Palestinian-British candidate Yousef Qandeel is standing in the local elections for Greenford Broadway with Ealing Community Independents after being pushed out by Labour. In his local campaign, he is determined to fight for cleaner streets and improve safety in his community.
Alongside this principled commitment, Qandeel carries the keys to the home his family had stolen from them in 1955 by the settler colonialist project of Zionist Israel.
His candidacy powerfully brings together two poignant realities: he advocates for the embattled community he lives in today, while continuing to hold onto the hope of reclaiming what his family lost decades ago. In doing so, Qandeel’s experience underscores how ordinary people often bear the consequences of political decisions beyond their control, even as he steps forward to defend and support his community here in the UK.
Secondly, his experience further underscores how Labour has not been a friend of the left for many years. This follows his discovery that the Labour Party blocked his earlier attempt in early 2020 to stand for selection during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership because, as one councillor said:
You’re Palestinian. You’re left-wing.
Yousef Qandeel holds the keys to his home in a village that no longer exists.
He is standing for election in Greenford Broadway ward on Thursday 7 May.
This is his story — and Ealing’s.https://t.co/U5UfBYcXfS
— David Marsden (@DvdMrsdn) May 4, 2026
From Labour to independent representation
Qandeel’s candidacy offers a compelling example of perseverance, showing how people can sustain hope and continue to act even in the face of great loss and displacement. His decision to stand for councillor and challenge systems that have continually failed Palestinians reflects a willingness to resist oppression and engage directly with power. Moreover, his courage will undoubtedly encourage broader participation and solidarity within his community and beyond.
A civil engineer and environmental scientist, Qandeel has called Ealing home for over 25 years. His family home, or at least what should have been his home if international law applied without fear or favour, was in al-Dawayima in Palestine. Still carrying three iron keys on a ring, weathered by the years and distance travelled, those keys no longer belong to a home as Israel colonised his parents’ home in 1955.
Nevertheless, like the cactuses Palestinians have long used to mark the boundaries of their homes, his resistance to injustice endures. By standing for election, Qandeel challenges local power structures and speaks up for a community often asked to accept poorer services and less value for money from their council.
Needless to say, Qandeel’s story is a painful one. According to Southall Stories, Qandeel is only alive today due to his father not being in their Palestinian village at the time that Israeli Battalion 89 of the Israeli 8th Armoured Brigade trapped and brutally murdered Palestinians, with the Zionist terrorist forces invading from multiple directions. Whilst his father picked olives for his community, his community was slaughtered.
UN: “Brutal and unprovoked attack” during a truce
Israel murdered his sister and two aunts. In typical Zionist brutality, no one was safe from their bullets, with 35 families fleeing to safety in caves. However, they were hunted down, rounded up, and shot.
Adding to the horror of this massacre, children were brutally murdered at the hands of Zionist terrorists by “breaking their heads with sticks”.
In a sworn testimony to the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, the UN reported at the time:
The following day, the Mukhtar met with the villagers and agreed to return to the village that night to find out the fate of those that had stayed behind. He reports that in the Mosque there were the bodies of some sixty persons, most of them were men of advanced age who had taken shelter in the Mosque. His father was among them. He saw a large number of bodies in the streets, bodies of men, women and children. He then went to the Cave of Iraq El Zagh. He found at the mouth of the cave the bodies of eighty-five persons, again men, women and children.
The Mukhtar then carried out a census of the inhabitants of the village and found that a total of 455 persons was missing of whom 280 were men and the rest women and children.
There were other casualties among the refugees, the number of which the Mukhtar was unable to determine,
The Mukhtar explicitly states that the village had not been called upon to surrender and that the Jewish troops had not met with any resistance.
It need hardly be mentioned that this brutal and unprovoked attack occurred during the truce.
This will undoubtedly result in a sense of deja-vu for many pro-Palestinian advocates, as they recognise how Zionist Israel has only continued this lawlessness, barbarism, and injustice since its inception to this very day. Again, Qandeel’s perseverance reflects his refusal to accept continued oppression and mass murder, despite the hostile environment he and other Muslims endure in British society.
Inspiring resistance to fascism in the UK
Qandeel’s story is a powerful one. Not only does it highlight how the Labour Party and its internal decision makers such as Morgan McSweeney have long been the British arm of the Zionist state of Israel, made clear by their refusal to back him due to being of Palestinian descent and left-wing political views. This is extremely likely to be due to the huge investment through Ealing council’s pension fund investment of almost £113m in companies complicit in the genocide. This includes Maersk, Palantir and Elbit Systems.
Southall Stories reported:
So this is the situation in Ealing in May 2026.
- A council leader who has held, and given up, a seat at the table where pension investment decisions affecting his residents’ retirement savings are made.
- A pension fund of more than £112 million invested in companies flagged for their role in what the International Court of Justice has found to involve a plausible risk of genocide.
- A Pension Fund Panel that has refused, in the face of formal petitions and public protest, to so much as place the question on its agenda.
- A Labour party that, on Yousef’s account, rejected him as a candidate for being “Palestinian and left-wing”.
But, going further, Qandeel reinforces the understanding that resistance only breeds under injustice and oppression. This can surely provide a ray of hope for the continued resistance to Zionist Israel in the UK amongst British citizens.
Moreover, it also serves as a “middle finger” being raised to the British establishment and Keir Starmer. After all, our government has made it abundantly clear that it seeks to balance the books by taking from those with the least power in society. Subsequently, this has left people struggling to feed their families, heat their homes and keep a roof over their heads. All the while, the government continues to bend over backwards for murderous and nefarious interests. Palestinians rank among the most brutally oppressed peoples, and his decision to stand demonstrates that we must not give in to oppressors.
Therefore, we hope the community in Greenford Broadway gets behind Yousef Qandeel. His leadership will help to empower our collective fight against the sinister, oppressive forces working against families and minoritised groups. In this hostile climate, it is imperative that we fight for justice, equality and freedom in British society.
A fight he has proven he will courageously maintain, regardless of how long it might take to achieve.
Featured image via Southall Stories
From Canary via This RSS Feed.