Revision as of 21:15, 7 May 2018

Indians in British politics

2015: Indian-origin voters

The Times of India

May 26 2015

Kounteya Sinha

Up to a million ethnic minority votes helped put David Cameron back into Downing Street.

Indian-origin voters played kingmaker in UK polls: Survey

In what was a historic swing never seen before in a British parliamentary election, the country's ethnic minority communities including the enormous Indian population played the king maker that saw Cameron become PM for the second time with a clear majorit.

The Conservatives won a majority as a result of one million ethnic minority votes, research by British Future think tank has found.Nearly 6,15,000 Indian-origin voters were expected to vote in the May 7 elections 2015. It found much higher support for the Conservatives among Asian voters this year with 50% in favour of Cameron's party and only 38% supporting Labour. Cameron's visits to Indian temples and promises of giving the country its first PM of Asian origin in the near future reaped rich results. The first post-election analysis reveals that 1 in every 3 of ethnic minority voters supported the Conservatives in 2015, a stronger result than ever before for the party which has historically struggled to appeal to non-white voters.

With 3 million ethnic mi nority voters taking part in the election, the results equate to the Conservatives securing one million ethnic minority votes for the first time in the party's history.

Around 49% of the Hindu votes went to the Conservative Party while 41% went to Labour. Cameron had worked hard in drawing the Hindu vote, visiting the Swaminarayan temple and accorded it the same status as the Stone henge and the Big Ben.

He promised that if he returns as PM, he would pay a visit to the Akshardham temple in Delhi. He also said that Britain needs to take inspiration from Hinduism if it wants to become better.

He had said, “When I look at the Ramayana and my understanding of the Hindu religion, there's so much that you have to say about the importance of family , the importance of community , the importance of voluntary service -these are all the values that our country needs more of. So, as you celebrate your values, let's make them our values, and let's have more of them in Britain“.

The organization British Future said, “When translated into votes, based on an estimated 3 million ethnic minority voters, the results equate to 1.6 million votes for Labour, with the Conservatives securing one million of these votes for the first time.“ EU citizens will not vote in referendum?

Citizens from most EU countries living in the UK will not get a vote in the referendum on Europe. Around 45.3 million people will be eligible to take part in the referendum to decide whether Britain should remain in the European Union. PM David Cameron's office has made it clear that citizens from most EU countries living in the UK will not be included in th e referendum, which keeps almost a million Europeans living in UK banned from voting -a significant boost to Eurosceptic campaigners. Irish citizens and those from two other EU nations -Malta and Cyprus -will be allowed to vote along with others from the Commonwealth countries. This means that Britain's Indian community will play a major role in the results. The UK electoral database puts Indian-born population as the largest foreign-born group in the country.

June 2017: 12 Indian-origin MPs in House

Naomi Canton, June 10, 2017: The Times of India

12 Indian-origin MPs in House, Keith Vaz returns for 8th term

A record 12 Indian-origin MPs won seats in the House of Commons after a tense night in which no party won a majority . All 10 sitting Indian-origin MPs held on to their constituencies whilst two Indian-origin first-timers made it to the House.

International development secretary Priti Patel, 45, of Ugandan-Gujarati heritage, retained her seat in Witham, a working-class heartland, with a comfortable majority of 18,646.Agra-born Alok Sharma, 49, former minister for AsiaPacific, clung on to Reading West in a tight race against Labour, but saw his majority slashed to 2,876 from 6,650.

Rishi Sunak, 37, son-inlaw of Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy , swept to a resounding victory in wealthy rural Richmond in Yorkshire with an increased majority of 23,108. Suella Fernandes, 37, held on to Fareham with a slightly reduced majority of 21,555 and Conservative backbencher Shailesh Vara, 56, kept his North West Cambridgeshire seat with a majority of 18,008.

