The Parliament has now more than ever Asian, black and ethnic minority MPs. The 2017 election saw the first ever female Sikh and first turbaned MP being elected as well as an increase of BAME MPs to 51 from 41. While this is still only around one in 13 MPs, it means the House of Commons is now more diverse than in any previous Parliament. The new Parliament will also be more diverse than ever before in other ways. There are a record number of women – up to 208 from 191, but still only 32% of the total. There was also a record number of turn out from the BAME community to vote as well.
There are 12 MPs of Indian origin who have won this election. Labour Party had selected 14 Indians and Conservative Party 13 as their Parliamentary candidates. The tally is stronger for the Labour Party with 7 Indian-origin MPs to Tory’s 5. Labour is also close to achieving the landmark of having half of its total MPs being female. 45% currently are, compared to just 21% of Conservative representatives.
Labour candidate Preet Kaur Gill who won her Birmingham Edgbaston seat by polling 24,124 votes, defeating ruling Conservative party rival Caroline Squire by 6,917 votes, speaking about her victory said, “I am delighted I have been given the opportunity to become the next MP for Edgbaston where I was born and raised. I want to engage with the people of Edgbaston and with hard work, passion and determination I think we can achieve great things together.”
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, better known as Tan, won his Slough seat decisively polling 34,170 votes, to become Labour’s first turban-wearing MP. He defeated his Conservative party rival by a whopping 16,998 votes. Dhesi said he was “humbled” and wanted to serve the town where he was born and raised.
The Sikh Federation UK in a statement said, “Credit to the Labour Party leadership for taking the bold step of giving Sikhs the opportunity to fight for winnable seats. Labour now needs to turn its attention to having visible Sikh representation in the House of Lords at the first opportunity so Sikhs are better represented and can bring fresh thinking and ideas,” the PTI reported.
Among British Pakistanis, Khalid Mehmood, Shabana Mehmood, Rozeena-Allin Khan, Yasmin Qureshi, Naz Shah, Imran Hussain, Afzal Khan, Mohammed Yasin and Faisal Rasheed from Labour have all secured their spots in Westminster. Sajid Javid, Nusrat Ghani and Rehman Chishti from Conservatives have defended their respective constituencies successfully. Tasmeena Sheikh of Scottish National Party (SNP) has lost her seat to Conservatives. In comparison to 2015 Parliament when nine MPs won elections, the number has now reached 12, 9 from Labour and 3 from Conservative. Three MPs of Bangladeshi origin have also won in the 2017 election, all from the Labour party.
There are now more openly LGBT MPs than at any time in history. There were 32 openly LGBT people in the House of Commons in 2015 but the figure is reported to have now risen to 43.
A second turban-wearing Sikh of the Labour Party Kuldip Sahota lost out to his Conservative rival by just 720 votes. All other incumbent Indian origin MPs retained their seats, Conservative’s Paul Uppal failed to retake Wolverhampton South West, though he got higher votes than before.
Among other Indian-origin contestants, Conservative party’s Priti Patel has held on to her stronghold of Witham in Essex with a solid majority of 18,646 votes. Alok Sharma has held on to Reading West by 2,876 votes and Shailesh Vara has won in Cambridgeshire North West by 18,008 votes.
The 2015 general election first-timers for the Tories Rishi Sunak and Suella Fernandes have also held on to their seats decisively with a margin of 23,108 and 21,555 votes respectively. For the Labour party, the longest serving Indian-origin MP Keith Vaz, has been re-elected for the 8th time and held on to his Leicester East seat attracting 35,116 votes, more than before- the largest majority of 22,428 in his 30 years at Westminster. His sister Valerie Vaz also won a solid 25,286 votes to hold on to her Walsall South seat. Speaking after his victory, Mr Vaz reportedly said: "Jeremy Corbyn did a great job despite all the criticism."
Vaz also paid tribute to party colleagues on the Leicester city council, including elected mayor Sir Peter Soulsby for upholding Labour votes in the city and helping to ensure their successes.
Speaking to Asian Voice he said, "I am honoured and privileged to have been re-elected again. Leicester is a great City and I am so pleased to be its representative once again. I cannot believe the margin." On Brexit Mr Vaz said: "The UK has failed to give Theresa May the mandate she wanted for Brexit. She must consult with Parliament again. She should not have triggered Brexit before this election. I have 6000 Portuguese passport holders in my constituency. They need to be given permanent right to stay in the UK immediately."
Vaz added that the national result would also have a significant impact on the pending Brexit negotiations.
The independent local candidate, Sujata Barot, surprised many by claiming third place, ahead of the Green Party and Liberal Democrat candidates.
Lisa Nandy won in Wigan for Labour with 29,575 votes, Seema Malhotra held on to Feltham & Heston with 32,462 votes and Virendra Sharma polled 31,720 in his safe seat of Ealing Southall.
Among the prominent losses was Labour’s Neeraj Patil - the former mayor of the London Borough of Lambeth - lost to Justine Greening, the UK’s Education Minister. He lost by a margin of just 1,554 votes to Greening, who was defending her Conservative party stronghold.
Conservative's blue eyed boy Ameet Jogia who stood from Brent North against Labour's Barry Gardiner for the first time, lost to Gardiner by 17,061 seats, so has Conservative's Resham Kotecha at Coventry North, who lost to Labour's Geoffrey Robinson by 8580 votes only. Reena Ranger at Birmingham Hall Green lost out to Labour's Roger Godsiff by 33,944 votes. Kolkata boy Dr Rohit Dasgupta, stood for Labour party at East Hampshire but has lost to Conservative's Damian Hinds by 25,852 votes. Labour party's Navin Shah from Harrow East has lost to Bob Blackman MP by 1757 votes only.
Omar Khan, Director of race equality charity Runnymede Trust, told The Independent. “Good to see an ongoing increase in black and minority ethnic MPs, with the number now at 50"
“Thirty years after the first post-war BAME MPs were elected we’re getting closer but we’re not yet near a representative parliament of around 100 BAME MPs.
“Better representation is a test of the quality of our democracy and one that is particularly urgent given the increased engagement of young people - a group that is not only more diverse but also expects discrimination of whatever kind to be combated.
“One longstanding proposal for parties to reach this target would be to increase the number of younger MPs and MPs from more diverse social backgrounds, but the youth turnout at this last election may now refocus party efforts.”
Several seats with a high BAME population, including Kensington, Croydon Central and Enfield Southgate, switched from the Tories to Labour.
Khan said there was an 11.5 % increase in Labour’s vote share in the 75 most ethnically diverse seats – higher than the 9.5% rise the party achieved nationally.
Simon Woolley, the co-founder and director of Operation Black Vote, told Buzz Feed News: “I think that is a massive step forward in the right direction. Democracy works best when all of society feel they have a stake within it ... If you don’t have diversity within parliament you cannot begin to effectively speak for the multicultural society that we are. It inspires many more people to engage in politics, and to believe that their voices are listened to.”
