Some Camden residents will head back to the polls on July 9 after a Green Party councillor was unable to take their seat due to a rule breach
17:13, 15 Jun 2026Updated 17:19, 15 Jun 2026
The full slate of candidates for an upcoming by-election in Camden has been confirmed.
Regent’s Park residents will return to the polls on July 9, 2026, to decide who will represent them following the resignation of the Green Party’s Mohammed Abu Naser in May.
Mr Naser was elected as a ward councillor at the recent local elections with 1,054 votes, but he was unable to take his seat because he was ineligible to stand in the first place. As a teacher at one of Camden’s maintained schools, Naser is a council employee and is prohibited from becoming a councillor under Section 80 of the Local Government Act 1972.
The Green Party had failed to realise that this breached the rules before nominating him as their official candidate. His resignation was confirmed days following the election results.
Mr Naser joined seven other victorious Green candidates in London who did not take up their seats and have triggered by-elections as a result, including in Hackney, Ealing, Lambeth and Lewisham. Camden Council has confirmed the upcoming poll will cost £30,000.
Excluding Mr Naser, the Greens gained nine new councillors in May’s elections. Together with one elected member from the Camden People’s Alliance, the party has now supplanted the Lib Dems as the main council opposition group.
Regent’s Park was a clean sweep for the Greens, who unseated three sitting Labour members: Cabinet Member Nadia Shah, Planning Committee chief Heather Johnson and former Council Leader Nasim Ali, none of whom are fighting to regain their seats in July.
On Monday, June 15, Camden Council confirmed the six candidates standing for election at the upcoming poll. These include hopefuls from the Conservatives, the Greens, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, as well as one independent.
The upcoming poll marks the second attempt for several candidates to win a council seat since May. Reform’s Beverley Janet Martin and the Conservatives’ Vladimir Chorniy, a risk analyst and former scientist, previously ran in Regent’s Park and finished in 9th and 11th place respectively when contesting the three seats. This time only one seat is up for grabs.
Architect and retrofit expert Alice Brown, who will contest the Regent’s Park seat this time round, was the Green Party’s nominee for the target seat of Highgate, but she came in fourth with 1,612 votes. The Liberal Democrat candidate, Henry Potts, also stood in Highgate but finished in 11th place with 250 votes.
Labour candidate Nanouche Umeadi is hoping to reclaim her place in the council chamber after being defeated in her Kilburn ward seat in May.
Regent’s Park by-election candidates
- Vladimir Chorniy – Conservative and Unionist Party
- Alice Brown – Green Party
- Nanouche Umeadi – Labour Party
- Henry Potts – Liberal Democrats
- Mohammad Junayd Khan – Independent
- Beverley Janet Martin – Reform UK
The deadline to register to vote in the Regent’s Park by-election is 11:59pm on Tuesday, June 23. Applications can be made online.
Any postal vote applications must reach the Electoral Registration Officer by 5pm on Wednesday, June 24. Applications to vote by proxy or for a Voter Authority Certificate (VAC) or Anonymous Elector’s Document valid for the election must be received by 5pm on Wednesday, July 1.
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