Labour Holds Holborn and St Pancras as Abdi-Wali Wins
Sagal Abdi-Wali has been elected Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras, succeeding Keir Starmer after defeating Green Party leader Zack Polanski in the parliamentary by-election held on Thursday 8 October 2026.
The result was declared following an overnight count, with Parliament listing Abdi-Wali as MP continually since 8 October. The contest was triggered by Starmer's resignation as an MP, according to live reporting of the count BBC.
Abdi-Wali received 12,292 votes, representing 45% of the vote, to Polanski's 8,928 votes, or 33% The Guardian. The margin was 3,364 votes.
Turnout was 38.76% in the London constituency, as recorded by Camden Council as the administering authority Camden Council.
Abdi-Wali is 43. As a seven-year-old in the 1990s, she fled war-torn Somalia with her mother and four brothers and settled in Gospel Oak in Camden The Guardian.
Her political base is local. She was elected to Camden borough council in 2022 and became Labour cabinet member for housing two years later. In May, she was elected the first Black female leader of Camden council. She had chaired the Holborn and St Pancras local constituency Labour Party for four years.
Labour announced her as its candidate on 14 September 2026. She was selected from a long list of more than 100 candidates to stand after Starmer's resignation.
She said her priorities as MP would include homelessness and housing, calling for Thames Water to be brought into public ownership, and increasing access to jobs and apprenticeships for young people.
Looking at what this means for Labour, the immediate value is retention. Holding the seat avoids the damage of losing a constituency associated with its previous incumbent, and it does so against a challenger who carried national profile as a party leader rather than a conventional constituency opponent. A 12-point vote-share gap and a majority above 3,000 provides working room, but not the scale of dominance that would end debate about Green competitiveness in inner London.
The broader context here is the shape of that challenge. When a smaller party commits its leader to a single constituency contest, the campaign becomes a test of organisation and message discipline on both sides. Labour relied on a candidate with continuous local institutional ties, council leadership and constituency party management. The Greens relied on visibility and momentum. The outcome suggests local incumbency still counts, particularly where housing and municipal services dominate voter concerns.
In my view, Abdi-Wali's stated agenda will define how this tenure is judged. Housing, homelessness, water ownership and youth employment are constituency issues with national policy dimensions. Her recent responsibility for housing in Camden gives her administrative vocabulary on delivery, allocations and temporary accommodation pressures. Whether she positions herself primarily as a constituency casework MP or seeks early footing in parliamentary debates on housing and public ownership will signal how Labour intends to use this hold.
