Sir John Curtice has given his verdict on Zack Polanski’s chances of winning the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.
On Thursday, voters will go to the polls in the North London constituency to choose Keir Starmer’s successor as their MP.
The seat is almost certainly set to be a two-horse race between Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali and Green leader Zack Polanski, who is standing for his party.
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The by-election could be a key test for Labour and Andy Burnham over whether they have managed to win back the support of left-wing voters who ditched the party for the Greens when Polanski became leader last year.
At the same time, the vote will likely show how much Labour’s surge under Burnham has eaten into the Green Party’s popularity, as the polls appear to show it has.
The bookies have Labour as the clear favourites, but at a Green Party conference fringe event over the weekend, polling expert Professor John Curtice gave his view on things with just days to go before the vote.
The National reports that Curtice was frank in his assessment to Green Party members in attendance, highlighting how their polling had fallen since Burnham became PM.
When he was asked by a party member what Polanski’s chances were looking like ahead of Thursday, Curtice spelled out the “arithmetic” for them.
“If you look at what happened in the constituency on May 7, and you include in the Green vote, the vote for the Camden Alliance candidates, and Andrew Feinstein’s campaign, you were about four points behind Labour at the time,” he explained.
“Now since then, Labour’s votes in the polls has gone up, yours has gone down. So basically if you do succeed in winning the by-election, I’m not saying you won’t, but if you do succeed it will be regarded as a very substantial shot at Westminster.”
Labour appear to be confident about holding onto Holborn and St Pancras, but last week Polanski said this confidence was “totally misplaced.”