Party sources told the HuffPost that the “the mood is very upbeat” among local activists less than a week before voters go to the polls.

It comes as Stats for Lefties projected Labour would hold on to the seat, based on local election results and national polls. It predicted that Labour will achieve 39% of the vote, while the Greens will get 32%. The Tories meanwhile are predicted to gain 10%, while Reform are on 9%.

According to the forecast, despite a swing to the Greens, Labour are predicted to hold onto the seat.

Speaking at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, the party’s deputy leader Lucy Powell said it was  “unlikely” Green Leader Zack Polanski will win the seat.

Powell told conference attendees the by-election is “important” for Labour but argued the party’s candidate, Sagal Abdi-Wali, is the best choice “by country mile.” She said the Green Party has “underestimated” Abdi-Wali’s campaign.

Should Polanski lose, it will be a major blow to his ambitions and the Green Party.

Labour’s candidate is the leader of Camden Council, Sagal Abdi-Wali.

A Labour Party source said: “From talking to local activists, the mood is very upbeat.”

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Lucas said that the party needs to take “more credit” for key policy areas where they have challenged Labour and forced Burnham’s party to change tack, including on Brexit, proportional representation and Gaza.

Reflecting on Zack Polanski’s leadership, Lucas acknowledged: “It was always going to be harder with the Burnham bounce, but what we need to do is take more credit for the work we’re doing.”

As an example, Lucas said that “didn’t take enough credit when Andy Burnham convened a COBRA meeting”. She criticised Burnham for only announcing a ban on disposable barbecues, saying “it isn’t the most radical policy”.

However, following pressure from Polanski, Burnham organised the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBRA) on the extreme heat on 12 August.

Lucas added: “A lot of what Burnham is pledging is after the next election, that’s three years away, so we need to focus on what’s happening now. 

“That’s why it’s important that Zack is going to make an announcement about rent controls today.”

On the Zionism is Racism conference motion, Lucas said “It clearly is a divisive issue”. 

Asked about the media response to the motion, she admitted: “Because the media is talking about little else, it is becoming the focus.”

Asked if Polanski is talking enough about the environment, Lucas said: “It’s never enough for me”.

She added: “But you can’t win. When I was leader the party spoke a lot about the environment and got called a single issue party.

“Now that Zack has started talking about lots of different issues, the media is saying you’re not talking about the environment.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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On Sunday, the party will vote on the motion, which sets out to define Zionism as an ideology that maintains “a system of racial discrimination and settler‑colonial domination over the indigenous Palestinian population”.

Ex-Green Party leader Caroline Lucas told The Times that the motion is “divisive and not helpful” and has previously said the party should redirect its focus back to environmental issues.

Several media outlets have written articles scrutinising the motion, while The Telegraph ran a piece by journalist and commentator Nicole Lampert yesterday, entitled ‘Anti-Zionists are the real racists’.

Linda Walker, a Green member in High Peak, told LFF that “The media is seeing it as an opportunity to attack the Green Party and Zack Polanski.”

She added: “It’s a pity the media is making it such a big focus as there are lots of other important issues”.

Walker supports the motion, stating that “Zionism clearly is racist and the motion is not in any way antisemitic”.

The motion was first put forward at the Greens’ spring conference in March, but failed to reach a vote due to filibustering by opponents.

Walker said the motion should have passed in the Spring but “it was deliberately blocked, which made people who were for it more determined to pass it and people who were opposed more determined to block it”. 

She thinks that this time, the motion will pass “but maybe with an amendment calling for Jewish people not to be harassed which is ridiculous because the motion doesn’t call for that”. 

Andrew Blakie, a Green member in Hillingdon told this outlet that when the “Zionism is racism” motion was put forward at the Spring conference it was “very disruptive”. 

He said the focus shifted to “blocking the motion and stopping the motion from being blocked”, and prevented “lots of other important things, like discussions about the climate crisis being discussed”. 

Daniel Klein, a young Green member Leeds, said he wished the motion was “slightly better worded” but that he believes “it is racist to be Zionist, I do not see a construction of Israel that is not a form of imperial racism”.

A former Labour member, Klein said Labour’s position on Gaza was one of the main reasons he left the party. He added that he supports the motion but feels it is being weaponised by the media.

Klein said: “If it passes, I’m sure journalists from many shill publications will use it to say ‘The Green party wants to kill Jewish people’ which is not good.”

Amber Conyers-Davies, another young member in Leeds, compared the Zionism is Racism (ZiR) motion to the Abolish Landlords motion a few years ago, which she says was “clickbait” and “kind of made for the media”.

Conyers-Davies said “I’m kind of worried this motion is going to have the same but not as positive effect.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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In an interview with LFF, Akehurst, the MP for North Durham, said he thought that the Prime Minister was on the right track when asked about his direction of travel since taking over from Keir Starmer.

“I’ve done lots of canvassing on my own patch and before the summer recess I still thought we could narrowly beat Reform but we were getting 37% of our canvass returns as Labour, close to summer recess 51% Labour and that matches data that was in a report that Think Labour produced this week that showed a very large 12 point increase in the Labour vote in the North East of England.

