Labour has won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election for the seat of former prime minister Keir Starmer, putting Green leader Zack Polanski in second place.
Sagal Abdi-Wali, who is the leader of Camden Council, secured 45% of the vote with 12,292 ballots, while Polanski won 8,928. Abdi-Wali had been the bookies’ favourite to win.
The new MP said her win was a victory for diversity and warned cohesion should not be “casually undone”.
“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,” she said after her victory was announced in Camden Council’s headquarters in London.
Abdi-Wali succeeds Starmer, who resigned from the seat in September after stepping down as prime minister.
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 was called.
In September 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?”
Abdi-Wali had told Sky News she was “less upset, more just a bit sad than disappointed in that kind of rhetoric” about Yusuf’s comments.
Reform UK’s candidate Peter Newman finished in fourth place in the by-election with 1,612 votes, just under 6%.
Speaking on stage, Abdi-Wali said: “I want to talk about some of the experiences that I’ve had over the last few weeks. In Camden, our diversity is a strength and our cohesion has been too hard won to take for granted.
“I’ve watched people across Camden work to build communities where difference is not something to fear, but something to value. 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. People need to believe that politics can make their lives better and that their communities can thrive and that tomorrow can be better than today.”
She added: “That is what this victory represents. Winning not by making people afraid of each other, but by bringing people together.”
Polanski has vowed to carry on as Greens leader despite failing to win the seat.
The vote came in a week that has seen Polanski under pressure after Green members backed a motion declaring Zionism is racism.
“Of course I can carry on as leader of the Green Party,” he said when asked about a potential threat to his leadership after the loss.
“Of course, I wanted to win. No-one runs an election to lose,” he said, adding that people on the doorstep had been excited about his plans for rent controls, tackling the climate crisis and nationalising Thames Water.
“Of course, we didn’t get over the line, but the point here is that ultimately, I want to make sure those were the options that people have.
“So many people told me on the doorstep, so they want to give Andy Burnham a chance. Well, he’s got a chance now. Let’s see what he does with it.”
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