Polls open in London local election as Green Party’s Polanski bids for seat days after ‘Zionism is racism’ motion

Polls open in a London local election as UK Green Party leader Zack Polanski bids to become a member of parliament, days after his party passed a motion declaring Zionism to be racism.

Labour has held the Holborn and St Pancras seat continuously since its creation in 1983, with former prime minister Keir Starmer its most recent member of parliament.

Its candidate is Sagal Abdi-Wali, who arrived in Britain as a child refugee in the 1990s after fleeing war in Somalia now and leads the local council.

The Green Party is facing global backlash and internal schisms after passing the “Zionism is Racism” motion at a conference in Brighton on Sunday. Members also voted down an amendment to protect Jewish Green Party members from being reported, pressured or disciplined based on their affiliation with synagogues or Jewish community centers that identify with Zionism.

Earlier this week, British media reported that a proposer of the motion was a close friend of an al-Qaeda terrorist who plotted to carry out a suicide bomb attack on passengers arriving on a flight from Israel to the UK’s Heathrow Airport.

Court documents from 2015 seen by the UK’s The Times revealed that Lubna Speitan offered to testify on Minh Quang Pham’s behalf. Speitan told The Telegraph that she and the convicted terrorist had remained friends after he was jailed.

Agencies contributed to this report.