LONDON (VINnews) — Labour held the central London seat vacated by former Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday, beating Green Party leader Zack Polanski and giving Prime Minister Andy Burnham an early win in his effort to pull left-leaning voters back from the Greens.

Camden Council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali took Holborn and St Pancras with 12,292 votes, or 45%, to 8,928, or 33%, for Polanski. The majority of 3,364 is Labour’s smallest in the constituency since it was created in 1983. Turnout was about 39%, well below the 2024 general election.

The by-election was called after Starmer resigned the seat in September. Burnham, installed by Labour lawmakers worried that Starmer’s unpopularity was clearing a path for Reform UK, had been expected to hold the district. The Green share of the vote still rose sharply from 2024.

Abdi-Wali, who came to Britain as a child refugee from Somalia in the 1990s, called the result an extraordinary honor and said she would be the constituency’s first female member of Parliament. She told supporters people had voted for hope and that politics had to show it could improve their lives.

Polanski, 43, a former actor and hypnotherapist who is Jewish, said he would stay on as Green leader. He described the loss as part of Burnham’s honeymoon and said the campaign had let him argue for rent controls, action on climate change and public ownership of Thames Water. He said the result showed the Greens were a greater electoral threat in seats like this than before.

The defeat lands days after Green members at their Brighton conference passed a motion declaring that Zionism is racism and calling for a single democratic Palestinian state across historic Palestine. The motion passed 1,022 to 813. It defines Zionism as support for an ethnonationalist Jewish state and says the party should treat Zionism as it treats other forms of racism.

Polanski did not vote. He left the conference early to campaign and later said that if Zionism means the displacement of Palestinians, it is racist — adding that he spoke as a Jewish leader of a British party. He also said no one should be excluded from the Greens because of faith or communal affiliation.

Jewish groups, other parties and most Green lawmakers criticized the motion. Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the text antisemitic and barred Polanski from entering the country. Former Green leader Caroline Lucas faulted him for a lack of leadership on the vote. Vivien Lichtenstein, leader of the Jewish Greens, said he should resign. Burnham called the motion completely wrong and urged Polanski to reverse it. Labour chair Bridget Phillipson said the Greens now face a serious problem with antisemitism.

The Conservatives finished third, ahead of Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats. The next national election is due by mid-2029.