Labour party of ‘big money’, claims Greens’ Polanski as he says he will run for Starmer’s seat – UK politics live | Politics
Polanski says he can win Holborn and St Pancras for Greens attacking Labour as party of ‘corporations and big money’
Zack Polanski has confirmed that he wants to be the Green party’s candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection in an interview with the Camden New Journal – the local paper where Keir Starmer also announced he was standing down as the constituency’s MP.
He said:
I have lived and worked in this community over many years, I know it well and I love it
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.
Holborn and St Pancras has everything that’s the best of our country and so much potential.
But for too long now it’s been held back by governments who have failed to make the changes to improve people’s lives.
We know that the Greens can win here, and by electing me, voters will have someone who will always fight their corner – never scared of big donors or the party whip. Too often Labour has stood up for corporations and big money. I will stand up for people struggling to pay their bills.
Starmer had a majority of 11.572 at the last election and polling figures, and the results of the May local elections, suggest Labour should win the byelection. But Polanski has shown he is a formidable campaigner, and with him as the Green party’s candidate, Labour will face a much tougher challenge holding the seat.
Polanski said he would put “making life more affordable” at the heart of his campaign.
It’s a clear fight between Labour and the Green party. We know that people are struggling – that the things we used to afford are increasingly out of reach – and this is a chance to send a very clear message that we won’t sit by as we get poorer and extreme wealth is concentrated at the very top.
What voters in Holborn and St Pancras will get with me as their MP is someone totally dedicated to standing up for them. Put simply I will use my place in parliament to force the current Labour government into making life more affordable for the people who live here.
Before Polanski officially becomes the Green party’s candidate, he has to be selected by the local party. But it is not expected that this will be a problem for him. Polanski is hugely popular with party members, and last year won the leadership contest with 84% of the vote.
Key events
Tories pledge to raise defence spending by £10bn partly by welfare cuts – as Labour rejects their ‘dodgy’ costings
Kemi Badenoch will this morning be giving a speech saying the Conservatives would raise defence spending by £10bn a year, allowing the UK to reach the 3% of GDP target for defence spending by 2030. This is the target Andy Burnham has not committed to meeting.
In a news release explaining where the Conservatives would find the money for this, they say:
The uplift, worth £10bn per year, will be funded by further cuts to the spiralling welfare bill, building on the party’s existing pledges to cut welfare by £23bn, and by reprioritising funding from other areas. This represents the largest real-terms increase in defence spending in a generation …
We will:
· Save at least £4bn through reforms to housing benefit
· Save £3.1bn by reimposing the two-child benefit cap
· Stop the £1bn annual increase in the British Business Bank’s industrial strategy capital
· Save £1bn by ending VAT exemptions for Motability vehicles
· Allocate £2.75bn from the National Wealth Fund to the National Defence and Resilience Bank as part of the party’s Sovereign Defence Fund
· Move £2bn of the civil research and development budget into defence
· Scrap Labour’s Chagos surrender deal, raising £0.2bn per year
Labour claims these costings are not credible because the Tories have already ‘spent’ these notional savings. A Labour spokesperson said:
Dodgy Tory economics won’t fund Britain’s defences. The British people won’t forget Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives hollowed out our armed forces and blew holes in the UK’s proud international reputation.
This proposal uses the same money they’ve already spent on other things and appears to break the Tories’ so-called golden economic rule. This is just days after Kemi Badenoch promoted a key architect of the Liz Truss mini-Budget as her shadow chancellor. It’s the same old Tories – they haven’t listened and they haven’t learned.
Under their “golden economic rules”, the Tories say half of all the money they raise by cutting spending would go towards deficit reduction.
Here is more from the Press Association on the Holborn and St Pancras byelection.
Only two Labour MPs have ever represented Holborn and St Pancras: former health secretary Frank Dobson, from 1983 to 2015, then Keir Starmer. [The constituency was created in 1983, mostly replacing Holborn and St Pancras South, which was mostly held by Labour in the post-war period.]
At the most recent general election in 2024, Starmer held the seat with 48.9% of the vote, ahead of independent candidate Andrew Feinstein in second place on 18.9% and the Greens in third on 10.4%.
The Conservatives came fourth on 7.2%, Reform finished fifth on 6.1% and the Liberal Democrats were sixth on 5.8%.
The popularity of the independent and Green candidates at the 2024 contest, finishing second and third respectively, may have been partly down to former Labour voters protesting against Starmer’s refusal to take a stronger position on Israel’s actions in Gaza in the war with Hamas.
The Green party also made gains in the May local elections in the London borough of Camden, the local authority which covers the constituency.
And this is from Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, on Zack Polanski standing in Holborn and St Pancras.
Polanski’s likely candidacy makes what was expected to be a Labour hold into a much more interesting race, with Green activists already flooding constituency.
In 2024 general election, a left-wing independent and the Greens together took 29% of vote (Starmer won on 49%). If potential rivals on the left come in behind Polanski, it could make a big dent in Labour’s vote.
However, this has long been a Labour stronghold and fighting it with Andy Burnham at helm of party is tougher proposition for Greens. And Labour will throw everything at defending it.
Just as Makerfield was Burnham’s proof of concept that he could beat Reform, Holborn & St Pancras will be his test that he can win back progressive voters to the Labour fold.
These are from Rob Ford, a politics professor and elections specialist, on what Zack Polanski being the Green party’s candidate means for the Holborn and St Pancras byelection.
