{"id":767216,"date":"2026-09-11T11:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T11:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/767216\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T11:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T11:56:12","slug":"greens-select-zack-polanski-to-run-in-holborn-and-st-pancras-byelection-holborn-and-st-pancras-byelection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/767216\/","title":{"rendered":"Greens select Zack Polanski to run in Holborn and St Pancras byelection | Holborn and St Pancras byelection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has been selected as its candidate for the Holborn and St Pancras byelection<\/a> on 8 October.<\/p>\n

The seat became vacant this month when the former prime minister Keir Starmer announced he was leaving parliament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Polanski has said<\/a> the Greens, which made gains in the area<\/a> in the local elections in May, are underdogs in the race but he is confident they can beat Labour, which won the seat with a majority of more than 11,000 at the 2024 general election.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Labour selected<\/a> the Camden council leader, Sagal Abdi-Wali, as its candidate. She said: \u201cThis place welcomed my family as refugees and gave us hope when we needed it most. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to build a life here, serving our community as a councillor, school governor and community activist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some in Labour are understood to be concerned about the impact of upcoming oil and gas announcements on the campaign. Industry insiders expect the government to greenlight the Jackdaw gasfield<\/a> as soon as next week, but there are expectations that any announcement on Rosebank, a contentious oilfield, will be delayed until after the byelection.<\/p>\n

Polanski won the race to stand for the Greens over one of the party\u2019s local councillors, Hamza Chowdhury<\/a>, who had said the constituency did not need \u201canother MP who arrives during an election campaign\u201d and \u201cdisappears once the votes are counted\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hamza Chowdhury at Kings Place in London for the results of the Green party candidate selection process on Friday. Photograph: James Manning\/PA<\/p>\n

At a meeting to announce his candidacy, Polanski said: \u201cThe Greens might be the underdog in this election, but we have the momentum, and we can win. And it\u2019s clear everyone knows it\u2019s the Green party<\/a> against Labour, and before May we had one councillor here, and now we have 10. And last weekend we had so many people on the streets that we delivered leaflets to the entire constituency in just a few hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Announcing him as the candidate, Hannah Spencer, the MP for Gorton and Denton, acknowledged that the Labour party had the advantage. She said: \u201cThe next few weeks will be tough, of course. Labour have donations from fossil fuel lobbyists and gambling industries, and they have a big machine. But we are powered by people who care, and we have shown that we can beat the establishment parties, the billionaires, and I am living proof of that<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Polanski said he lived in the constituency when he moved to London<\/a> 20 years ago and that his barber was still there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has been selected as its candidate for the Holborn and St Pancras…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-767216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}