Why this is no disaster for Polanski: Greens remain competitive as voters reward Burnham
Is this the end of Zack Polanski as leader of the Green Party? Many seem to think so - indeed, multiple national newspapers have suggested it.
No doubt there are people in his party who want him out now he’s failed to be elected to parliament for Holborn and St Pancras.
But on closer examination, Polanski’s defeat on Friday morning is far less of a catastrophe than many of his critics are claiming.
The Green vote share surged to a historic high in the seat, and with a volatile electorate there are clear signs that the party can be optimistic about its potential for future growth.
This is undeniably a victory for Andy Burnham. Labour’s candidate, Sagal Abdi-Wali - with one of the most unusual backstories in British politics, as a child refugee from Somalia who enjoyed enormous success in local politics and rose to become leader of Camden Council - is locally well-known and popular.
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Ironically, Abdi-Wali is an ally of Keir Starmer, who she will replace in parliament, and her political positions have often seemed closer to Starmer’s than the new prime minister’s.
Yet there’s little doubt that her win is in no small part a reflection of the "Burnham bounce" in the national polls.
In the ethnically diverse Holborn and St Pancras, where the Gaza genocide remains a salient issue, many voters will have almost certainly wanted to reward the Burnham government for its recent sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements.
Many voters, meanwhile, will simply be relieved that Starmer is gone and replaced by a more personable figure.
Burnham is showing Labour can defend its seats and is clawing back votes it lost under Starmer.
But this by-election won’t particularly embolden Labour strategists who are mulling an early general election next spring.
The Green Party gave Labour a serious run for its money, with Polanski winning 8,928 votes (32.8 percent) to Abdi-Wali’s 12,292 (45.2 percent).
Labour’s majority, just 3,364 votes, is extremely slim. By comparison Starmer’s majority was 11,572 votes in the 2024 general election, and even then his had been significantly slashed by independent candidate Andrew Feinstein.
Remember that Holborn and St Pancras is historically a Labour stronghold. That status quo hasn’t exactly returned.
Polanski has changed the party's fortunes
Many in the Green Party see Polanski’s decision to stand for election during Burnham’s honeymoon phase as a significant miscalculation.
In the short term this by-election will likely deal a heavy blow to the party’s momentum and image.
But look at what the Greens have achieved in the past year.
The party surged in the polls late last year after Polanski was elected leader. The Greens gained further momentum and credibility with a by-election victory in Gorton and Denton in February and then took more votes from Labour in the May local elections than Reform did.
'It’s a setback, not doom. We are the biggest threat to the establishment'
- Asma Alam, Green councillor
Polanski is at least partially responsible for Starmer's downfall and Burnham's premiership. This means the Greens are now suffering from their own success.
The party’s polling nationally has plummeted and is close to where it was in 2024. Crucially, however, in target seats - like London's Holborn and St Pancras - it is still performing strongly.
It was never likely that Polanski could replicate the historic victory in Gorton and Denton, which mobilised both huge anti-Starmer sentiment and opposition to the visceral local threat of Reform.
Yet Friday's was still the Green Party’s second best by-election result ever. Polanski has indisputedly changed the party’s fortunes.
Hostile media
“The result is really sad, but we always knew this was going to be a tight battle,” Asma Alam, a Green councillor and campaign coordinator, told Middle East Eye on Friday morning.
“All this noise about new leadership needed is rubbish,” she added. “Zack won the leadership by a significant majority - that won’t change.
“It’s a setback, not doom. We are the biggest threat to the establishment.”
Co-deputy leader Mothin Ali told MEE at the party’s conference last weekend that "what we can continue to do is make sure that we’re holding the government to account".
Ali added that if the Greens "are continuously providing better alternatives, the Labour government is going to have to take notice.
"And if they don't, then we're waiting to sweep up their votes."
The Greens have much to reflect on, including how the party can effectively deal with hostile media coverage, which will only increase.
The by-election came after days of vociferous attacks on the Greens in the national media over the party conference vote last weekend to declare Zionism a form of racism.
There is no evidence that anger over the conference vote played a role in influencing the by-election, but it is nonetheless likely that the barrage of hostile media coverage of Polanski and the Greens will have put off some undecided voters.
Everything to play for
Significantly, the "Zionism is racism" motion, which dominated media coverage of the conference, involved Green activists, not the leadership, shaping the agenda.
Polanski wasn’t even at the conference for the vote itself - he expressed discomfort with elements of the motion, although he said he thinks Zionism is racist - because he was campaigning in Holborn.
“I refute the idea that the motion impacted the results,” Alam said. “What it lost in potential votes it also added in votes from people who preferred our strong stance.”
But Caroline Lucas, a former Green leader, has heaped criticism on Polanski, suggesting he failed to show leadership on the issue of the Zionism motion, which she strongly opposed.
Will the Greens now seek to change the party’s internal system to give the leadership more control over the formulation of policy? This may be necessary for the party’s growth, but it would trigger a revolt among the membership.
Internally, the Greens have tough questions which they need to resolve.
Ultimately, though, the key lesson from Polanski’s performance in Holborn and St Pancras is that the electorate is still volatile.
Since the 2024 election we have seen the implosion of the two-party political system. With Burnham in power, many pundits have prophesied its return.
This has not happened yet, as the close competition in the by-election indicates. Depending on the Burnham government’s performance, support for the Greens could either plummet further or surge again. Voters are less loyal than they once were and no party can take them for granted.
For both Labour and the Greens, then, there's everything to play for.
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