George Galloway takes 314 votes as Labour holds Starmer's former London seat

LONDON — George Galloway received 314 votes in the October 8, 2026 Holborn and St Pancras by-election, a distant seventh-place finish for the Workers Party of Britain as Labour retained the parliamentary seat previously held by Keir Starmer.

According to the results published by the UK Parliament on October 9, Labour's Sagal Abdi-Wali won 12,292 votes, while Green Party leader Zack Polanski came second with 8,928. Galloway secured about 1.15 percent of the vote in a field of 15 candidates.

Conservative Ewan Cameron won 1,922 votes, Reform UK's Pete Newman received 1,612, Liberal Democrat Patrick Stillman took 924, and Restore Britain's Tyler Johnson received 692. Galloway followed on 314. The figures show how far the Workers Party fell behind both the established parties and the leading Green challenge.

Galloway, a veteran anti-war campaigner and founder of the Workers Party, ran a campaign whose stated priorities included wages, housing costs, public services, peace and reindustrialisation. The party presented the contest as a chance to challenge Labour over domestic living standards and Britain's overseas commitments.

His bid attracted attention because he campaigned largely from abroad. The Guardian reported on October 7 that Galloway was not in Britain and that local activists had been campaigning on the ground while he addressed voters remotely.

The election was held in the seat vacated by former prime minister Keir Starmer. It unfolded amid arguments over affordable housing, the HS2 redevelopment near Euston, the cost of living and foreign policy, including the war in Gaza.

Labour's victory does not erase the political disagreements that brought anti-war and independent left candidates into the race. But the recorded vote matters: the party-backed campaign led by Galloway failed to translate its national profile and online following into significant constituency support.

The stronger challenge came from the Greens, whose leader won nearly 9,000 votes but still finished more than 3,300 votes behind Labour's candidate. The outcome illustrates both the presence of discontent to Labour's left and the electoral barriers facing smaller parties under Britain's first-past-the-post system.

For Galloway and the Workers Party, the immediate question is how to turn an anti-war and working-class political platform into local organising capable of winning votes beyond a nationally recognizable candidate.

Sources: UK Parliament, official Holborn and St Pancras by-election results, October 9, 2026 — https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2026/october-2026/sagal-abdi-wali-elected-as-member-of-parliament-for-holborn-and-st-pancras/

Additional reporting: The Guardian, October 7, 2026 — https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/oct/07/george-galloway-london-byelection-holborn-st-pancras