4 percentage points. Some of that increase was in part due Andrew Feinstein, who stood as an Independent candidate at the last election, deciding not to stand this time around.

As Professor of Political Science, Rob Ford, outlined on Sky News this morning, there is also evidence to suggest that some Green voters went back to Labour due to Burnham’s leftward shift on Gaza and his more radical proposals on housing and the cost-of-living.

“So it feels like the party has shifted wholesale in the direction of where the Greens were,” Ford said, adding that Labour is using the strategy to “close down” the Greens, who they were under threat from.

Despite some evidence of voters drifting back to Labour, to characterise yesterday’s by-election result as “a crushing defeat” for Polanski is to hone in on the loss without looking at the numbers. Labour held a seat where it was always the favourite to win, but on a reduced vote share and amid a low turnout.

The Greens, meanwhile, increased their share of the vote amid negative media coverage. For Polanski to now describe Holborn and St Pancras as “a marginal seat” might be a bit of a stretch, but it certainly isn’t the safe Labour seat it once was.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward