Polanski makes his mark as Labour candidate fails to attend election hustings

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. 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.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 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. It backed Andrew Feinstein, an independent pro-Palestine candidate, in the 2024 general election.