Labour, too, kept its five Indian-origin MPs. Britain's longest-serving British Asian MP , Keith Vaz, 60, had no problem holding onto Leicester East with an increased majority of 22,428, fending off two Indian-origin candidates, Sujata Barot and Nitesh Dave. Vaz's sister, 62-year-old Valerie Vaz, retained Walsall South with an increased majority of 8,892.

India-born Virendra Sharma also won decisive ly, increasing his majority to 22,090 in Ealing Southall, home to one of the largest South Asian communities.Lisa Nandy , a 37-year-old Bengali, was the only Asian face standing in Wigan in Greater Manchester and she got an increased majority of 16,027.

Seema Malhotra, 44, won Feltham and Heston, an area popular with Punjabis, with an increased majority of 15,603, a constituency she has held since 2011.

Belonging to Jalandar

Naomi Canton & IP Singh, Uncommon feat: Four from Jalandhar make it to House, June 10, 2017: The Times of India

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi known as Tan became the first turbaned Sikh MP and Preet Kaur Gill the first Sikh woman to enter the UK parliament, taking the tally to four Punjabi MPs, all from Labour. Seema Malhotra and Virendra Sharma the two veterans. All have roots in Jalandhar.

Born in Slough, 38-year old Dhesi was the youngest Sikh mayor in Europe, when he was elected to the post in Gravesham in Kent. His father Jaspal Singh, who runs a construction company in the UK, was president of Gurdwara Guru Nanak Darbar at Gravesend for years --built on a 805-acre campus, it's is the largest gurdwara in the UK. Dhesi's village, Raipur, about 15 km from Jalandhar broke into cele brations at news of his win.

Preet Kaur Gill, 44, who was a Labour councillor in Sandwell, won from Birmingham Edgbaston, was the only Asian to contest the Labour-held marginal seat and managed to increase her lead from 2,706 to 6,917 votes. Before becoming a Labour councillor on Sandwell Council, she had worked with vulnerable children and families in Birmingham. The daughter of a bus driver, she was born in Edgbaston. Gill's father Daljit Singh Shergill migrated from Khera village near Jalandhar to the UK in 1962. “She last visited us in February to attend my son's wedding,“ her cousin Avtar Singh, an farmer said. Both Dhesi and Gill are secondgeneration Sikhs in the UK.

The only other country with as many Sikhs in the House is Canada, where all four are ministers.

2017: A record 56 candidates

Naomi Canton: The Times of India, June 7, 2017

Indians in UK politics, as on June 7, 2017; Naomi Canton: The Times of India, June 7, 2017

Most of 10 sitting MPs likely to retain seat; Tory appeal grows among Indian communities

An 18-year-old Alevel candidate, a scholar from Jadavpur University who landed in Britain in 2009 are among the many `desi' faces on the ballot paper as UK votes on Thursday amidst one of the fiercest debates on immigration and minority community in decades.

If a record number of 10 Indian-origin candidates were elected to the British Parliament in 2015, the 2017 snap polls have an impressive number of 56 Indian-origin candidates contesting.

Defending comfortable margins are the Indian-origin veterans, including Priti Patel, Alok Sharma, Keith Vaz, Virendra Sharma and Shailesh Vara, all well-known MPs with sizeable majorities.Though Vaz was embroiled in a prostitution and drugs scandal last year, he is expected to retain his seat with a large majority . Candidates to watch on the night are Paul Uppal, 49, Conservative nominee in Wolverhampton South West. He needs to overturn the 2015 majority of just 801 votes to return to the House of Commons as MP . It will be Labour candidate Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi's first time as MP if he manages to keep the Slough seat, held by Labour's Fiona Mactaggart since 1997. Another Sikh with chances of winning is Kuldip Singh Sahota, 66, a Labour local councillor contesting in Telford. A win in Birmingham Edgbaston will make Labour's Preet Kaur Gill the first Sikh woman MP in the House.

