Labour are 2/5 favourites to hold Holborn & St Pancras, but 64% of bets placed in the last week have backed Zack Polanski's Greens at 13/5.
The battle for Holborn & St Pancras, the seat Keir Starmer vacated on his way out of Westminster, is shaping up as one of the most closely watched by-elections in years. Labour have gone with Camden council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali, while Green leader Zack Polanski is battling local councillor Hamza Chowdhury for his party's nomination.
Bookmakers make Labour clear favourites at 2/5, but punters are telling a very different story: 64% of all bets placed last week backed the Greens.
Here's how the odds, the money and the candidates are stacking up ahead of polling day on 8 October.
Holborn & St Pancras By-election Odds
The market has this down as a two-horse race. Labour's 2/5 price makes them odds-on to hold the seat they've won at every general election since it was created in 1983, but Green's 13/5 shot keeps the contest firmly alive, a much shorter price than you'd expect for a party sitting third in the 2024 general election result.
Who Is Favourite to Win Holborn & St Pancras By-election?
Labour are the clear favourite. But the betting public disagree, and disagree emphatically. Looking at bets placed on the by-election last week via oddschecker, 64.4% went on the Greens, compared with just 32.4% for Labour. Reform picked up 1.4% of bets and the Conservatives 1.2%, reflecting their outsider prices and the fact neither has any realistic foothold in this inner-London seat.
That gulf between where the odds sit and where the money's going is unusual for a seat Labour have never lost in more than 40 years. It suggests bettors see this as a genuine toss-up, driven by local dynamics - a young, renter-heavy, graduate-dense electorate, a strong pro-Palestinian vote share in 2024, and typically low by-election turnout that tends to favour the more motivated, mobilised support base.
Zack Polanski Holborn & St Pancras By-election Odds
Polanski's Greens are priced at 13/5 to take the seat. He's yet to be formally confirmed as the Green candidate, facing a selection contest against local councillor Hamza Chowdhury, but he's treating the seat as a genuine target, door-knocking multiple times a week and pledging to represent constituents from his flat in neighbouring Hackney if he wins.
Holborn & St Pancras By-election Candidates
- Sagal Abdi-Wali (Labour) — Leader of Camden council since May 2026 and a councillor for Camden Square since 2022, Abdi-Wali has been selected as Labour's candidate. She has framed her campaign around her own story, having arrived in the area as a refugee, and around her record of community organising and casework locally.
- Zack Polanski (Green) — The Green party leader and London Assembly member is seeking the nomination, contesting it against local councillor Hamza Chowdhury. Polanski has said he'll stay on as party leader regardless of the result, pointing to his standing in national polling and his party's gains on Camden council in May's local elections as reasons for optimism.
- Hamza Chowdhury (Green) — A Camden councillor for Holborn and Covent Garden, Chowdhury made headlines by mounting an internal challenge against his own party leader for the Green nomination, and he's got real backing for it - six of Camden's eleven Green councillors are in his corner. Born and raised in the constituency, he's built his campaign around being a genuine local rather than a "parachuted-in" name, describing himself as a "Global Majority" candidate and taking a pointed swipe at high-profile contenders who show up for an election, leaflet the area, then vanish once the votes are counted - a clear dig at Polanski.
- Hussain Shafei (Workers Party of Britain) — Known locally as "Hoz," Shafei has been formally selected as George Galloway's Workers Party of Britain candidate for the seat. He's an established local activist and community campaigner, and his platform sticks closely to the party's national script: working-class economic issues, defending local public services, and a strongly anti-war, pro-Gaza foreign policy stance. That last point puts him in direct competition with both Polanski and Abdi-Wali for the same pool of pro-Palestinian voters who deserted Labour here in 2024.
- Reform UK, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats — All three fielded candidates in 2024 but finished well back, taking a combined 19.1% of the vote between them. None are expected to seriously contend this time, reflected in odds of 125/1 and beyond.
