Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali declined to say if she was a Zionist at a hustings ahead of the October 8 Holborn and St Pancras by-election, but said she supported a two-state solution.
The Board of Deputies-organised hustings took place on Thursday evening, with Abdi-Wali, the leader of Camden Council, appearing alongside four other candidates vying for the seat vacated by former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Asked by a member of the audience whether she was a Zionist, Abdi-Wali did not answer directly, saying instead: “I believe in a two-state solution.”
The Liberal Democrats’ Patrick Stillman, Conservative Ewan Cameron and Reform’s Peter Newman all said they were Zionists, while Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who is also standing in the by-election, described himself as an antizionist.
Abdi-Wali, who is the favourite to win the seat, joined the other candidates, with the exception of Polanski, in saying that Zionism was not racism.
She said she had stood alongside Sir Keir as he tackled antisemitism within Labour. “The Jewish community in Camden is the Camden story,” she said, adding that learning about the Holocaust had a “profound” impact on her.
Addressing the conflict in the Middle East, she acknowledged the “strength of feeling that the conflict in Palestine and Israel has brought to communities here” and said she wanted to “bring a sense of hope to Parliament”.
She pointed both to the Palestinian death toll and the Hamas-led attacks of October 7.
“People have seen what’s been happening over the last three years – the 70,000 Palestinians killed by the Israeli government and the atrocities of Hamas on October 7,” she said.
She added that the borough had also experienced a rise in hate, saying the council had been working to ensure affected communities felt supported.
Abdi-Wali, who fled the Somali civil war at the age of six in 1991 and came to Britain, also said she supported proscribing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, stressing that it was Labour that had taken action against the Iranian regime forces accused of plotting terror attacks in Britain.
“It is absolutely paramount that the government steps up, and that security agencies have their process of looking into that and making sure that we’re protecting all of our communities and our country,” she said.
She described the Revolutionary Guards as a “threat to our security”.
The Board of Deputies hustings came two days after an event organised by the Camden Muslim Network, which Abdi-Wali did not attend.
Her absence has become a point of attack for the Greens, who are seeking to win over voters unhappy with Labour’s handling of the conflict in Gaza and challenge the party’s hold on the seat.
Abdi-Wali dismissed the criticism as political “games” and said she had missed the Muslim Network hustings because of a last-minute obligation.
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