Daily Times

As many as fifteen British-Pakistanis are have become Members of Parliament (MPs) after winning their respective constituencies during the United Kingdom’s general election 2019 which witnessed a dramatic victory for the Boris Johnson led Conservative party. Although the Labour party didn’t perform poorly overall, with 203 seats as compared to the Tory tally of 365. Ten of the seats were won by British-Pakistanis for Labour and just five for the Conservative party. Successful candidates from Labour party remained Naz Shah from Bradford, Khalid Mehmood from Birmingham, Yasmin Qureshi from South Bolton, Afzal Khan from Manchester Gorton, Tahir Ali from Birmingham Hall Green, Muhammad Yaseen from Bedford, Imran Hussain from Bradford East, Zarah Sultana from Coventry South, Shabana Mahmood from Birmingham Ladywood and Rozina Ali from Tooting. From the Conservative party, the five successful candidates were Nusrat Ghani from Wealden, Imran Ahmed from Bedfordshire, SajidJavid from Bromsgrove, Rehman Chishti from Gillingham and Saqib Bhatti from Meriden. Ten of them belong to Labour and five to Conservative party

This election witnessed a significant surge in British-Pakistani candidates as compared to the polls in 2017. While the previous election saw 40 Pakistani-origin candidates, the latest vote saw 70 such candidates who were given tickets by the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. Some British-Pakistanis also ran as independent candidates. The breakdown of the candidates remained as 20 for Conservative, 19 for Labour, 12 for Lib Dems (they have never had a Pakistani-origin MP), five for Brexit Party, four for Green Party and 10 independents. There are more than one million people in the UK of Pakistani ancestry, making it the second largest overseas Pakistani population after Saudi Arabia. The West Midlands is home to 172,000 people of Pakistani ancestry, more than any other British region. There are an estimated 163,000 people of Pakistani ancestry in London, 163,000 in the Yorkshire area and 133,000 in the North West of England. It is estimated that by 2031 there will be at least 2.63 million people of Pakistani ancestry in the UK. This became the Brexit election. The first genuine single issue election in 119 years. Back then, in 1900, the Tories were cynically capitalising on their early success in the Boer war to try to win another thumping majority over the Liberals. It was also Labour’s very first election. The voters went into it with noble domestic ambitions far distant from the South African veldt. Provision for the aged poor. Better houses. Useful work for the unemployed. Adequate maintenance for children. The nationalisation of railways. And the establishment of social and economic equality between the sexes. Worthy priorities indeed, but won only two seats, while the Tories stuck to their single issue and claimed a majority of more than 130.

Labour manifesto, which are now more than a century overdue on elderly people, on housing, on the unemployed, and on child poverty. That’s the prize. keep eyes on it

Calling an election was entirely in the government’s gift. But this time, the voters have no excuse. Boris Johnson proposed an election at a time of his own choosing, on an issue of his own choosing, and the voters went along with it like crackers voting for Christmas. The Liberal Democrats agreed to it because they thought it would work in their favour, and Labour because the voters imagined they could change the subject. That was a total delusion. It would be an act of catastrophic political folly to vote for the election, and should not go along with it. The single issue of Brexit should not be enough to give Johnson a five-year mandate to enact his agenda on every issue. Referendum should be insisted to get the issue of Brexit out of the way before any general election. When raised this at the shadow cabinet, and spoke forcefully against an election, some nodded along, but the loudest voices were pro-leave colleagues insisting that voters should vote with Johnson. So voters wilfully went into a single-issue election with no clear position on that issue and, as every pollster predicted, we were brutally squeezed by all the other parties with an unequivocal policy on Brexit, all of them sharing a clear strategy to eat into Labour’s base. All over the country, voters could see themselves going backwards, despite the incredible hard work of  brilliant volunteers, councillors and candidates.

Worst of all, while tried to focus on the implications of Brexit for the NHS, the Tories more successfully tied Labour’s ambiguity on the issue to their other main argument that Jeremy Corbyn could not be trusted with the levers of power a complete contrast with 2017, when his clear principles and authenticity had been major assets.

People can argue that their position should have been more pro-leave or more pro-remain, but the reality is they should never have allowed a Brexit election, which was Johnson’s obvious strategic goal from the moment he took office. The question now is how do the voters fight back from here? The answer is certainly not to have some great ideological debate between left, right and centre. Neither is it to set this up as a battle between leave and remain, north and south, or indeed men and women. When did voters stop being for the many, not just half of them? It won’t earn raucous cheers at a rally, but voters starting point should instead be to ask ourselves where is the strategic thinking in the party? Who has a proper plan for the future? Say what you like about New Labour after 1994, and it’s known that I disagree with much of what it did, but credit where credit’s due that team had deep political insight and absolute clarity of purpose, boiled down to a five-point pledge-card. It would never have voted to give Johnson the Brexit election he craved.

When faced Johnson for the entire two years he was Foreign Secretary, the only ministerial job he previously held. Strategy was to focus relentlessly on five key issues where there were huge differences between Labour’s policy and his, and where his position was indefensible the Northern Ireland border, the war in Yemen, Donald Trump, human rights, and climate change. Many of the voters took the fight to him every day, and pummelled him every week. Each time, the mask slipped, and people saw the real man a mendacious, lazy, dangerous charlatan, unable to hide behind the tiresome smokescreen of bluster he usually relies on. He hated it, especially coming from a woman. So when the Labour leadership contest begins, whoever is standing. The first question shouldn’t be about their position on Brexit, or where they live in our country. The first question should instead be what was the plan for taking on Johnson over the next five years? And do they have the political nous and strategic vision to reunite the party, rebuild machine, gain the trust of the public, give hope to declining towns and smaller cities, and never again waste the opportunity to take back power?

Goodness knows, we have been taught a painful enough lesson in how to prosecute a successful political strategy by Johnson over the last five months. Labour voter seized with gloom or a Tory gleaming with complacency just remember that in 1906, six years after the last single-issue election, the Liberal opposition won a majority of 124, with the Tories losing 246 seats. Why? Because the Tories were totally divided over trade policy and because their “single issue” of the Boer war had turned into a disaster. Will history repeat itself now as the Tories grapple with the reality of “getting Brexit done”? Well, history has a tendency to do that. And when the next election comes, I’d certainly like Labour to have a leader and team in place with the strategic vision to foresee and exploit Johnson’s failings. Because if voters can overturn that Tory majority, can start focusing on the pledges from that 1900 Labour manifesto, which are now more than a century overdue on elderly people, on housing, on the unemployed, and on child poverty. That’s the prize. keep eyes on it.

The writer is book ambassador, Columnist, political analyst and author of several books based in Islamabad