Sagal Abdi-Wali getting ready for the congratulatory photo shoot inside St Pancras Church [Martin Plaut]

THE most predictable candidate selection result of recent times was confirmed last night (Wednesday) when Labour members selected Sagal Abdi-Wali to stand in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.

She was a comfortable winner after hustings and a vote inside the locked doors of St Pancras Church in Euston. Local politics can throw up surprises, but it would have been a thunderous shock if any other outcome had been reached.

Camden’s council leader, albeit for only three months, had denied she was the “frontrunner” no matter how many times the label was attached to her, but nevertheless sge seemed destined to become the candidate from the moment Sir Keir Starmer said he was resigning from the House of Commons last week.

In a perverse way, she may be thankful for the media coverage saying as much, as the raising of her profile led to Reform’s Zia Yusuf asking his social media followers “do you understand what’s happening?” after telling them she had been born in Somalia.

Nobody would wish for comments of this nature, described as “straightforward racism” by Labour’s business secretary Jonathan Reynolds during an appearance on Sky News.

But the post only cemented Cllr Abdi-Wali’s position as the likely winner of the selection contest, with supporters saying that getting her elected would be the perfect response to Mr Yusuf’s comments. She mentioned the attacks from Reform during her speech to members at the selection meeting, and it will be used by Labour on the campaign trail as a reason to support her in the polling booths.

Labour members waiting to get into the meeting

There was a long queue to get into the church, although it looked half as long as the line which waited for the selection meeting which saw Sir Keir Starmer picked as Frank Dobson’s successor in Holborn and St Pancras more than a decade ago. The journalists Polly Toynbee and Sir Trevor Phillips, both party members, were among those heading in, as well as the familiar face of former council leader Georgia Gould, the MP for Maida Vale and Queen’s Park, and her mother, the publishing titan Baroness Gail Rebuck.

Inside, the two other shortlisted applicants, Councillor Nasrine Djemai and Councillor Camron Aref-Adib, went first to speak. Cllr Djemai told how HS2 had caused havoc in her neighbourhood and caused her family home to be demolished. Cllr Aref-Adib delivered a no-notes speech and got the audience laughing with some jokes before outlining his campaigning skills; he had held onto his council seat in Highgate back in May amid predictions he would probably lose it to the Greens.

Both might consider the second prize of succeeding Cllr Abdi-Wali as the next Camden Council leader, if she goes on to win the by-election – although there is a long way to go before that possibility.

Cllr Abdi-Wali and Cllr Djemai’s different leaflets given to people coming into the church

Even those who didn’t vote for Cllr Abdi-Wali said she had performed well at the lectern, surprising some who feel she has room to develop as a speech-maker.

But there were signs of campaign nerves once the result was known: Cllr Abdi-Wali declined the opportunity to speak to the New Journal outside the church, while media outlets elsewhere faithfully shared a generic statement about how happy she was to have been selected.

It was a contrasting approach to when Mr Starmer was selected in 2014; then the New Journal was invited into the church after the vote to talk to him and take photographs, but the tightening of press control has led to a preference for emailed statements, which often do not sound like anybody has ever actually said the words that are being quoted.

The lack of suspense and surprise last night (Wednesday) might have been best illustrated by the immediate emergence of bagfuls of “Vote Sagal” leaflets after the meeting, printed and ready to go through letterboxes.

The selection process is complete and a list of internal friction points about how it was run, many of them explained in today’s print edition of the New Journal, will now likely fade.

By the weekend, perhaps nobody will remember how the party was able to process nearly 100 applications in just a couple of days or care about why certain figures didn’t make the final shortlist, and the wondering about who might have had advance warning that Mr Starmer was about to trigger a by-election will dissipate.

Two of those with reason to think they might have been on the shortlist gamely made an appearance at the meeting: Awale Olad and Rishi Madlani. The latter pushed hard to reach the hustings stage and supporters were incensed that he was not at least allowed the chance to address members.

Sagal Abdi-Wali delivers her speech to the hustings [Martin Plaut]

Mr Madlani was conversely described as the strongest challenger to Cllr Abdi-Wali but also potentially “Zack Polanski’s dream candidate” for the by-election, as members gossiped about the challenges ahead.

Mr Polanski, the Greens’ national leader, is due to find out today (Thursday) whether he will definitely be his party’s candidate in Holborn and St Pancras after new councillor Hamza Chowdhury also applied for the task.

Cllr Abdi-Wali’s story as a child refugee from Somalia to leading the council has been held up as proof of the “integration” which the Reform party and others say doesn’t work, and Mr Yusuf has now been accused of not liking refugees whatever they achieve in the UK.

“We came to this country as refugees from Somalia when I was a kid,” Cllr Abdi-Wali said in an interview with the New Journal over the summer, having become the first black leader of Camden Council.

“It was only when I was old enough to look back and think about it in a philosophical way: my mum was always looking after us and made our lives nice, serene… whether we were in a refugee camp or temporary housing.

“I’m happy to share my story because my story is why I’m here now. I know it means something being the first of something, but it’s more the number of people who have come up to me since, staff at the council, people in the community, and the emotional way they have responded to it.”