From Somalia to Parliament?
The David Vance BriefingRead More
When I first saw this, I thought it was a joke.
It wasn’t a joke.
With Sir Keir Starmer stepping down immediately as MP for Holborn and St Pancras, it looks like this lady may be in pole position to succeed him. Her name is Sagal Abdi-Wali and she is the leader of Camden Council. She arrived in Britain from Somalia as a “refugee” in the early 1990s. She then got involved in Labour politics and was elected to Camden Council in 2022. If she does stand and gets elected, she would be the first Somali woman in Parliament.
A few other things to consider. Like most Labour politicians, she has never spent a day working in the private sector. She went to Leeds University before becoming a school governor, a director of Somali Organisations and the director of Voluntary Action in Camden the year before she was elected to the Council in 2022. She was re-elected this year, although her vote dropped quite a bit.
It seems to me that she is the perfect next-gen Labour candidate. She is a Muslim, a migrant and she leads Camden Council.
Now, Starmer first won this constituency in 2015, but it’s been Labour since it first came into being in 1983. He won it again in 2024, but with a vote of 18,884, which was about half of what he got in 2019. That said, he still got 49% of the vote, so on that basis it seems a shoo-in for Labour again.
Except, it might not quite work out that way.
It looks like Green Party leader Zack Polanski is going to throw his hat in the ring.
Polanski has said:
“I have lived and worked in this community over many years, I know it well and I love it. It represents so many of the things that make London so special. I am so excited by the prospect of representing this place in Parliament.
“It’s a clear fight between Labour and the Green Party.”
This is where it all gets interesting because although the bookies have Labour as the odds-on favourite to WIN, I wouldn’t rule out the Greens.
You see, Starmer won in 2024 with 18,884 votes. An Independent came second with 7,312 votes and the Greens came third on 4,000 votes. So the anti-Labour hard-left vote was in excess of 11,000.
That’s not enough to defeat Labour on its own, but it shows that there is a contest to be had and, if the opposition could coalesce around Polanski, anything is possible.
It seems to me that this could be a battle royale. Labour will not want to start the Burnham era with a seismic loss, but the Greens will see this as their best chance to get Polanski into Parliament, from which he could further build that party.
We should remember that by-elections are different to general elections. Turnout drops and the most motivated people tend to turn out to vote. I suspect that Polanski will throw all Green resources into this one. The Greens do best in cities, university towns and younger constituencies. So this one ticks most of their boxes.
When you look at the demented politics of the Greens, it might mine into a surprisingly big base here. Pro-Gaza, pro-open borders, anti-capitalism — these are actual assets in a place like Holborn and St Pancras!
So this all points to a real battle where a Somali migrant starts as favourite, but Polanski could still have a chance.
This will be a contest between the hard left and the even harder left.
I can’t help but think that whoever wins, London loses!
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