UNITED KINGDOM
Holborn and St Pancras is a safe-looking Labour constituency in inner London, covering Camden Town, King's Cross and the area around the British Museum. Keir Starmer won it in 2015 and held it in 2024 with 48.9 % of the vote, while the independent Andrew Feinstein took 18.9 % and the Greens 10.4 %.
The by-election was triggered when Starmer resigned as an MP on 1 September 2026, after he had stepped down as prime minister earlier in the year and been succeeded by Andy Burnham. Labour chose Camden council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali, and the Greens fielded their national leader Zack Polanski, which gave the vote a national dimension. George Galloway (Workers Party of Britain), a Reform UK candidate, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Restore Britain were among fifteen candidates. Polling day was 8 October.
A by-election fills a single vacant House of Commons seat and uses the same first-past-the-post rule as a general election: the candidate with the most votes wins, even without a majority, and there is no run-off. The winner serves until the next general election.
A seat falls vacant when an MP dies or resigns; because MPs cannot formally resign, they apply for an office of profit under the Crown, the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. Candidates need the signatures of ten local voters and a £500 deposit that is returned only if they win at least 5 % of the votes. Everyone who is registered in the constituency and aged 18 or over may vote.