Holborn and St Pancras By-Election: Polanski's Greens worth a small bet at bigger than 20/1

Labour are firm favourites to win Holborn and St Pancras by-election

Zack Polanski hoped that challenging Labour in Keir Starmer's old seat would cause a political earthquake, but as the campaigns reaches its conclusion, and constituents prepare to vote on Thursday, it is the Green Party leader's team who are trembling.

There have been no polls of the seat, but betting markets are nonetheless very confident. Polanski is a whopping 21.020/1 to win the seat. The price is actually too long in my view and I have had a small bet on the Greens to win, purely based on the odds.

Nevertheless, as this article makes clear there are plenty of reasons to doubt he can pull the upset off. Labour are a mere 1.041/25 to retain the seat, with no other party being under triple figure odds.

While defeat in a Labour safe seat shouldn't be seen as disastrous for Polanski or his party, it would signal an end to the spell earlier this year when they seemed to have overtaken Labour in some of their heartlands.

Before winning hundreds of council wards in city centres, largely from Labour, the Greens recent peak came in a stunning victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election. Coming from third to win, the party rose in national polls and had a shot at becoming the leading force on the UK left and the natural tactical choice for anti-Reform voters.

Green momentum has stalled under Polanski

As the season goes from sun and hosepipe bans to darker evenings and pumpkin spice lattes, the Greens have faded. Far from challenging Labour in the national polls the party is now tied or even behind the Lib Dems in fourth or fifth place. And while winning Holborn and St Pancras was always going to be an uphill struggle, if Polanski falls well short then his challenge might give Labour a tonic rather than a headache.

Polanski took his party on quite the ride earlier this year, as they briefly hit 20% or so in national polls compared to the 10% polling he took over when becoming leader. While the party's ratings have surged and retreated, however, his have only gone in one direction. The same number of voters approve of him as this time last year, but almost twice as many disapprove.

This underlines the challenge of his strategy with Starmer gone. Polanski was never leading a particularly broad tent, but he hoped to have enthusiastic support from his base and ride it to victory in a fragmented electorate. Instead, his base are inclined to give Andy Burnham the benefit of the doubt for now and all Polanski has achieved is energising his opponents against him. One can easily imagine Conservative voters being tempted to back Labour in the contest, for example.

In a sense, Polanski has taken the same approach Boris Johnson so successfully adopted in the 2019 election - aiming to dominate his core support and ignore everyone else. But 52% of people voted Leave in the Brexit referendum, and only 17% of people approved of Zack Polanski's performance as Green leader when he burst onto the national stage.

It's simply not clear there are enough left-wing anti-Labour voters for Polanski to corral together, even in a seat like Holborn and St Pancras. And even if they are on paper, Starmer as Labour leader was far more effective a foil for Polanski's rhetoric than Andy Burnham is. Polanski lacks a good villain.

Galloway could take votes from Polanski

His job might be made even more difficult by George Galloway, standing in the by-election for his Workers Party. Galloway, who fishes from a similar if not identical pool to the Greens under Polanski, has an unparalleled track record of by-election campaigning. This time his impact will likely be muted by his inability to campaign in person, however, as he is in 'self-imposed exile' in Moscow (yes, really).

Galloway, curiously has framed his candidacy against the Greens more so than Labour. His emphasis on his party being on Russia's side of the Ukraine War is also likely to marginalise him. However, the party has still racked up hundreds of votes in some council by-elections of late and even holding their deposit here would make matters even worse for the Greens in their goals of at least running Labour close.

On the other hand, Andrew Feinstein - the independent who won almost 20% of the vote in the seat at the general election - has stood aside and endorsed Polanski's bid.

Labour's winning margin will show how far Greens have fallen

The truth is, we know that the Greens have faded since their summer highs but we don't fully know how much. Nationally they are barely half the force they peaked at, but does that mean they are much weaker everywhere or have they simply consolidated into urban centres where their core vote clumps and may still pose a serious challenge to Labour?

Holborn and St Pancras isn't the perfect seat for the Greens, but it isn't too far off. Lots of students, lots of very liberal urbanites, lots of young voters, lots of diversity.

The result of this by-election, not just the winner but the winning margin, will be a key signal for whether the Greens have staying power in the council chambers and mayoralties they won in May - or if they were a well-timed flash in the pan.

Now read Pip on November's US Midterm Elections