“Voters in my patch have picked up on the fact that he represents an area that’s similar and he’s shown he’s listening to red wall voters”.

He also praised Burnham for doing well amongst urban voters.

“The two most difficult bits of coalition Labour assembled in 2024 needs to reassemble. So, the people we might lose to the Greens in urban areas and university towns and the people we might lose to Reform in red wall seats, they both seem to quite like what they’ve seen from Andy Burnham.”

In recent weeks, some former members of Keir Starmer’s cabinet, including Darren Jones have been warning about the need for fiscal responsibility and not reverting to Labour’s comfort zone of only throwing red meat to the party membership. There have been concerns in some quarters that there is now a new cohort of experienced, opinionated former ministers on the backbenches with the potential to make Burnham’s life difficult.

However, Akehurst disagrees and says that generally the mood in the party is ‘pretty cohesive and united and pleased with the direction of travel’.

Could Akehurst see any flashpoints over the budget next month? “Clearly there are things which will provoke debate but he has to lead, he’ll listen and people will have to respect that the buck stops with him.”

While Labour may be leading in the polls following Burnham taking over as party leader, the threat from Reform is far from over, with a number of polls predicting a hung Parliament.

How does Akehurst think the Labour Party can win over those voters considering voting Reform?

“Delivery matters”, said Akehurst.

“For people flirting with Reform, the question is do we continue to drive through the successful work Shabana Mahmood has done on controlling illegal immigration and then we need to keep telling people about that, because there’s scepticism about ‘are the numbers real?’ If you watch GB News you’ll think there’s still lots of small boats crossing the channel.”

On the threat posed to Labour’s left from the Green Party, Akehurst thinks a lot of what Burnham has already done has suppressed the Green vote.

“We’re talking down to about 8% which is where they were at the last general election rather than 18 or 20% that they were at peak and I think he’s already succeeded in consolidating the left of British politics behind Labour, particularly in seats where there’s a competition between us or Reform and the Tories. 

“We’ve also started to make headway on winning back some people who were concerned about small boats and there’s more that can be won over.”

Akehurst believes that Burnham is well placed to hold Labour’s voter coalition together and bring back former Labour voters.

“Andy has demonstrated you can win both of those two groups of voters back.

‘The composition of the Labour vote we need to win in North Durham is radically different to the composition of the Labour vote we need to win Holborn and St Pancras and the trick of modern politics is to find the things that all of those sets of voters agree on and that brings them together, without going so far that you turn off people at the other end of the coalition.”

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The former Tory MP has been accused of suggesting that non-white people cannot be English after she claimed last month that she was not English despite being born in the country and having lived in it her whole life.

During a discussion on the issue on Question Time, an audience member told her: “What you’ve done is basically reinforce the racist argument.

“I’ve been on this planet for 54 years, and the amount of times I’ve been told I’m not English, even though I was born here. If I had a penny for every time I’ve been given that, I’d be a very rich man.”

Braverman replied: “So I’m being racist against myself? That makes a lot of sense, with respect. I’m not going to be racist against myself.”

Pushed by presenter Fiona Bruce to explain her definition of what it means to be English, Braverman said she was not of “English origin” because her parents and grandparents were born elsewhere.

Asked once more for her definition, Braverman replied: “I’m not the one saying that it has to be five generations or four generations.

“I think it becomes pretty obvious when people have got a lineage, an ancestry, a connection to the heritage of this country which dates back a few generations.”

New Statesman journalist Oli Dugmore also condemned Braverman and said: “The political function of what she was saying earlier is that you can only be English if you are white and that, and I regret to say it, is a racist point of view.”

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The projection, forecast by Stats for Lefties and based on local election results and national polls, predicts that Labour will achieve 39% of the vote, while the Greens will get 32%. The Tories meanwhile are predicted to gain 10%, while Reform are on 9%.

According to the forecast, despite a swing to the Greens, Labour are predicted to hold onto the seat.

Speaking at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, the party’s deputy leader Lucy Powell said it was  “unlikely” Green Leader Zack Polanski will win the seat.

Powell told conference attendees the by-election is “important” for Labour but argued the party’s candidate, Sagal Abdi-Wali, is the best choice “by country mile.” She said the Green Party has “underestimated” Abdi-Wali’s campaign.

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YouGov’s tracker of public opinion on Britain’s relationship with the EU found that 59% of voters backed rejoining the bloc as of last week, while 32% of Brits oppose it.

This comes as Andy Burnham told the BBC yesterday that he would consider Labour taking Britain back into the EU at the next election. 

The latest level of support for rejoining the European Union compares to 51% when YouGov started putting this question to voters in January 2024.

When it comes to Britain having a closer relationship with the European Union without rejoining the bloc, the Single Market or Customs Union, 73% of voters support this option, while 15% oppose it. 

Meanwhile, 69% of respondents said they opposed further loosening ties with the EU, compared with 15% who supported doing so.

Most voters also opposed maintaining Britain’s current relationship with the EU, with 30% supporting keeping it as it is and 51% wanting closer ties.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Reform’s criticism of Andy Burnham’s plan to end the triple lock in 2030 to help fund social care has been met with accusations of hypocrisy.

