@thetimes: When Sagal Abdi-Wali arrived in the UK as a child refugee from Somalia at the age of six, she found there was another language that allowed her to make friends before she could speak English.⁠ ⁠ “Football was the language we all shared as children,” said Abdi-Wali, 42, who became the leader of Camden council in May, the first black woman to hold the position.⁠ ⁠ Today, she has beaten the Green leader, Zack Polanski, to become MP for Holborn & St Pancras. The seat was vacated by her “friend” (but Arsenal-supporting football rival) Sir Keir Starmer.⁠ ⁠ What Abdi-Wali had over Polanski is an almost unbroken connection to the borough — where 45% of constituents are foreign-born and 16% are Muslim — which welcomed her refugee family after they fled the Somali civil war in the early 1990s. #labour #greenparty #zackpolanski #camden #ukpolitics #somalia

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Friday 09 October 2026 09:35:00 GMT