Labour by-election win a victory for diversity, says new MP

New Labour MP Sagal Abdi-Wali said her win in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election was a victory for diversity and warned cohesion should not be “casually undone”.

Ms Abdi-Wali, who won a majority of 3,364 over Green Party leader Zack Polanski in second place, said she hoped that “people like (her)” would feel like they also “belong here”.

The leader of Camden Council, who said when she was selected that the area had welcomed her family as refugees, was the bookies’ favourite ahead of the vote. She succeeds Sir Keir Starmer, who resigned from the seat in September after stepping down as prime minister.

Response to Reform UK criticism

Her comments came after Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf attacked her candidacy as a British-Somalian when she was selected to fight the by-election. Speaking after her victory was announced in Camden Council’s headquarters in north London, she said: “I hope this moment also says something about who gets to belong, for people who look like me, I hope they see themselves reflected in this place and know that their path too belongs here. This is Camden, and this is Britain.”

In early September Mr Yusuf posted 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?” His comments were criticised by Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds as “straightforward racism”.

Victory speech and priorities

Ms Abdi-Wali told Sky News she was “less upset, more just a bit sad than disappointed in that kind of rhetoric” about Mr Yusuf’s comments. “I’ve got quite strong shoulders and thick skin, and that sort of stuff never bothers me,” she said. “But I do think about how impacts on people and people want to get involved in their community and politics, and then find it’s a negative place to be, and just try to like make this campaign about how much this place belongs to them.”

Speaking on stage, she said: “In Camden, our diversity is a strength and our cohesion has been too hard won to take for granted. We cannot allow that work, built over generations, to be casually undone by those who seek to divide us. We have a responsibility to defend what we’ve built, and pass it on. Hope is not naive. Without hope there is nothing to build on, and nothing to build for.”

She added: “That is what this victory represents. Winning not by making people afraid of each other, but by bringing people together.”

Ms Abdi-Wali said she wanted to bring Thames Water into “public ownership”, tackle rough sleeping and create more opportunities for young people. She said: “Homelessness is the issue that first drove me into politics, and no-one should be sleeping on the streets, and no family should be left without security in the home.”

She has become the area’s first female MP since Lena Jeger, who represented the previous seat of Holborn and St Pancras South from 1964-1979.

Full results

Ms Abdi-Wali got 12,292 votes, ahead of Mr Polanski who got 8,928. In third was Conservative Party candidate Ewan Cameron on 1,922, followed by Reform UK’s Peter Newman with 1,612. Turnout was 38.76%, with 27,309 votes being cast, and there were a total of 15 candidates.