Voters in Holborn and St Pancras went to the polls Thursday to choose Keir Starmer’s successor, with Green Party leader Zack Polanski and Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali among 15 candidates.
Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. and will close at 10 p.m. British Summer Time on Oct. 8, according to Camden Council. The council’s official nomination list confirms all 15 candidates.
Starmer resigned from Parliament on Sept. 1, triggering the by-election, UK Parliament records show. He had represented the constituency since 2015, succeeding fellow Labour MP Frank Dobson, who held it from 1983 to 2015.
Abdi-Wali is Camden Council’s leader and its first Black woman to hold that position. She arrived in Camden as a child refugee and was first elected as a councillor in 2022, according to the council. Before becoming leader, she served as its cabinet member for better homes.
The contest takes place under Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who succeeded Starmer on July 20, according to GOV.UK.
Polanski’s candidacy follows substantial membership growth for the Greens. The party reported in March that membership had surpassed 200,000, compared with 68,000 in September 2025. It also described its May local-election results as record-breaking.
Days before the by-election, Green Party members approved a motion establishing an anti-Zionist policy. The Green Party announced that the motion passed at its conference on Oct. 4 by 1,022 votes to 813.
In an Oct. 5 statement, Polanski said criticism of Israel must remain distinct from antisemitism.
“As leader I will not accept any exclusion, or refusal to engage with anyone, because of the religious or communal body they are part of.”
Zack Polanski, Green Party leader
Other candidates include Conservative Ewan Cameron, Reform UK’s Peter Newman, Liberal Democrat Patrick Thomas Stillman and George Galloway of the Workers Party.
The remaining candidates are Barmy Brunch of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party; Tom Darwood, with no party description listed; Clare Fischer of the Climate Party; Tyler Kurtis Johnson of Restore Britain; and Briony Anne Lonbay Kapoor of Rejoin EU.
Also standing are Ketankumar Pipaliya of UK Voice, Jonathan Silberman of the Communist League, Helen Spiby-Vann of the Christian Peoples Alliance and Ben Walker of UKIP.
In the 2024 general election, Starmer won 18,884 votes, or 48.9% of votes cast. Andrew Feinstein finished second with 7,312 votes, or 18.9%, followed by Green candidate David Stansell with 4,030 votes, or 10.4%, according to Camden’s official results.
Camden Council says votes will be counted overnight Thursday, with the result published on its website.
