The British Museum, the world's largest library - the British Library -, the train station connecting the UK to the rest of Europe, and the neighbourhood of Virginia Woolf, E. M. Foster, and John Maynard Keynes, all voted Labour.
That is one way to see the early elections held yesterday in the London constituency of Holborn and St. Pancras. Another option is that the Labour Party has halted the decline it was experiencing under the previous Prime Minister, Keir Starmer.
This has an ironic side, as these elections were deciding Starmer's successor. The former Prime Minister was a Member of Parliament for Holborn and St. Pancras, and his decision to leave politics after being ousted from the Government leadership by his own party members in July triggered these elections. These were also the first elections held with Starmer's successor, Andy Burnham, as Prime Minister.
This vote also measured the future of the British left. The Labour Party and its candidate, Sagal Abdi-Wali, represented the establishment. The alternative was the Green Party, which went all-in by presenting their leader, the self-proclaimed "ecopopulist" Zack Polanski. Adding more intrigue, the backdrop was defined by the UK's relations with Israel, as over the weekend, the Greens passed a motion self-proclaiming as an "anti-Zionist party" and declaring that ideology as "racist".
So, much more than a seat was at stake: it was the control of the British left and Burnham's electoral pull. And, at least for now, that control remains in the hands of Labour, with Burnham confirming he is a leader with much more appeal than his predecessor. It is a symbolic victory for the traditional centre-left force in Britain, as under Starmer, the Green Party had caught up in the polls. The victory of the traditional British centre-left force was complemented by their triumph in the local elections in Lambeth and Newcastle-under-Lyme, where they had suffered a defeat in the last municipal elections in May.
For such symbolic elections, the electorate did not pay much attention. Turnout was 38.8%, the lowest figure since the Holborn and St. Pancras constituency was created in 1983. The battle between the left did not ignite passions among the neighbourhood, even though the elections were held amidst a quasi-'green' civil war due to the Zionism declaration. The weekend motion was rejected by four out of five Green MPs, causing significant tensions within the party leadership. It also led to the unusual situation where the Israeli Government banned Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, from entering the country for "antisemitism".
The Green leader stated early today, after his defeat, that he does not intend to resign from his position. In fact, the results can be seen as a relative victory for the Green Party, which more than tripled its percentage of votes compared to the 2024 elections. At the same time, Labour's victory does not mean the party has stopped declining. Abdi-Wali secured 45.2% of the vote, four points less than Starmer received in 2024, and 30 points less than Labour achieved in 2017.
On the conservative side, 'tories' and Reform lost, respectively, one and two tenths. The ultranationalist Restore Britain, established this year and supported by, among others, Elon Musk, obtained 2.54% of the vote, confirming that, although not in a position to win, it can disrupt Reform's chances of victory, which is currently the dominant force on the right nationally.