Green Party leader Zack Polanski to contest by-election for Keir Starmer's former seat

The leader of the United Kingdom’s Green Party intends to stand in an election for a seat in parliament vacated by former Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, local media reported.

Zack Polanski told the Camden New Journal he would be the Green candidate for Holborn and St Pancras, a left-leaning constituency which Starmer held comfortably in 2024 though with a much-reduced vote share.

“I have lived and worked in this community over many years. I know it well, and I love it,” the left-wing party leader said.

“It represents so many of the things that make London so special. I am so excited by the prospect of representing this place in Parliament.”

The announcement comes days after former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would stand down as a member of parliament, triggering a by-election.

‘Labour stands up for corporations’

Starmer said on Tuesday that it was the “right time” to resign as the MP for the Holborn and St Pancras seat in London after 11 years.

The announcement comes six weeks after his resignation as the UK’s prime minister, having lost the support of governing Labour Party MPs.

In the UK’s general election two years ago, an independent candidate who campaigned primarily on opposition to Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza took nearly 19 percent of the vote in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency, while a Green candidate received more than 10 percent.

“Labour stands up for corporations and big money,” Polanski wrote on X.

“I’ll stand up for people and our communities.”

Since Polanski became Green leader a year ago, the party has achieved some success in taking support from Labour’s left, winning a surprise by-election victory in Greater Manchester – where current Prime Minister Andy Burnham was a long-serving mayor – and nationally polling as high as 20 percent.

However, Polanski’s personal popularity took a hit after he criticised police officers for the way they arrested a man who allegedly stabbed two Jewish people in north London in April, according to pollsters YouGov.