2026 Holborn and St Pancras House of Commons by-election

This week on the podcast, as well as our run-through of the latest headline numbers, I'm going to be chatting with Louis and Sophie about Andy Burnham's big, bold conference speech and how that's likely to play with the public, what the opportunities are, what we think people will like, but also some of the risks as well.

I'll then be chatting to my colleague Andrew Fowler about the Green Party conference, which what's happened to the Green Party's polling in recent months and what Zach Polanski will be trying to do at that conference and how that links to that big by-election in Hoban and St Pancras next week.

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You can also watch on YouTube and see some of the charts and graphs live on the screen.

Obviously, and we'll very definitely be talking about this on the podcast next week, because it will be election day in Hoban and St. Pancras.

How much in terms of, you know, maintaining momentum, continuing to look like a winner...

How much do you think Hoban and St Pancras matters in that regard? I mean, you know, on the one hand, putting yourself forward for it, you know, in a traditionally safe Labour seat is a brave and bold mood.

On the other hand, you know, it's a sort of seat that, you know, if the Greens are going to be a serious contender for a coalition, you'd expect them to be winning.

So I'm sure most listeners will know that he used to be a Liberal Democrat.

and in the 2015 election ended up debating the then Green Party leader Natalie Bennett in, funnily enough, the Hobart and St Pancras constituency, weirdly.

And as a result of that he ended up, because he was really animated by proportional representation, and ended up sitting on loads of panels organised by the pressure group Make Votes Matter, which is basically a campaign for proportional representation, essentially became increasingly sort of persuaded and radicalised by sitting next to Natalie on these panels, which was part of his route into the Greens over the years.

This is a preoccupation of Polanski as an individual, but also the party as well.

And yeah, I think that that's just welcomed by pretty much every wing of the party.

So I think that the time of speaking is less than a week before we find out who's actually going forward.

But the ground machine is certainly up and running in Hobart and St Pancras.

There were literally hundreds of people out last weekend.

Well, it happened again.

Restore Britain tried to deliver their leaflets last weekend for the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.

And just like the week before, the, as you can see, very well-adjusted people belonging to Stand Up to Racism and the Socialist Workers Party decided to mob them, harass them, attack them and assault them.

But despite this being on camera, unlike the previous incident where one woman was arrested for an assault, the only person that got arrested this time is young Bob.

So the previous week saw stand-up to racism intercept Restore Britain's canvases and harass them to the point of where it wasn't safe to continue campaigning.

However, this time around, the intrepid Lewis Holmes, who was the target of said mob previously, decided to take it upon himself to lead them on a wild goose chase.

So Rupert points out that despite the Holborn and St Pancras campaigning team hiring private security, moving locations, etc, they did anticipate that Stand Up to Racism would somehow find out their location and go after them.

So the plan was that Lewis, who knew he would be targeted, volunteered to leave the main group and take the protesters along with him.

They were talking about Palestine action.

I was really intrigued by what was happening in Holborn and St Pancras, where Keir Starmer's old seat, where some Restore Britain campaigners went out.

This isn't democracy to legitimately give out leaflets and talk about their political party and getting people interested in what they stand for.

They were met with a tirade of anger.

Well, apart from the fact the clue is in the name, this latest ban on Arab parties in the elections is the clearest indication that Israel is not only racist, but also that often trotted out claim that it's the only democracy in the middle east i saw julia hartley brewer repeating that just 24 hours before this announcement well that's got to go in the dustbin now because obviously if you're banning political parties that represent a sizable chunk of your population then you're not a democracy simple as that even within the borders of 1946 israel Of course, the Green Party is now a significant electoral force in Britain, particularly since Zach Polanski, who, of course, as many viewers will know, is himself Jewish, since Zach was elected leader.

Now, Zach is also standing in the Hoban and St Pancras by-election, the seat that was vacated by Keir Starmer.

And that's caused lots of shenanigans.

Zak wanted the conference itself to be postponed so that activists could devote all their energies to helping him win a notable victory and get into the House of Commons.

Reform's shift to the extreme right has been driven by competition from the even more racist Restore Britain Party.

Their candidate in the upcoming Hoban and St Pancras by-election has apparently taken to following women with headscarves around the constituency.

Hello, my name is Tyler Johnson and I am the Restore Britain by-election candidate for Hoban and St Pancras constituency.

If you're a woman in this area, you do not feel safe.

There is no way you can go out, go to a pub, go to a bar and walk down the street at night and feel like you're safe.