A number of social media users have shared the misleading claim that the leader of Camden Council Sagal Abdi-Wali, Labour’s candidate in the upcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election, is a Somali asylum seeker.

Ms Abdi-Wali has spoken about coming to the UK from Somalia as a child refugee in the 1990s, but she is now listed on Companies House as having British nationality. She is not currently seeking asylum.

Posts making the claim have been shared more than a thousand times across X, Facebook and Instagram, with some questioning the eligibility of “non-citizens” or “foreigners” to stand in UK elections.

To stand as a candidate in a UK parliamentary election you need to be at least 18 years old and be either a British citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, or a citizen of a Commonwealth country who either does not require leave to enter or remain in the UK, or has indefinite leave to remain in the UK.

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