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Sagal Abdi-Wali, leader of Camden Council, described Sir Keir Starmer as 'really inspirational'
A Somalian refugee and council leader has been tipped to become Labour's candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.
Sagal Abdi-Wali, the leader of Camden Council, is said to have her eyes on Sir Keir Starmer's former parliamentary constituency.
The former Prime Minister announced he would leave his seat on Tuesday just before the end of the summer recess.
Ms Abdi-Wali first came to Britain as a child refugee from Somalia in the early 1990s and was previously the chairwoman of Sir Keir's Constituency Labour Party.
She was first elected as a Labour councillor in 2022 and is locally considered an ally of Sir Keir.
After May's local elections, she was named as council leader and vowed to "work day and night to fight for social justice and to deliver meaningful change".
Her naming as leader came as Sir Keir resigned as Prime Minister - she said he deserved more of a chance in the role at the time.
But she noted their differences, telling local paper the Camden New Journal the two Labour politicians were "different people" with "very different backgrounds".
Ms Abdi-Wali has publicly discussed her experience of moving to London to escape civil war and famine.
In 2019, she wrote on the LabourList website: "Camden has been my home since I moved here with my family as a child refugee, fleeing war-torn Somalia.
"This new home is where I was raised and educated; it's where I now work for the council and volunteer for local community groups and charities.
"It is an area steeped in close community values, progressivism and inclusion, all of which have shaped who I am and the socialist principles by which I stand"
The seat is likely to be fiercely contested with several high-profile potential candidates, a Labour source told The Telegraph.
This includes a candidate from the Green Party - Zack Polanski's party came third in the seat in 2024.
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A London Greens source told the paper the party intended to "go in hard", with activists bused in from "all over the country" to aid the campaign.
Hannah Spencer won the Gorton-and-Denton by-election after a highly-publicised contest and handed the party its first by-election victory, ahead of Reform UK's Matt Goodwin.
The Greens won 10 councillors in Camden in May, but was not able to form a majority.
Ms Abdi-Wali has previously talked up her connections to senior Labour figures and said the outgoing Sir Keir "was really inspirational".
In an interview earlier this year with Steve Reed, former Cabinet Minister, she said she was intrigued by politics because of her interests in "the environment, the climate and the change around us politically".
When asked on August 3 if she intended to run in the Holborn and St Pancras seat should Sir Keir resign, she said: "I'm not thinking about that - and I don't want Keir to do that."
Mr Polanski himself, currently a London Assembly member, could run for the seat, having previously said he would "almost certainly" stand in a London by-election.
In a statement on Wednesday, he said the contest would be a "referendum on ending Rip-off Britain" and that he was excited for the "next chapter for myself, for the Greens and for people across the country".
But leaked WhatsApp messages seen by The Times indicate some party members favour the selection of a British Palestinian or co-operation with Andrew Feinstein, a pro-Gaza independent who came second in the 2024 election with 3,000 more votes than the Greens.
Matt Barker, a former Green council candidate in Lewisham, directly asked two people in a "Greens for Palestine" group chat if either of them would consider running in the seat and he would "love to help elect a Green Palestinian".
Mr Feinstein has not confirmed if he would stand but said "progressive forces" in the constituency should unite to deliver an MP who is "the antithesis of everything that Starmer stands for".
