Polanski makes his mark as Labour candidate fails to attend election hustings
On Tuesday evening, a five-minute walk from King's Cross train station, Green Party leader Zack Polanski strode into an art gallery to speak at a campaign hustings.
But his main rival in the UK parliamentary by-election for Holborn and St Pancras, the Labour Party candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali, didn't turn up.
"I'm not surprised," one former Labour councillor grumbled. He said he knew Abdi-Wali personally. His wife alleged that "she just does whatever the bosses tell her. She can't do policy". Labour's candidate was scared of being asked tough questions, both of them believed.
Mahad, a local resident and pro-Palestine campaigner of Somali heritage, also said he wasn't surprised that Abdi-Wali skipped the hustings, suggesting she might want to avoid scrutiny of her views on Israel and Palestine.
The hustings was arranged by the Camden Muslim Network, which was founded in 2024. Organisers told Middle East Eye that the Labour team said Abdi-Wali couldn't attend because of another commitment.
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But there was widespread discontent in the gallery. Hustings, conventionally, are supposed to allow candidates to pitch themselves to local residents but also to allow residents to press and scrutinise them.
A Green Party source said the hustings "were an opportunity to discuss the issues that matter to voters, from Gaza and conflicts in the Middle East to local issues of concern".
"You’d have thought Labour would at least have had the courtesy and respect to explain its position on these issues to voters," they added.
MEE contacted Abdi-Wali to ask why she had not attended but did not receive a reply.
'You'd have thought Labour would at least have had the courtesy and respect to explain its position'
- Green Party source
The Camden Muslim Network is openly pro-Palestine. It backed Andrew Feinstein, an independent pro-Palestine candidate, in the 2024 general election.
Feinstein, a former Afican National Congress (ANC) MP in South Africa, received more than 7,000 votes, slashing the majority previously enjoyed by Keir Starmer, who nonetheless retained the seat and became prime minister.
It was Starmer's resignation as an MP - shortly after he was forced out of Downing Street - that triggered this by-election in the London seat.
This seat, which contains much of the London borough of Camden, has been staunchly Labour for decades. Could that now change?
High stakes and everything to play for
Both Labour and the Green Party are taking this by-election very seriously.
In February, in Greater Manchester's Gorton and Denton, the Greens proved they could win in a seat where they had previously had little presence.
Then Andy Burnham won the by-election in Makerfield, another seat in northwest England, sending him to Westminster and triggering Starmer's resignation.
Now this contest in Holborn and St Pancras is ramping up. For Labour, it is a temperature check - a test of whether the party is able to win back left-wing voters it lost under Starmer.
If the party wins the seat, Labour insiders say, Burnham could be emboldened to call a snap election.
Ministers have been out campaigning. Abdi-Wali, the candidate, is well known in the area as the leader of Camden council.
Meanwhile, the Green Party faces enormous questions about its future.
The left-wing party surged in the polls last year after Polanski was elected leader, gained further momentum and credibility with the Gorton and Denton victory and then took more votes from Labour in the May local elections than Reform did.
Polanski is at least partially responsible for Starmer's downfall and Burnham's premiership.
But the Greens have their work cut out for them with a much more popular prime minister who has taken steps to address key grievances Labour voters who moved to the Greens had under Starmer.
Greens quietly optimistic
The Green Party is taking a considerable risk in this contest. The Labour government's recent comprehensive sanctions on Israeli settlements have drawn praise from the left and Palestinian solidarity groups.
If Polanski, who sits on the London Assembly but has never been an MP, fails to beat the Labour candidate, it will strike a deadly blow to the his party's image and momentum.
But if the 43-year-old wins, it will prove the Greens still have significant support and potential to grow.
It will send Labour the message that this volatile period isn't over and that even their London seats are not safe.
Moreover, with Polanski in parliament, the Greens' ability to act as a powerful bloc helping to shape day-to-day political discourse will be significantly boosted.
There is a great deal at stake. A senior Green source told MEE they are quietly optimistic. The party has mustered an impressive ground campaign and is receiving positive responses on the doorstep.
Holborn and St Pancras is a diverse constituency, with both affluent and working-class areas. It has around 110,000 residents and is disproportionately young (there is a large student population) and ethnically diverse - around 10 percent are of Bangladeshi origin.
There is also a sizeable Somali-origin population and around one in five voters are Muslim. This sort of diversity in different areas across the country has been traditionally advantageous for Labour, but more recently has produced significant support for the Greens.
For local resident Mahad, the change in prime minister has led to "better rhetoric", but hasn't convinced him to vote Labour.
"Labour locally have been pretty bad," Mahad said. "They've been terrible on housing, terrible on homelessness."
He described Polanski as "charismatic" and "pro-Palestine".
'Too scared to be put on the spot'
Diana Foster is the founding director of the People's Museum in Somers Town, near King's Cross, which aims to preserve the area's working class heritage.
She said she suspected the Labour candidate was "too scared to be put on the spot". Her friend, a woman named Esther, agreed.
"The main issue is housing," said Esther, who thinks the Green Party is more in touch with pressing local concerns.
But the Greens are also campaigning heavily on foreign policy. "Gaza is a big issue," Foster said.