Among interesting debuts is Rohit Dasgupta's, who moved to the UK in 2009 from his native Kolkata. The Labour nominee is running in East Hampshire, a Tory safe seat. The five Indian-origin candidates standing for UKIP are not expected to win any seats as most party supporters are expected to vote Conservative. The Green Party is also not expected to take any seats. The youngest Indian-origin candidate, Arran Rangi, 18, standing for the Green Party in Ashfield, is appearing for his A level exam at 9am on Fri day . “I'll make a brief appear ance at the count,“ he said. “I don't expect to win.“

Rakib Ehsan at Royal Hol loway University who special ises in ethnic minority po litical attitudes, says that for British Indians, it's a two-par ty race between Labour and Tories. “It'll take many more elections for the Lib Dems and Greens to be players in the Asian community .“

Ehsan notes that there “seems to be a huge transfer of votes from Labour,“ and that the Conservatives are likely to win a large chunk of the Indian communities' votes. Within the British Asian population, Indians are more economi cally successful than Pakistanis and Bangladeshis and are more likely to be profession als. Thus, the Conservatives appeal to them more, says Ehsan. British Indians tended to vote Labour in the 1960s and 70s because of Labour's repu tation for anti-discrimination and bringing out the Race Relations Act, but as Indians became economically better off, they have tended to vote Conservative, as in 2015.

Labour leader Jeremy Cor byn's criticism of Narendra Modi over the 2002 Gujarat riots and on Kashmir has also apparently created the impression that Corbyn was “promoting the victimisation of Muslims in India,“ says Ehsan, noting that there's a “feeling that Labour is not tak ing Islamist extremism threat seriously as they're reliant on Muslim votes in inner cities.“

British Indians are able to swing the vote in many marginal seats, he says, a view echoed by Jasvir Singh, founding chair of City Sikhs.

“The ethnic minority vote is greater than the majority's in 50 of the most marginal seats and could make all the differ ence,“ Singh said.

2017: 50% of non-white MPs and Gujarati

Aug 4, 2017: The Times of India

Of the 27 non-white members of the British Parliament, 14 are of Gujarati descent. Non-resident Indians (NRIs) including Gujaratis are at the forefront of all major sectors in the United Kingdom including education, trade and business.

The British government also provides financial aid to diaspora members for learning Gujarati - these were some of the highlights of the speech by C B Patel, a noted British journalist of Gujarati origin at the GCCI hall on Thursday. The event was organized by the NRG Centre. Vishnu Pandya, chairman of Gujarat Sahitya Academy, was another speaker at the event.

"I urge the people of Gujarat and government of Gujarat to improve ties with Britain to facilitate more fruitful interaction," said Patel. In his speech, Pandya spoke of how the stalwarts of the Independence movement spent their formative years in the UK and contributed to Indo-UK ties. He also announced that the academy will soon hold an international Gujarati language conference. K H Patel, chairman of the NRG Centre, said that the UK and India have come closer through a slew of activities in different sectors and Gujarat has benefited immensely from the interaction.

Cabinet ministers

2018: Sajid becomes first ethnic minority, Muslim, home secretary

Naomi Canton, May appoints Pak-origin MP as home secretary, May 1, 2018: The Times of India

Move Comes Amid Immigration Scandal in Britain

British PM Theresa May on Monday appointed a Pakistani-origin politician to the key post of home secretary as the government struggled to contain an immigration scandal. Sajid Javid, a former banker and the son of a Pakistani bus driver who emigrated to Britain in the 1960s, is the “first ethnic minority, first Pakistani-origin and the first Muslim heritage” home secretary.

Javid, 48, was appointed to the key job, hours after predecessor Amber Rudd resigned over her role in what has become known as the Windrush scandal. Rudd on Sunday became the fourth cabinet minister to resign in the past six months over claims that she misled Parliament over whether she was aware of deportation targets for illegal immigrants.

The Windrush scandal erupted during the Commonwealth Summit when concerns were raised that migrants from the Caribbean who have lived in Britain for decades had been refused medical care or threatened with deportation because they couldn’t produce paperwork proving their right to reside in the country.

Javid, previously secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, promised to develop a “fair immigration policy” and help the ‘Windrush generation’ who have been unfairly threatened with deportation by the home office.

