A Somali British candidate for Parliament 'congratulated' under the name of a curry dish and a Gulf city.
Labour selected Camden council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali, who is Somali British, as its candidate for the October 8 Holborn and St Pancras by-election on September 9. The same day, KTHopkins greeted the selection on X with a post that replaced the candidate's name with the name of an Indian curry dish, stretched out for comic effect, and the name of a Gulf city, Abu Dhabi, under the word "Congratulations". Nothing in it concerns her politics or her record, and her actual name appears nowhere. The post drew 124,616 views. Through the week, other accounts told Muslim and African politicians to leave, with ACTBrigitte writing that Mamdani "belongs back in Uganda".
Swapping a British candidate's name for a curry and a foreign city tells the reader she is from somewhere else and belongs somewhere else, whatever her passport says. The joke works only if her ethnicity is the point, and it says the same to every British person of Somali or South Asian background who reads it. Her name is the thing removed, and a name is where a person's standing begins.
Abu Dhabi settles it. Adding a Gulf city to the dish's name puts her somewhere else on the map as well as on the menu, and there is nothing about her politics anywhere in the post. A fair-minded reader should take this as mockery of a parliamentary candidate for being Somali, with the congratulations as cover.
The receipts
Every quote, checked against its source.
KTHopkins (X)
"Congratulations Saag Alooooo Abu Dhabi"
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