'Labour locally have been pretty bad. They've been terrible on housing, terrible on homelessness'
- Mahad, local resident
Both were lifelong Labour voters, but seriously disenchanted. They agreed that the change in prime minister wouldn't be enough to make them vote Labour, because the party locally hadn't changed.
But what did Foster think of Polanski? "He's a media personality. Sagal is locally rooted, Zack has been helicoptered in."
Abdi-Wali's own story is highly unusual: she came to the UK as a child refugee from Somalia and has been hugely successful in local politics and community work.
She wears a headscarf and was attacked by Reform UK politician Zia Yusuf on social media earlier this month, for which Labour MPs accused him of racism.
"The frontrunner being foisted on the people of Holborn by Labour... was born in Somalia," Yusuf declared in a post on X. "Do you understand what's happening?"
Speaking to the New Statesman this week, Abdi-Wali promised: "I will never be just another Labour backbencher... I will be someone who’s a local, committed, dedicated public servant, which I don’t think any of the other people on the ballot can be."
'He's doing something different'
But Abdi-Wali is known to have been a Starmer ally and is unpopular among local pro-Palestine activists because Camden council has resisted calls to divest from companies allegedly complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide.
One man of Bangladeshi origin told MEE that while local Bangladeshis have traditionally supported Labour, there was a strong chance many would turn to the Greens, in no small part because of Labour's record on Gaza.
'It's important that we elect MPs in Parliament who will not warmonger, but who speak for peace'
- Zack Polanski, Green Party leader
Meanwhile, Polanski has been posting campaign videos in foreign languages - Urdu, French and Bangla.
"I think the videos are copying the New York mayor," Mahad speculated, referring to Zohran Mamdani, who is renowned for his videos speaking foreign languages in an impeccable accent.
Polanski has been mocked online for his pronunciation and attacked by political opponents for using foreign languages, particularly since very few Camden residents speak Urdu as their main language.
But some people MEE spoke to were sympathetic and even impressed by the Green leader's efforts.
"It's a really good idea" to put out the videos, said a former Labour councillor. "It's excellent. He's doing something different."
There were about 60 people at the hustings - a mixture of age groups and ethnicities. A handful of people were visibly Muslim.
In the end, apart from Polanski, the only other candidate to show up was Patrick Stillman of the Liberal Democrats, who have councillors in affluent areas in the north of the seat. He and Polanski were friendly with each other the entire time, with their criticisms focused on Labour.
Both candidates received regular rounds of applause for their answers.
The event was notable for the absences: organisers told MEE they had invited the Conservative and Reform candidates, as well as a representative from George Galloway's Workers Party.
Galloway, who is reportedly in South Africa, is running as his own party's candidate in Holborn and St Pancras.
Generally, voters at the hustings didn't mention Galloway, seeing the by-election as a two-way contest between Labour and the Greens.
But one person expressed concern that a small number of "elderly members" of the Muslim community could vote for Galloway, which might damage the Greens.
Local, national and foreign policy issues
Much of the actual hustings focused on local issues, including parking places and housing.
Polanski seemed well-versed on local details but generally linked local issues to broader, national ones like inequality, calling on the government "to tax multi-millionaires and billionaires a small amount to make sure that we're putting that money into our communities".
'Voices like mine or anti-war voices get ridiculed, or the media try and present us as if we're some sort of threat'
- Zack Polanski
Audience members asked about foreign policy. One man declared that "as a Jewish anti-Zionist, I dissociate myself completely with the actions of the state of Israel and with the state of Israel itself". He asked whether Israel as a whole should be sanctioned.
Stillman, the Liberal Democrat candidate, said that sanctions "shouldn't be used as a sort of hammer and nail approach, and should be a screw which you're able to turn, because that's what enables diplomatic dialogue to keep going."
Polanski struck a different tone by condemning the Labour government as "deeply cynical" for continuing to "sell arms to Israel".
He argued that "we need a full boycott divestment sanctions on goods and not just some services, but all services until Israel stops killing innocent people and stops the genocide".
Another person asked whether Iran should have a nuclear weapon, after which a disgruntled audience member exclaimed: "Can we have some local issues?"
Polanski responded that no countries should have nuclear weapons. But he also addressed the issue of whether candidates should speak about foreign policy, arguing that "it's important that we elect MPs in parliament who will not warmonger, but who speak for peace and democracy and diplomacy".
"And what we see over and over again is voices like mine or anti-war voices get ridiculed, or the media try and present us as if we're some sort of threat or danger," he said.
"I think the threat or the danger are MPs who take money off the arms trade companies and then in parliament whip up things into storms as opposed to talking about peace and diplomacy, which is ultimately what we need to be pushing for."
Both candidates spoke fluently and coherently. But the Labour candidate's absence was glaring.
It is possible that Labour believes it has a strong chance of winning and its priority is to avoid any scandals or unfortunate viral videos that could result from events like this one, and this explains its approach.
It is, after all, Labour's seat to lose. And the Greens are putting up a serious fight. But will it be possible for Labour to continue avoiding confrontation?
The actual vote is on 8 October. In between it lies both the Labour and Green conferences. A great amount could still change.
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