Labour’s landslide is a triumph for Britain’s Sikhs

For years, there have been very few Sikhs – who make up around one per cent of the population of England and Wales – in the Commons. Labour’s landslide victory has changed that. Among the hundreds of new MPs are a dozen Sikh heritage MPs: more than there’s ever been in parliament’s history.

The achievements of Sikhs in British politics have historically been overshadowed by the incredible electoral success of Sikhs across the pond in Canada. It wasn’t long ago that Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau boasted to an American audience, ‘I have more Sikhs in my cabinet than Modi does’. The influx of newly-elected Sikh Labour MPs – six men and six women – goes someway to bridging that gap.

Three of the Sikh heritage Labour MPs will already be familiar faces: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) and Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham Edgbaston) were both elected in 2017; Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) – a Corbynista, whose dad is Sikh – entered the Commons in 2019. But now there will be far more Sikhs on the Labour benches, including Gurinder Singh Josan (Smethwick), Jas Athwal (Ilford South) and Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West). There’s some poetic justice in particular in Juss’s victory: he represents Enoch Powell’s former constituency. In the late 1960s Powell supported a ban on Sikh bus drivers wearing their turbans to work, metaphorically describing the dispute as ‘a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand that can so rapidly overcast the sky’. The ban was, of course, lifted. But not even Powell, infamous for his Rivers of Blood speech, could have foreseen Juss’s election victory.

It’s a proud day for Sikhs everywhere. It sends a powerful message, particularly to young Sikhs, who can watch parliament and see people who look like them. Most of this new cohort of MPs are second, or third generation, British Sikhs. As you’d expect, they ran campaigns on issues that matter to all their constituents, rather than Sikh-specific issues, or parochial matters pertaining to the Indian sub-continent. However, some MPs were presented before the election with a ‘Sikh Manifesto’, which is supported by the fringe group, Sikh Federation UK (SFUK). SFUK has historically been the secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for British Sikhs, and, in that role, has invariably pushed its own relatively narrow agenda – not least the absurd Sikh ‘ethnic’ tick box census campaign. Unsurprisingly, the ‘Sikh Manifesto’ urges MPs to join the said APPG. On this, they must proceed with caution.

What is clear is that this is a moment to celebrate. The record number of Sikh heritage MPs in Starmer’s government is a major milestone for the community and a matter of great pride for British Sikhs.

Labour was, of course, not the only party to field Sikh heritage candidates. The Conservatives had three, including Satbir Gill for the Scottish Conservatives and Ashvir Sangha, a former president of the Oxford Union. The Lib Dems fielded two – thankfully they weren’t forced to campaign on a waterslide alongside their party leader – and both Reform and the Workers Party of Great Britain (WPGB) had several too. England cricket legend Monty Panesar, perhaps one of Britain’s most high-profile Sikhs, also put his hat in the ring with George Galloway’s party, before abandoning his campaign after a few days.

Reflecting on the 12 Sikh heritage MPs, Lord Singh of Wimbledon, the Director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, pointed me to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where Polonius gives advice to his son Laertes: ‘This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.’

Lord Singh told me: ‘These words are excellent advice to the new Sikhs entering Parliament. If they can be true to Sikh teachings on social and political justice, and as we say in our daily prayer the wellbeing of all in our one human family, they will make a much-needed contribution to wider society.’