Big stakes now for both parties.
Greens have chance to turn the tide on recent decline & show Polanski is a winner.
Labour have a chance to show the Burnham bounce is real, consolidate the left in a London heartland seat, & deal a potential knockout blow to Green insurgency.
As I said a couple of days ago, Polanski candidature may change how voters in the seat see contest. No longer just Green vs Lab – it is now “would you like the national leader of the Green party or a generic Lab backbencher as your local representative?”
It is quite possible for Labour to lose despite being popular nationally and, indeed, in seat itself, because voters understand stakes: Green gain still leaves Burnham in charge with huge majority, but means a high profile progressive voice in Commons, representing Holborn & St P
If you are a young progressive voter who thinks “I like Burnham but I don’t trust him to listen to us, particularly given how the first two yrs of this govt went”, then a “vote Polanski in to keep Burnham honest” message is going to be quite attractive.
There are an awful lot of such voters in this seat – lots of students & young grad professionals (seat is v near UCL), & lots of migrant origin & ethnic minority voters too. All groups Lab has struggled with in recent yrs – what will Burnham’s message be to win back their trust?
Here is the Camden New Journal’s story.
Polanski says he can win Holborn and St Pancras for Greens attacking Labour as party of ‘corporations and big money’
Zack Polanski has confirmed that he wants to be the Green party’s candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection in an interview with the Camden New Journal – the local paper where Keir Starmer also announced he was standing down as the constituency’s MP.
He said:
I have lived and worked in this community over many years, I know it well and I love it
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.
Holborn and St Pancras has everything that’s the best of our country and so much potential.
But for too long now it’s been held back by governments who have failed to make the changes to improve people’s lives.
We know that the Greens can win here, and by electing me, voters will have someone who will always fight their corner – never scared of big donors or the party whip. Too often Labour has stood up for corporations and big money. I will stand up for people struggling to pay their bills.
Starmer had a majority of 11.572 at the last election and polling figures, and the results of the May local elections, suggest Labour should win the byelection. But Polanski has shown he is a formidable campaigner, and with him as the Green party’s candidate, Labour will face a much tougher challenge holding the seat.
Polanski said he would put “making life more affordable” at the heart of his campaign.
It’s a clear fight between Labour and the Green party. We know that people are struggling – that the things we used to afford are increasingly out of reach – and this is a chance to send a very clear message that we won’t sit by as we get poorer and extreme wealth is concentrated at the very top.
What voters in Holborn and St Pancras will get with me as their MP is someone totally dedicated to standing up for them. Put simply I will use my place in parliament to force the current Labour government into making life more affordable for the people who live here.
Before Polanski officially becomes the Green party’s candidate, he has to be selected by the local party. But it is not expected that this will be a problem for him. Polanski is hugely popular with party members, and last year won the leadership contest with 84% of the vote.
Zack Polanski to stand as Green party’s candidate in Holborn and St Pancras byelection
Green Party leader Zack Polanski has said he will stand in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election which was triggered when Keir Starmer announced he was quitting as an MP.
Burnham meets Macron at No 10, as more French officers deployed to stop small boat crossings
Good morning. Nothing is new in life or politics, and the concern that people feel about small boats crossing the Channel now is minimal compared to the alarm that Britons must have felt in 1066 as the Duke of Normandy’s invasion force arrived in England. Almost 1,000 years later, the horror is long forgotten and Andy Burnham was with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, at the British Museum last night to celebrate the Bayeux Tapestry as “the best possible symbol” of the “entente amicale” between France and the UK, as King Charles put it in a speech last night.
This morning Burnham is hosting Macron for political talks in Downing Street and another fleet of small boats will be on the agenda. As Rajeev Syal reports, ahead of the meeting No 10 has announced that the UK and France have increased the number of police on the French coast to stop so-called “mega dinghies” from launching across the English Channel. Rajeev says:
While the combined total number of boat crossings over the summer months has dropped to its lowest since 2019, smugglers appear to have started loading more people onto fewer, larger vessels. Dinghies are now being launched as far as 150 miles southwest of Calais.
Downing Street said measures to counter the trend include deploying a surge team of 45 officers to France’s western beaches in the coming weeks, almost tripling resources in the area.
A specialist French intelligence and judicial team seeking to root out and prosecute smuggling networks has grown from 18 to 30 officers.
And a new 75-strong unit focused on curbing crossings has begun operations in northern France, taking the total number of officers to nearly 1,050.
Home Office officials have recently claimed that 15-metre boats which can carry 230 people are being launched because hardline tactics used by French police and funded by the UK are working.
The BBC reported on Thursday that people smugglers are being forced to work together and use larger boats, and have increased their prices for a Channel journey from €1,300 to €1,700 (£1120 to £1460) over the last year.
Critics are saying both governments should be doing more.
There are other important issues on the agenda for the talks too. Kiran Stacey has a preview here.
We will also be hearing a lot today from the Conservatives and Reform UK. Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: Kemi Badenoch gives a speech on defence, and how the Conservatives would fund a rise in defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030.
11am: Robert Jenrick, the Reform UK Treasury spokesperson, speaks on a panel at the Reform conference’s ‘business day’. Suella Braverman, the education spokesperson, is also speaking at an event. The main conference starts tomorrow.
Around 11am: Emmanuel Macron, the French president, arrives at Downing Street for talks with Andy Burnham.
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