EUROPE’S first-turbaned Sikh parliamentary representative Tan Dhesi, the Labour MP for Slough in Berkshire, has become something of a national figure – even international as the farmers’ protests in India came into the global spotlight.
In a Zoom interview with the GG2 Power List late last year, it is clear he is something of a conviction politician – he says what he believes and his politics are rooted in rights and justice and a fair deal for everyone – where Dhesi perceives discrimination and unfair practice, he certainly won’t be quiet about it – even if it isn’t ideal for parliamentary advancement.
For a short time, Dhesi served as former leader Jeremy Corbyn’s private parliamentary secretary at the tail end of the Islington MP’s stewardship of the party after the crushing defeat at the polls in December and the subsequent leadership contest.
Between January and April 2020, Dhesi got to know more about the inner workings of the party and helped to prepare the leader as the curtain drew in on Corbyn’s time at the helm.
Dhesi supported present Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy in her subsequent leadership bid, but it did him no harm as new Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer appointed Dhesi to his first ministerial position, heading the Rail portfolio for Labour in April 2020.
Dhesi came into national politics after being a local councillor and Mayor of Gravesham in Kent, where there is a sizeable Sikh community and the town there possesses one of the largest Gurudwaras in Europe. “There are lots of goals that are important to me,” he tells the GG2 Power List. “But I know that the only way that they that can be achieved is through hard work.
“My aim in life wasn’t to get into parliament – I don’t have a specific aim per se, but whether it’s in transport, housing or climate change – and there are many projects I am involved in locally and nationally – I want to represent my constituency and raise issues which are pertinent to us all.”
He has been one of the government’s most vocal and powerful critics over the way it has handled the coronavirus crisis.
He has also been very prominent over the farmers’ protests in India and somewhat confused prime minister Boris Johnson when he asked about it at Prime Minister’s Questions in December last year after our Zoom.
Dhesi said that many British families, like his own, come from farming communities in Punjab, in India, were worried about the situation and feared the Indian government would use force to break up peaceful protests and asked Boris Johnson to uphold the rights of peaceful protest – slightly bizarrely Johnson said that India and Pakistan should sort out their differences by talking to each other.
The farmer protests’ have received international attention and Dhesi as of one two Sikh MPs (the other is Labour’s Preet Kaur Gill who represents Birmingham Edgbaston) has been seen as something of a spokesman for the wider diaspora in the increasingly bitter dispute.
Dhesi told CNN that both his parents and grandparents had been involved in agriculture in Punjab and that he knew many friends involved in the protests.
He has more recently written to the prime minister and British foreign secretary Dominic Raab calling on them to express their concern. He also got more than 100 MPs to back his calls for the UK government to support peaceful protests.
“Human rights are universal. The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental human right,” he told international broadcaster, CNN. He said people in India talked about foreign affairs “And we in the UK talk about foreign affairs too.”
Dhesi has also been at the forefront of calling the government to account over the way it has handled the coronavirus and especially what he sees as its negligence and carelessness – especially in the way the disease has disproportionately affected minority groups in the UK.
Before the beginning of the vaccination programme in December, he told the GG2 Power List: “The government’s handling of pandemic has been shambolic and utterly incompetent. They were very, very slow at the outset about going into lockdown. When the World Health Organisation was saying to nations around the world, you need to learn the lessons from what’s going on in China and South Korea and elsewhere – and there were examples of going in fast and hard in terms of a lockdown – like New Zealand, they didn’t.
“New Zealand actually managed to eliminate the virus altogether (pre 2021). We have not only the highest number of excess deaths in Europe but we’ve got the double whammy of an economic crisis.”
There is some dispute as to whether the economic crisis sparked by the pandemic is worse than other comparable European countries – some claim the statistics just make it look that way and that actually Britain isn’t in that bad a position.
Whatever you believe, it’s undeniable that many of the issues Britain faced economically pre-pandemic are worse now as we enter a new post vaccination phase. Dhesi has through Eastern Eye called on the government repeatedly to pay more attention to startling statistics that minority communities are more prone to dying from Covid than others.
It is personal for Dhesi – his grandmother, uncle and brother-in-law’s father all died from Covid. “As I’ve said in parliament, this is very personal for me – I wasn’t even able to carry the coffin of my grandmother on my shoulders.
“My fun-loving uncle, a taxi driver who was very much the life and soul of family parties and much loved on the taxi rank, was gasping for his last breath in hospital and we couldn’t go and see him. So many people had to make huge sacrifices – it is very real and those who call it a ‘scamdemic’ or say it is just like flu are wrong – it has killed thousands.”
He has made several public health message videos explaining the dangers and encouraging people to stay safe. In many ways, he is a community MP and is keen on the public service aspect of his work and it is what brought him into politics more generally.
After being born in Berkshire, he spent his early primary school years in Punjab, returning to his parents, who ran a construction business when he was nine and going onto study Maths with Management at University College, London and then going onto an M.Sc at Oxford and then an MPhil in South Asian History and links with Britain. After his education, he went into the construction business, ending up running his own firm in Scotland, before returning to Kent and the family. “I’d been a member of the party for a few years, but they were finding it difficult to get candidates to be local councillors and after a lot of consultation with family and friends, I decided to stand and I’ve never looked back,” he said to us.
He got more involved in the community and local organisations and rose up through the ranks – even his maiden speech in 2017 reflected his pride in Slough and being an ethnic minority MP. Parts of the constituency are prosperous and some like Dhesi believe it has the
UK’s own Silicon Valley, but he also made reference in the same speech to “homelessness, child obesity and malnutrition”.
Under Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Dhesi has prospered and a recognised members of Her Majesty’s official Opposition. With transport and the battle for the soul of Britain’s railways likely to be a hot button issue once we emerge from this health crisis, it is likely Dhesi won’t be too far away from continuing to hold this government to account. More widely, he is a member of many All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPG) and is vice-chair on Zimbabwe, British Sikhs and British Muslims, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and a member of the APPG on Kashmir.
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