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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Big Trouble in High Holborn

The Reform UK conference in Birmingham, TUC in Brighton and the Big Three party conferences that follow – yes the silly season is over for another year. But while the media caravan traipses around the country monitoring the rites and rituals of the mainstream parties it will return, as always, to London to report on the epic struggle taking place in the parliamentary constituency of Holborn & St Pancras – made vacant by the long-overdue and much welcomed departure of Sir Keir Starmer.

The new Labour government plainly hopes that the ‘Burnham bounce’ will give them a resounding victory in the central London poll. We’ll know soon enough. The vote takes place on Thursday 8th October.

The front-runner is Sagal Abdi-Wali, a former Somali child refugee who came to London in the 1990s, who is the leader of the Labour group on Camden council that covers much of the constituency. Though little-known outside the locality she is well-placed in what has, until now, been regarded as a safe Labour seat. She’s a protégé of the former prime minister and can count on the full support of Starmer’s faction, which still runs the constituency Labour party.

But although Abdi-Wali is odds-on to win she’s facing a fierce challenge from the Greens, who are fielding their flamboyant leader, Zack Polanski. He has the support of the independent Camden People’s Alliance, a Corbynista front led by Andrew Feinstein who came second when he stood against Starmer in the 2024 general election.

Polanski, who likes to pose as a left social-democrat, will certainly run on a Corbynista-style platform with a particular focus on the genocide in Gaza – a topic Ms Abdi-Wali has still to address. But he’s been undermined by George Galloway, who’s thrown his hat into the ring vowing to return to our shores to scupper Polanski’s bid for glory.

The maverick former MP who now leads the Workers’ Party of Britain (WPB) says Green “policies on drugs, abortion, euthanasia, sexuality, crime/punishment, illegal immigration, energy, the economy, Israel/Palestine, Ukraine, NATO, the EU are all profoundly alien to the mass of the British public”. That’s clearly debatable.

Galloway’s clearly also going to make Green support for British imperialism’s role in NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine a key plank in his campaign. But targeting the Greens rather than Labour has, arguably, made a Labour victory inevitable. It has certainly caused ructions in the WPB. His deputy, Chris Williamson, has resigned in protest – others may soon follow.

There are, of course, the also-rans. The Faragists and the Liberal-Democrats as well as the perennial champions of lost causes standing for their 15 minutes of fame. Beyond the fringe protesters will doubtless look to the Loonies, who are running a man wearing a baked-beans balaclava called Barmy Brunch – a school-teacher also known as Phin Adams. Sadly Count Binface will not be joining us on this occasion…