By-election recap: Green party leader Zack Polanski under pressure after defeat by Labour's Sagal Abdi-Wali

Green Party leader Zack Polanski is odds-on to be ousted as Green Party leader after failing to win the by-election triggered after Keir Starmer quit as Labour leader .

Polanski was told he's less popular than even Nigel Farage in the wake of the defeat, which was followed by bookies slashing the odds on him being replaced, with Adrian Ramsay named favourite to succeed him.

Sagal Abdi-Wali is the new Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras in London - holding the seat for the party and hammering Polanski, who could now face further questions over his controversial stewardship of the Greens.

Labour 's candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali, a former child refugee from Somalia, won convincingly with 12,292 votes, beating Mr Polanski on 8,928. Voter turnout was 38.76%, with 27,309 ballots cast. This is a significant drop from 2024's general election, when 56,786 voted.

Polanski says he won't quit, but admits his future is out of his hands. He said it up to Green Party members to decide whether he continues as leader. Asked how confident he was to be re-elected, he told Sky News: “That’s going to be up to the members and that’s going to be up to the leadership election that happens next summer.

“What I’m experiencing, though, is an immense amount of people who are saying actually they’ve never been prouder to be a Green Party member.”

Embattled Polanski was then given a kicking by Nick Robinson, who told him he is less liked than Reform's leader Farage in a heated Radio 4 Today interview.

Swerving the barb, Mr Polanski responded after a pause: “Well, my reflection is if things are going wrong by the fact that we just tripled our vote share and had our second best by-election result in Green Party history, you know what? I’ll take that.

There were scenes of joy after 3am as the Greens have been beaten by Labour in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.

This is the emotional moment Camden Council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali discovered she had held Sir Keir Starmer’s seat.