Labour announce candidate to replace Starmer is council leader who came to UK as child refugee from Somalia
Labour has selected its candidate to replace former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras.
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Local campaigner Sagal Abdi-Wali, the current leader of Camden Council, will be the party's candidate to replace Sir Keir in the London seat.
Sir Keir announced that he would step down as an MP last week, with the contest to replace the former Prime Minister set to take place on October 6.
Abdi-Wali was brought to Britain as a child refugee from Somalia.
Reform UK figure Zia Yusuf sparked controversy last week when he tweeted about Abdi-Wali, who was being reported as the frontrunner for the selection.
Read More: Sir Keir Starmer to step down as MP triggering by-election
Mr Yusuf was accused of "straightforward racism" after posting on X: "The frontrunner being foisted on the people of Holborn by Labour to replace the former prime minister Keir Starmer in our parliament was born in Somalia. Do you understand what’s happening?”
After her candidacy was announced, Ms Abdi-Wali said: “I am delighted that local members have put their trust in me to be Labour’s candidate in the area I’ve grown up in.
“This place welcomed my family as refugees and gave us hope when we needed it most. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to build a life here, serving our community as a councillor, school governor, and community activist. Now I am standing to say thank you and to give back the hope you gave me.
“Throughout this campaign, I promise to put our communities at the heart of everything I do, now and for the future. Together, we can make hope win.”
Green Party leader Zack Polanski wants to stand for the seat but is facing a challenge from local councillor Hamza Chowdhury, who has put himself forward for the Green nomination.
Mr Polanski, a London Assembly member, said on Wednesday that he was “proud” to face a rival and dismissed Mr Chowdhury’s comments that the constituency does not need “another MP who arrives during an election campaign” then “disappears once the votes are counted”.
“I think the local party already knows that doesn’t describe me at all. It’s a place that I know very, very well,” Mr Polanski said.
The Greens are likely to pose the greatest threat in the by-election to Labour, which has held the inner London constituency continuously since the seat was created in 1983, winning at least 40% of the vote at every election.
Only two Labour MPs have ever represented Holborn and St Pancras: former health secretary Frank Dobson, from 1983 to 2015, then Sir Keir.
At the most recent general election in 2024, Sir Keir held the seat with 48.9% of the vote, ahead of independent candidate Andrew Feinstein in second place on 18.9% and the Greens in third on 10.4%.
The Conservatives came fourth on 7.2%, Reform finished fifth on 6.1% and the Liberal Democrats were sixth on 5.8%.
The popularity of the independent and Green candidates at the 2024 contest, finishing second and third respectively, may have been partly down to former Labour voters protesting against Sir Keir’s refusal to take a stronger position on Israel’s actions in Gaza in the war with Hamas.
The Green Party also made gains in the May local elections in the London Borough of Camden, the local authority that covers the constituency.