Interrupting normal service

Four generations later, we’re still a political football

This is an unscheduled Scribbles & Dribbles update - but one that I felt compelled to write. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

- Shahnaz x

—

This week I’ve been editing a section of my upcoming book, The Jackfruit Chronicles, about the early Bangladeshi community in Britain and their experience of racism in politics.

In the chapter I’ve just been working on, my grandparents are deciding about their future in the UK. In the years after Enoch Powell’s infamous 1969 speech warning of ‘rivers of blood’, families like theirs are viewed with increasing hostility. In fact, the anti-immigrant discourse - both in politics and the streets - has become so toxic that Nanu and Nana Bhai are considering leaving the Britain altogether.

So it was with particular disappointment when Labour leader, Keir Starmer, decided this week to perpetuate this decades-long trend of punching down on migrants - this time, singling out Bangladeshis. In a video-taped interview with The Sun, Starmer pledges to put Bangladeshi asylum seekers ‘on planes going off’… ‘back to where they come from’. It is worth noting that Bangladeshis do not feature in the top 10 list of number of migrants, documented or otherwise, coming to the UK.

Lest we think that this was a chance occurrence, Starmer’s comments were echoed by Shadow Cabinet Minister Jonathan Ashworth earlier this week. In an interview with Victoria Derbyshire, Ashworth was pressed on his claim that the Labour Party would ‘return’ those arriving to the UK in small boats. When Derbyshire points out that many of those arriving are from countries with repressive regimes such as Iran and Afghanistan, and that repatriating them may pose a question of ethics, Ashworth ducks the question, instead, naming Bangladeshi migrants as ones he would repatriate.

Following a backlash from the British-Bangladeshi community, including a resignation from Labour councillor Sabina Akhtar, Starmer responded saying that he ‘did not mean to cause concern or offence’ and states that his example of Bangladeshis was because the UK has recently signed an agreement with Bangladesh on the repatriation of undocumented migrants.

This excuse appears thin because it is.

Politicians of Starmer’s calibre and experience ought to know better than to ‘name names’ in interviews. In fact, they undergo huge amounts of media training especially to evade being put on the spot when facing such questions. If Starmer’s intention was to highlight the agreement with Bangladesh as an efficient, workable policy then he could easily have framed it as such. And again, the numbers speak for themselves: according to Home Office statistics, 12 failed asylum seekers were deported to Bangladesh, while 66 went back voluntarily in 2023 - hardly the numbers that warrant an entire population to be demonised in televised interviews. In Ashworth’s case, the same applies. Their confidence in singling out any one community - in this case, Bangladeshis - is evident of two problematic things.

The first is the assumption made by UK political leaders that their default audience is white and hostile to migrants. This has led to the normalisation of anti-immigrant policy by UK political parties across the spectrum, and the alienation of the vast number of voters who are not white and of migrant backgrounds themselves. This demographic has become used to being talked about in the most dehumanising, othering language - which is backed up by hostile policies. One recent example being the denial of care workers - who are vital in providing much-needed social care in the UK - bringing their families from overseas. A policy Labour says it will not overturn. Britain is happy to benefit from the care and hard work of foreigners to look after its ageing population, but doesn’t want to grant those workers the opportunity to maintain their own family units.

The second, is the prevalence of ‘punching down’ in British politics today. This is sometimes glibly referred to as ‘culture wars’ and framed as being a battle between the ‘wokerati’ and the ‘un-woke’. But what we’re actually seeing is politics based on trampling on minority communities: immigrants, women, trans-people. On immigration, this is evidenced by politicians from every party vying against one another as to who comes across ‘toughest’ on the subject: not ‘reasoned’, or ‘realistic’, or even ‘ethical’: the best stance on immigration is considered to be the one which is harshest.

But what of the reaction from the British-Bangladeshi community?

They are not passive actors on this issue - nor have they ever been. British-Bangladeshis have been at the forefront of campaigning for workers rights, migrant rights, social housing, race equality and many other issues for decades. Members of the community are refusing to tolerate this singling out (which is lazy at best, contemptuous at worst) and video clips are circulating widely on WhatsApp and other social media urging people note to vote Labour.

Lest this reaction seem inconsequential in real terms, it is worth pointing out that Bangladeshi voters in the UK have the power over some key marginal seats in the upcoming election. Starmer’s own seat of Holborn and St Pancras has a significant Bangladeshi minority, estimated at around 5%, that may well choose to withhold their support for the Labour leader. And the newly redrawn constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney has two key contenders both from the Bangladeshi community: Labour incumbent, Rushanara Ali, and Independent candidate Ajmal Masroor. Given the community’s disappointment in Labour that pre-dated even this most recent issue, a Labour win is far from certain.

British-Bangladeshi MPs including Apsana Begum and have scrambled to distance themselves from Starmer’s comments, reiterating their commitment to the Bangladeshi community. But it is a community already disillusioned with Labour over the party’s stance on the war in Gaza, including the delay in calling for a ceasefire and Starmer’s comments on LBC Radio about Israel’s right to defend itself extending to include cutting off water and power to Gaza (both of which would constitute war crimes and are illegal under international law).  Starmer later claimed his words were ‘taken out of context’ despite the full clips being available and widely circulated - a claim that is now being repeated with this most recent video. Unsurprisingly, trust in Labour is at an all time low not just among British Bangladeshis but across ethnic minority communities.

A reminder of our position

My grandfather, my Nana Bhai, was a lifelong Labour supporter and socialist. Despite not being able to read or write English, he followed politics closely.  When my mother was a child, she used to accompany Nana Bhai to the polling station and he would ask her to point out the Labour candidate on the ballot paper. Then they would vote for that candidate by marking an X in the box beside the name.

There is no way Nana Bhai would support the Labour Party as it stands today, dealing in cheap rhetoric and sowing division. My grandfather hoped that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren would be able to participate in a society where they were not always expected to prove their own legitimacy; where we weren’t so easily betrayed by the politicians who are supposed to lead the nation.

I hate that he has been proven wrong.