On Sunday, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Javid said his family could have been caught up in the Windrush saga. “I thought that could be my mum... my dad... my uncle... it could be me.”

“I’m a second-generation migrant. My parents came to this country from Pakistan, just like the Windrush generation. They came to this country after the Second World War to help rebuild it… They came from Commonwealth countries… They were asked to come in to (do) work that some people would describe as unattractive — my dad worked in a cotton mill, he worked as a bus driver.”

Javid was born in Rochdale, Lancashire. His parents were born in pre-partition India and had fled to Pakistan and then emigrated to the UK in the 1960s. The high-profile job, considered the most prestigious role in the British cabinet, puts Javid in charge of national security, tackling of crime, fighting terrorism and extremism, and dealing with illegal immigration. In particular, Javid will be in charge of determining the UK’s post-Brexit immigration strategy.

Although high-profile, the role is also known as the “graveyard of politicians” with many ministerial careers coming to an abrupt end there. May is hoping that Javid’s promotion will draw a line under the Windrush saga before local elections are held in the UK on Thursday, when the Conservatives fear losing hundreds of seats.

Indians in the British Parliament

2015

The Times of India

May 8, 2015

Record number of Indian-origin MPs elected to UK parliament

First Chinese-origin person to enter UK parliament

A record number of 10 Indian-origin candidates including Keith Vaz, Priti Patel and Infosys cofounder Narayana Murthy's son-in-law were elected to the British parliament. Prominent Labour candidates like long-serving MPs Keith Vaz (Leicester East) and Virendra Sharma (Ealing Southall) have won their respective seats, as they have a special connect with a largely Indian-origin electorate in their constituencies. Ruling Conservatives' Indian-origin stalwart, British Prime Minister David Cameron's Indian diaspora champion Priti Patel also retained her Witham seat with a 41.5 per cent majority, winning 27,123 seats. Opposition Labour's Valerie Vaz also retained her Walsall South seat and Seema Malhotra won a her south west London seat comfortably. The Infosys cofounder Narayana Murthy's son-in-law Rishi Sunak, was contesting from the Tory safe seat of Richmond (Yorks) in the north of England and bagged 27,744 votes.

With his nearest opponent, Matthew Cooke of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), at a mere 8,194, his win marks an impressive 51.4 per cent majority to become a first-time MP in the House of Commons.

"I grew up watching my parents serve our local community with dedication. My dad is a NHS (National Health Service) family GP and my mum ran her own local chemist shop," Sunak said.

Other Indian-origin winners include Alok Sharma (Reading West), Shailesh Vara (Cambridgeshire Northwest), another junior minister who has been an MP since 2005. First-timer Suella Fernandes (Fareham) for the Conservatives and a Labour novice Lisa Nandy (Wigan).

The overall tally of 10 Indian-origin MPs in the British parliament breaks the previous 2010 general election record of eight.

But it was not all smooth sailing for Indian-origin Tory candidates, with Paul Uppal losing by a narrow margin to Labour.

In the same Wolverhampton region, brother-sister duo Arun and Suria Photay also failed to make their first-time mark.

There were a total of 59 Indian-origin candidates in the fray from the Tories (17), Labour (14), Liberal Democrats (14), Green Party (4), United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) (3), independents (2) and one each from the smaller parties like All People's Party, Christian Movement for Great Britain, National Liberal Party, Socialist Labour Party and Young People's Party.

David Cameron, who looks set to return as prime minister, has repeatedly gone on record during the campaign claiming that he is confident that the country's "first Asian or black prime minister" will come from his Conservative party.

The party had also fielded the first-ever Sikh candidate in Northern Ireland, Amandeep Singh Bhogal, but he failed to make any mark coming last with just 201 votes in a DUP stronghold.

Indian-origin voters have traditionally connected more with Labour due to its working class and immigrant friendly outlook, however these elections seem to indicate a strong shift in favour of the Tory party.