I’ve crunched the numbers on Zack Polanski’s chances of being an MP. Here’s the truth – John Curtice
Zack Polanski’s decision to seek the Green Party nomination for the forthcoming by-election in Sir Keir Starmer’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency is a bold move – much as Andy Burnham’s decision to contest the Makerfield by-election was last June. The challenge before him looks at least as forbidding as the one that faced the now Labour leader in his quest to gain the keys to Downing Street.
At first glance, the seat looks like a golden opportunity for the Green leader to realise his stated ambition of becoming a London MP. It has a predominantly young population – one in five are aged between 16 and 24. At the same time, slightly more than one in five identify as Muslim, while over 70 per cent voted Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
In short, the constituency contains the kind of young, socially liberal, diverse population among whom the Greens have consistently shown an ability to thrive, not least because of discontent with Sir Keir’s stance on Gaza.
Even in 2024, the former prime minister’s vote took a tumble – down by 17 points, while over one in four voted either for a well-known left-wing pro-Gaza campaigner, Andrew Feinstein, or the Greens.
Meanwhile, in the local elections in the constituency on May 7, Labour won just 39 per cent of the vote – down a further 10 points on its 2024 performance. The Greens won 29 per cent, but in two wards they stood down for the Camden People’s Alliance (CPA), a legacy of Andrew Feinstein’s campaign in 2024. The Alliance’s tally was worth another six per cent. Together the Green and CPA vote represented 35 per cent of the vote in the constituency, only four points behind Labour’s tally.
An effective campaign by the charismatic Green leader would seemingly have a good chance of taking his party over the line.
However, the world has moved on politically since the beginning of May. Labour have enjoyed a bounce in the national polls following its change of leader. At 26 per cent, the party’s tally is seven points up on where it stood at the time of the local elections. Much of that advance has come at the expense of the Greens, whose support is four points down on the spring.
Meanwhile, in announcing the UK might sanction Israeli settlements on the West Bank, the new Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, has seemingly signalled a shift of stance on the Palestine question from that taken by Sir Keir.
The seat looks like a golden opportunity for the Green leader to realise his stated ambition of becoming a London MP
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GETTYAnd although much of the rise in Green support last autumn and winter could be credited to Mr Polanski’s charismatic leadership of the insurgent party, the Green leader’s personal popularity has fallen in the wake of personal controversy, not least in reposting on social media an adverse comment on the policing handling of an incident in Golders Green in late April in which two Jewish men were stabbed.
Before that incident in April, Mr Polanski’s net favourability rating averaged -14 in YouGov’s polls. Now he stands at -29. More importantly, perhaps, his rating has fallen among those who voted Green in 2024 – from +45 in April to just +29 now.
The Green leader’s ability to reach out to potential Green voters – in the way Mr Burnham succeeded in attracting those sympathetic to Labour back to the fold in Makerfield – may not be what it once was. But if he does secure his party’s nomination, that will be precisely what he will need to do.
Sir John Curtice is Professor of Politics, Strathclyde University, and Senior Fellow, National Centre for Social Research