An ally of Zack Polanski has accused Labour of taking part in "identity politics" by picking a Black Muslim woman to fight the north London seat vacated by Sir Keir Starmer.
Emny Kadri, who signed the Green Party leader's nomination form so he could contest the Holborn & St Pancras by-election, said Labour had been "slyly strategic" by selecting Sagal Abdi-Wali as their candidate.
In a post on X she said: “Unfortunately, Labour is knee-deep in identity politics and thinks minorities will blindly follow like the sheep they assume we are.
“Black and brown minority women do NOT want [Ms Abdi-Wali] or Labour for that matter.”
In another, she added: "How can [Ms Abdi-Wali] even sleep at night knowing what she's doing!"
Ms Kadri also accused the Labour candidate of supporting “a political party who have done everything in their power to support a genocide against majority Muslims”, the Times reported.
Ms Abdi-Wali came to Britain as a child refugee from Somalia. She has lived in Camden for more than three decades and in May became the council's first black woman leader.
A Green Party spokesperson said: "Kadri was expressing personal views as a Lebanese Muslim woman and long-time Holborn & St Pancras resident. She was not speaking on behalf of the Green Party."
But Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of the Islamophobia monitoring organisation Tell Mama, told The Times: "Anyone suggesting that Muslims should act or think in a specific way, is stereotyping the very community that they seek to advocate for.
“Muslims do not think, act or even respond to national or international issues in the same way."
Before Ms Abdi-Wali’s selection in the former Prime Minister’s constituency, Reform's home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf posted on X that the Labour frontrunner “was born in Somalia”, adding: “Do you understand what’s happening?”
The post prompted criticism from politicians across the political spectrum, including from with his own party.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds described it as “pretty straightforward racism”, while some former Tory cabinet minister Nadine Dorries, who defected to Reform UK last year, branded the remark “nasty”.
Ms Abdi-Wali said she did not feel personally impacted by the post but warned young people could be put off politics over similar comments.
She told The Standard: “Ultimately for me, the only thing I thought was it was quite sad.
“I think it's quite sad. It didn't personally affect me. But I do think about how it might affect young people who might be interested in getting into politics or community work and seeing that kind of negativity and that rhetoric and walking away."