Burnham has said the current state pension triple lock will be maintained until April 2030. 

From then, it will be adjusted so the state pension rises by at least inflation or 2.5% each year with a new link built in to keep pace with earnings over time. 

In an interview with LBC’s Andrew Marr in February, the Reform deputy leader Richard Tice said the party couldn’t guarantee the triple lock.

The triple lock guarantees that the UK state pension rises every year by whichever of the following three measures is the highest: inflation, average wage growth or a baseline of 2.5%.

Marr pointed out that the UK spends £177 billion per year on pensioners, and that the figure is increasing due to the triple lock. He said: “If you’re looking at the welfare bill, that is the bit that is running out of control but your party won’t talk about it.”

Tice responded by saying that Marr was “wrong” and that “on a number of occasions, Nigel has clearly said that we’re not guaranteeing the triple lock”. 

He added: “The nation’s finances are in serious trouble and nothing is affordable if you go bust.”

In a post on X today, Farage has now said that Reform would guarantee the triple lock.

Reacting to his pledge, one social media user shared a link to an article about a Reform-linked think tank, The Centre for a Better Britain, calling for the state pension to be scrapped, with the caption: “Reform ‘protecting your pension’”.

The CFABB has said they would support the state pension, which everyone receives as long as they have paid national insurance contributions, being replaced with a means-tested system based on income and assets.

Last month, Reform recruited Mitchell Palmer as its new chief economic adviser.

Palmer previously called for an end to the triple lock, arguing it was an “expensive” and “unsustainable” way to protect pensioners. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Andy Burnham told Labour conference this week that he would end the existing state pension triple lock from 2030 to help fund a new national care service.

Burnham’s plans would see the state pension increase every year at least by inflation or 2.5% – but remove the automatic annual link with average earnings.

The state pension rates currently rise every April by either inflation, earnings growth or 2.5% – whichever is the highest.

He told conference: “The state pension will continue to rise every year at least by prices or 2.5%. And it will hold its value relative to earnings over time so that pensioners will always share in the rising prosperity of the nation.

“But this change will generate significant savings which we will use to build up our national care service.”

In an interview with LFF, Graham said: “I think we should have a national care service, I completely agree with that, free at the point of use, it could be groundbreaking, a 1945 type thing, fantastic.

“I don’t think that it should be pensioners that should pay for that, I think it should be done by a wealth tax.”

Burnham has said that social care in England is “as unfair as American healthcare, where the most vulnerable in society can lose everything, they can be wiped out”.

Asked about Burnham’s conference speech in which he laid out his programme for government, paving the way for greater public control over housing, water and energy services, and potentially reforming the UK’s electoral system, Graham said she agreed with the Prime Minister’s diagnosis of how Britain got to where it was after 40 years of privatisation wrecked the economy.

However, she cautioned that now was also a time for ‘some meat on the bones’ and for immediate measures to help the public with the cost of living crisis.

She said: “We do need to get some meat on the bones and I think it needs to be looked in two ways, firstly immediate, because people  will be looking for some immediate relief from the cost of living crisis and I really think we need to start looking at thresholds, because we’re dragging people into tax thresholds that they should not be in, so you’ve got nurses, train drivers, in the 40% and you’ve also got others like pensioners and other people being pulled into 20%.”

With the budget set to take place next month and Burnham warning of some difficult choices having to be made, Graham said she hoped it wouldn’t be the working class who paid the price.

“The working class have paid for way too long, since the 2008 crash and Covid, there’s nothing left for the working class.”

The unite boss once more pushed for a wealth tax, and argued against detractors who claim that it would be too hard to implement.

“It amazes me that whenever we raise the issue of a wealth tax, people recoil in pain, they seem to be very easily taxing working class people”, she said. 

“We’ve just frozen the tax thresholds since 2022, the Tories did it but we’ve continued it on and it always amazes me that whenever we talk about a wealth tax some say it’s too difficult we couldn’t do it, but when talk about taxing working class people it’s a breeze.

‘Of course we can tax wealth it’s very simple to do and we’ve given very many examples of how that would be done, the richest 1% just tax 1% more would bring in £25bn in one year, there are ways to do it and we should do it.”

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During an interview with the BBC at Labour conference yesterday, the prime minister said that “Brexit has done more harm than good” and that rejoining the EU is an option.

The French president Emmanuel Macron and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez have both expressed enthusiasm for the prospect of the UK rejoining the bloc. 

Macron described the idea as “excellent news” and a “good decision”.

While Sánchez said “We would ​open our arms [to Britain].”

In terms of options, Burnham said: “We could look at what George Osborne has said about a customs union.

“We could look at what the Liberal Democrats said at their conference about the single market. Or we could go all the way.”

Senior Downing Street officials have been reaching out to think tanks and pollsters as they look to test public support for the UK rejoining the EU.

YouGov’s tracker, which measures public opinion on the UK’s relationship with the EU, found that, as of last week, 59% of Brits supported the UK rejoining the EU. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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