Sagal Abdi-Wali's route to Parliament began in the 1990s, when she arrived in Camden as a seven-year-old fleeing war-torn Somalia with her mother and four brothers. On Friday morning, in her acceptance speech, she said being elected to replace Keir Starmer in the north London constituency was deeply personal.

From Somalia to Gospel Oak

Abdi-Wali is 43 and has lived in the area since the 1990s. Her family eventually settled in Gospel Oak in Camden, which largely falls within the constituency she now represents - the child refugee and the Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras are the same person, from the same streets.

She has said the hardest circumstances never shook the stability her mother provided.

Speaking about what her journey might mean to others, she said she hoped to inspire people who look like her, adding: "This is Camden and this is Britain."

Decades of Camden Local Politics

Her path to Parliament ran through decades of community volunteering and local party work before any Westminster role:

• •She chaired the local constituency party for four years.
• •She was elected to Camden borough council in 2022.
• •In 2024 she became the Labour cabinet member responsible for housing.
• •In May she was elected the first Black female leader of Camden council.

She has also been a governor of several schools and founded football clubs where she still plays regularly. She has described walking past increasing numbers of homeless people in King's Cross in the austerity years of the 2010s as what pushed her into active party politics.

Winning the By-Election

After Starmer's resignation last month, she was selected from a long list of more than 100 to fight the seat for Labour, and went on to see off the challenge from the Green party leader, Zack Polanski.

A close friend involved in her campaign said the Greens had misjudged the operation facing them. "I think the Green party and Zack Polanski underestimated how energetic and big the Labour campaign was going be," the friend said.

The same friend pointed to her years of local work as the deciding advantage. "You only have four weeks. So if those roots are already there, you've got a huge, huge head start."

Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, praised her love of Camden and her passion for politics and public service, saying people value how caring and local she is.

Priorities and Resistance

In her Friday morning acceptance speech she named her priorities: homelessness and housing, public ownership of Thames Water, and increasing access to jobs and apprenticeships for young people.

Her candidacy also drew opposition. Reform's Zia Yusuf posted a tweet about her selection that Labour representatives swiftly called "clearly racist" and that was condemned even by other senior Reform figures.

Her record in Camden housing came under scrutiny too. In November 2024 the housing ombudsman published a report calling the council's service rude, defensive and inadequate. Friends note she had been in the housing cabinet post for only six months at the time and defend her record in the period she was in charge of the brief.

Siddiq rang to check on her after the tweet. Abdi-Wali's reply, in her own words: "No, I feel very resilient about it. It's made me even more determined to get on and do it."

She now takes up the Holborn and St Pancras seat, with homelessness and housing, bringing Thames Water into public ownership and youth access to jobs and apprenticeships set as her priorities.