Former UK prime minister Keir Starmer's decision to quit as an MP has left Labour under threat of losing a stronghold in London to the Green Party as tensions mount on the campaign trail.
Police warned of escalating tensions between canvassers and protesters over the weekend in the nominally safe Labour seat of Holborn and St Pancras, where a by-election will be held on October 8.
Labour and Green campaigners were gathered outside the Al Rahman Mosque in a housing estate in the Camden area on Friday.
But as the Labour campaigners prepared to walk into the estate, they were heckled by a resident wearing a Palestine football T-shirt. “Just to let you know, this whole estate is voting Green,” the resident, who declined to be named, said.
When asked why, he told The National it was due to the Labour party’s policies on the Israel-Gaza conflict. “Genocide. Andy Burnham refuses to say call what happened in Gaza is a genocide,” he said.
The Labour candidate to replace Mr Starmer is being challenged at this by-election by Zack Polanski, the leader of the left-wing Green Party who has put the Palestinian issue at the heart of his campaign.
Labour’s candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali is currently leader of the Camden council and grew up in the borough after coming to the UK as a refugee from Somalia. There is a large Somali community in the area who are hopeful she could become the first British-Somali MP.
Yet some of the campaigning has led to tensions. On Friday, police warned of potential issues during canvassing without naming a specific party.
“In recent weekends officers have made arrests after conflict between those canvassing and protesters, with reports of intimidating and obstructive conduct,” said Dept Asst Commissioner James Harman. “This is wholly unacceptable. In a democracy political parties need to be given space to lawfully canvass and campaign,” he said.
The Green Party makes no secret of its attempts to galvanise Muslim voters on the Palestinian issue. Around 16 per cent of Camden residents identify as Muslims. There is a large Bengali community as well as an Arabic-speaking one.
The Green leaflet handed out at the mosque includes an endorsement from the Muslim Vote, a campaign group that emerged in the 2024 general election to challenge Labour by proposing alternative candidates.
It also includes slogans in Bengali and Somali – a tactic which has been criticised by other parties.
The party's conference last weekend was overshadowed by a vote on the motion "Zionism is racism", which also called for Israel to be replaced by a Palestinian state. The motion passed on Sunday by 1,022 votes to 813 - creating a Green party policy that rejects a two state solution and is directly at odds with the policies of successive British and other European government.
Mr Polanski missed the vote, and all 5 Green party MPs sought to distance themselves from the results. "We know there is no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people," they wrote in a joint statement," they wrote.
The resolution drew widespread criticism, with the Board of Deputies, the largest organisation representing British Jews describing it as an "attack on the Jewish community". "It is an antisemitic platform, based on a grossly offensive distortion and erasure of Jewish experience and identity," they said on Sunday.
Around Camden and neighbouring Kentish Town, residents told of the Mr Polanski’s regular presence on the streets and at local businesses.
Fatima Al Jumaa, who runs Paradise restaurant serving Somali food, said she taken her Labour campaign posters down from the window because they were bad for business.
“Some people stopped coming when they saw the posters. I’m a businesswoman, not a politician, so I took them down,” she said. She continues to support Labour and in particular Ms Abdi-Wali.
Mr Polanski had been to her restaurant several times and had spoken to patrons, flanked by local campaigners who are Somali speakers, she said.
Those campaigners do most of the talking, Ms Al Jumaa said. “They come and order food and sit down. Then they start asking people at the other tables who they will vote for. He [Mr Polanski] doesn’t talk much, just 'hello' and shakes hands,” she said.
Ms Al Jumaa said the Green campaigners talked mainly about the Palestinian issue, and Labour’s track record in the area. She said Ms Abdi-Wali should engage the Somali community more if she wants to challenge the Greens.
“My restaurant is a centre for the Somali community here. She should come more and talk to people,” she said.
Some residents were cautious about the potential divisions emerging from the election.
Local barber Eddy said Mr Polanski had been to his shop for haircuts. “We don’t know much about the gentleman. Good luck to him, and to anyone who wins,” he said.
His main concern was for the communities in the area to continue getting along. “Kentish Town has many nationalities. Everyone is living together and everyone is happy. We have to look after each other,” he said.
Ms Abdi-Wali’s campaign has focused on local issues, including recent flooding in Kentish Town which affected businesses including Ms Jamaa’s. In her campaign video filmed in the area, Ms Abdi-Wali said she would put provider Thames Water “on notice” and backed Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s suggestion that the provider should be nationalised.
“For too long, residents and businesses have suffered an appalling service, while we’ve seen our bills going up and up and up,” she said.
She said in her role as council leader she had deployed teams to join clean-up operations. “I’m demanding Thames Water compensates local businesses and that’s why I back public ownership of Thames Water to ensure that money we pay on our bills goes on upgrading the infrastructure and not making shareholders richer,” she said.
The candidates' positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict are being sharply scrutinised.
Ms Abdi-Wali has said she supports a two-state solution, while Mr Polanski, who is Jewish, describes himself as an anti-Zionist.
The Camden Muslim Network, which was established in 2024 by Mohammad Chowdhury, a local representative of the Muslim Vote campaign, organised a hustings last month that was attended by Mr Polanski but not Ms Abdi-Wali. Ms Abdi-Wali had previously said she could not attend because of a prior engagement.
Though the Camden Muslim Network states it is non-partisan, it backed left-wing independent candidate Andrew Feinstein against Mr Starmer at the 2024 general election.
Some local voters hope a Green MP will bring a fresh approach. Barber Che Issa put a Green Party poster in his shop window after Mr Polanski and other campaigners visited him.
“I find then very understanding of the community. They shared their ideas and said they would help the community,” he said.
