In an interview with left-wing media organisation Novara Media in July, Feinstein, who is Jewish, said: “The next MP for Holborn and St Pancras needs to be the antithesis of Keir Starmer in every possible way – personally, politically.”
Green Party leader Zack Polanski delivers his speech on the first day of the Green Party Conference at Bournemouth International Centre at Bournemouth International Centre on October 03, 2025 in Bournemouth, England. (Getty Images)Getty Images
“My little organisation, the Camden People’s Alliance, had an agreement, an alliance with the Greens, so we stood in two wards and won a councillor where the Greens did not stand… I like the idea of local politics driving radical politics in the country going forward,” he said.
But despite coming second at the last general election, Feinstein said he did not want to be a candidate at the by-election: “I am 62 years old, why do we need another white old man in Parliament?
“We have so many more incredible talented much younger people in an incredibly diverse borough like Holborn and St Pancras, that there has got to be someone far better than me out there.
“I do feel a very deep responsibility to ensuring that [the candidate] is the anti-Keir Starmer," he added in the clip, which he shared on social media this week.
A Green Party official confirmed “everyone in the party is behind” Polanski but local members have the final say over the candidate.
Some in the Green Party have suggested that the candidate should be Palestinian, while others could want a more local choice.
The JC has seen WhatsApp messages in the Green For Palestine group in which one activist stated: “A strong Palestinian campaigner would be better.”
Another suggested two named Palestinian activists in the group: “Would either of you, as British Palestinians, consider standing in Holborn & St Pancras? I’d love to help elect a Green Palestinian,” the activist said.
“Any other Palestinians in this chat, do consider it, and I’ll help as much as I can to help win the seat,” the activist added in a separate message.
Meanwhile the Green councillor for Holborn and Covent Garden, Hamza Chowdhury, said that he did not know who the best fit for the candidacy was.
“I was elected in May with a landslide win against Labour at 13,000 votes and the by-election is coming in a couple of weeks.
“Keir Starmer resigned. What’s my take? Can we smash it? Probably yeh, statistically yeh. We need some graft, we need a lot of help, we need a lot of work, I did it once, we can do it again,” Chowdhury said on Thursday.
“Who’s best fit? I don’t know. Still in the process. People are coming forward still. Do we need an ethnic minority? Do we need someone from north, someone from south? Do we need someone straight from Holborn?”
Polanski lives in Hackney and had been expected to target a parliamentary seat in north east London.
But announcing his plans to run in Starmer’s patch in the Camden New Journal, he told the paper that he previously lived in Holborn and St Pancras: “It represents so many of the things that make London so special.”
He was in Hatton Garden on Thursday, telling media: “I love this constituency; it is somewhere where I have lived several times."
Dame Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP for Islington South, Finsbury and De Beauvoir, reminded her followers on X that Polanski had previously run for office in Camden when he was a Liberal Democrat.
She quipped: “I’m not usually one to defend Zack Polanski, but the idea he doesn’t have at least one single connection to Camden is just nonsense. Look, here he is standing for the council there in 2015… as a Lib Dem… during the austerity coalition…”
Polanski secured just 96 votes during that election.
But the eco-populist has said he is confident that the Greens can win in Camden and give the party its first London MP.
The group is planning to flood the north London constituency with campaigners this weekend, building on the mobilisation model used to overturn a 13,000-plus Labour majority in Greater Manchester’s Gorton and Denton in February, when Hannah Spencer became the fifth Green MP.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party candidate will be decided at a hustings on Wednesday.
The current frontrunner is Camden Square councillor Sagal Abdi-Wali, who runs Camden Council and was previously chair of Starmer’s Constituency Labour Party (CLP).
