Labour’s candidate for Holborn and St Pancras laughs and shakes her head with unusual vigour when asked if she would like to follow in the footsteps of the last member of parliament for the constituency, Keir Starmer. It is plastered all over her campaigning material and brought up by every door-knocking Labour activist – every mention an implicit comparison between herself and her high-profile opponent Zack Polanski. All I want to be is someone who will be visible and local and committed every single day.” Labour HQ is in no doubt of the stakes in this high-profile byelection, triggered after the former prime minister was unceremoniously dumped by his own MPs and quit the seat to concentrate on international affairs.
If the party wins here, Andy Burnham can argue that he saw off Reform in Makerfield and can kibosh the Greens in the capital. Spinners will say his appeal is national and point to victory in this part of north London as proof that his homespun northern charm works south of the Watford Gap. If he loses, his relatively lengthy honeymoon period in Westminster is over.
The constituency is young, popular with students, and diverse. About 45% of constituents were born overseas and 48% are aged between 18 and 34, compared with the UK average of 28%. The borough was once among the most ironclad of Labour strongholds but the party has lost support here since Starmer first won in 2015, its majority cut in half from 2019 to the 2024 general election.
The fact Abdi-Wali did not attend a Camden Muslim Network hustings on Tuesday has been leapt on by Green activists. Abdi-Wali insists she is not focused on what any other candidate is saying, and she won’t be drawn on the Greens ground game or digital air war. Her nonattendance at the hustings was due to a last-minute invitation and a prior obligation, she says.
She won’t say if she thinks the Labour government needs to go further on Gaza, only that the foreign secretary’s decision to call Israel’s occupation of the West Bank unlawful and announce sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements was welcome. She moved to Gospel Oak when she was seven, and her father later joined the family. He stood as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats in the 2010 local elections, but it is her mother, a community activist, who provided her inspiration, says Abdi-Wali.
So why did she not remain a community organiser, or lead on local issues as the leader of Camden council, a position she took up only in May? It was seeing a rise in homelessness around King’s Cross that pushed her to join the Labour party in 2015. But Abdi-Wali is wary of rent controls, saying they can help those already in housing but reduce the availability of stock for others.
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