Zack Polanski has said he will remain as Green party leader even if he loses the Holborn and St Pancras byelection in a high-stakes contest for the left of British politics.
Speaking to the Guardian while door knocking in the north London constituency, Polanski calls the Greens underdogs in the race but says he is confident he could beat Labour, which won the seat with a majority of more than 11,000 at the 2024 general election. The seat has been vacated by Keir Starmer, who announced last Tuesdayhe was leaving parliament having resigned as prime minister in June.
The Greens are confident about their chances, with party activists having already “knocked on thousands of doors”, according to Polanski, but the race comes as the party has fallen in the polls. There have been murmurs that it might have reached its peak in dying days of Starmer’s premiership, exemplified by the party’s seismic win in the Gorton and Denton byelection in February.
Polanski is not yet formally the Green’s candidate for Holborn and St Pancras but local members are likely to select him. The race will test the electoral heft of his eco-populist party and Andy Burnham’s Labour. The byelection will be Labour’s first electoral challenge since Burnham became prime minister six weeks ago.
Some critics saw Starmer’s decision to announce his intention to leave Westminster on Burnham’s first day in the Commons as prime minister as a way to twist the knife against his successor on his way out of parliament.
Polanski joined volunteers in King’s Cross over the weekend to speak to local voters. It was his fourth visit to the constituency in a week. Should he win, Polanski says he will not move to the area but cycle from his flat in Hackney. “I can cycle to constituency really quickly. In fact, the length of the constituency is just as fast for me to cycle,” he says. “I’d regularly be here, doing surgeries and representing people.”
Some political commentators have said the seat is a difficult one for the Greens to win and that his run is a high-risk proposition. “I think it’s nonsense,” Polanski says. “I think people are trying to up the stakes because they want some drama.” Nigel Farage ran for election eight times before he won, Polanski says. If he does fall short of winning, he says he definitely stay on as Green leader.
Polanski appeared popular while canvassing. Members of the public stopped him several times between knocking doors to express enthusiastic support for him. At one point, an eager procession of young men who say they have seen Polanski on TikTok gather around him before shaking his hand one by one, making off to the side in an orderly fashion once done. “I feel like the Queen!” the Green leader says.
Starmer won the seat with a 11,572 majority in 2024. The anti-apartheid activist Andrew Feinstein, who is on the left, came second with 7,312 votes and the Greens were third with 4,030. Even if the vote for Feinstein, who will not run this time and has endorsed Polanski, and the Greens was tallied up, the party would be more than 7,500 votes shy of unseating Labour based on the general election figures. Despite this, Polanski still fancies his chances. “We know we can win here,” he says.
It was slow going on the doorstep at first and not many people answered, but things soon picked up. The first woman who answers the door via her buzzer is a big fan. She has arthritis and is unable to come downstairs but she tells Polanski she loves him. “This is a great response. Thank you. I love you too,” he shouts into the buzzer.
Shortly after, Usman Ayyub stops Polanski in the street and shakes his hand. “He is standing on his principles,” says the 27-year-old section manager, who plans to vote for him. He is unimpressed by Labour, who he says has “completely lost the plot”.
“They don’t know what they’re doing,” Ayyub says. “Sometimes they’re falling towards the far right, sometimes they say they’re for the left or the centre. They are not standing for anything.”
After another door knock, a man who claims he worked with Polanski at an adventure summer camp in 2002 stops him. “I saw you on TV and said: ‘That’s Zack!’. Very well done,” he says.
Polanski says he has spoken to Labour voters who are considering a switch to the Greens. “It’s a very easy conversation to have with people. Even if you support Labour or you want to give Andy Burnham a chance, voting Green in this election still makes sense because it’ll make him be a better Labour prime minister,” he says.
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“We’ll make sure that we keep pushing him left rather than listening to Nigel Farage. That argument has been resonating with people.”
Pointing at Scala, a famed nightclub in the constituency, Polanski says he worked the door there years ago. He also says his barber is in the constituency. “I come here every week,” he adds.
Some sources in the party have expressed frustration about Polanski’s social media use, with one saying he is “terminally online”. When asked about that, Polanski says: “I think people really appreciate the fact that I’m accessible. With other politicians you get corporate politicians where every single part of their life is micromanaged.
“Every sentence that comes out of their mouth is focus-grouped and I think people absolutely see it as more of a benefit that they know I’m genuine and authentic.”
The issues of housing, the NHS and local crime come up on the doorstep. Burnham has spoken at length about the north-south divide, but Polanski believes there is stark poverty in London and the constituency he is vying for.
“Regional inequality exists so it is important that we talk about supporting all communities,” he says. “It’s also true though that there’s a sense that London is wealthy, but actually somewhere like Holborn and St Pancras has deep poverty and deprivation and often it lives side by side with huge pockets of wealth.”
As the clock passes 11am, Polanski buzzes on a door across from King’s Cross station as people rush pass with suitcases, hoping to catch their trains. Instead of saying “Hi, this is Zack from the Green party” as he normally would, he has begun using his full name, even though it feels “odd”. It appears to work. The man over the buzzer can’t believe it. “Is this Zack Polanski, seriously?” he says.
“Yes, it’s Zack Polanski seriously,” he hears back.
