Why Pakistani communities in London are celebrating hung parliament

Most Asians in England wanted the Labour party to win

LONDON: Manning a small mobile phone store in the London borough of Newham, 39-year-old Lubna Wasim, a working mother of three, had no doubts about why Jeremy Corbyn had to win the United Kingdom’s 2017 snap elections. “There is no place better than this beautiful country. I love it here. But the Labour party has to win for people like us to survive,” she said.

Newham borough hosts 9.84% of the Pakistani community in London and is heavily populated by immigrants from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Somalia.

“Theresa May only supports the rich, while the poor are left to fend for themselves, and people are now tired of the rising expenses,” she said, explaining why the policies of the Conservative party were not feasible. “Even when you look at the policies of the Labour party with regards to the NHS or university fees, you will see why they always win the popular vote. They care about the people, not the money.”




“I have three daughters, born and bred in Britain, but I worry about their future. Many are speculating that university tuition fee, which is already as high as international student fee, will be raised even more,” she said, speaking of future policies the Conservative party may impose. “We run a small business and I try to help my husband out wherever I can, but where will we get the money to send them to university?” asked a perturbed Lubna.

Many in Newham shared Lubna’s views. “Because of May’s divisive policies, all Asians in England want the Labour party to win,” said Lubna’s cousin Imran Shaikh, a 39-year-old small business owner. “They’ll win the popular vote like they always do, but they won’t make government.”

In her 2017 manifesto, Theresa May promised to reduce net migration to the UK to below 100,000, a target previously set by David Cameron in 2015. “Despite May failing to achieve the targets she promised people with regards to migrant workers, she will still win because the powerful, rich, white man will make sure she does,” he explained.




“Look, I will always vote for what is in my best interest and the Conservative party has proven time and again that they do not have our best interests at heart,” said Imran. “But the Labour party does, and that is why we have hope and why we are going to vote — even though they may not win. The Labour party has supported us in difficult times, and if all they ask for in return is one vote, we can give them that.”

On whether she would be casting a vote, Lubna nodded her head eagerly saying, “Of course! That is my duty as a citizen of this country.”

“In fact, I went to the polling station early this morning (Thursday). I wanted to be the first one to cast my vote,” she added triumphantly.



“The problem is that our people [immigrants] have also abused the system with bogus colleges selling fake degrees to people, claiming undue state benefits, etc, which is why they had to change things around. But Jeremy Corbyn is an intelligent man. He has come from nowhere and it seemed like he had no chances of winning — but if you look at the Labour party graph in the past two weeks, it has gone up considerably,” said Lubna hopefully. “So while he may not win, this election will definitely be a close call”.

And a close call it was. On Friday, the view outside 10 Downing Street was anything but celebratory. In the history of the UK, snap elections have been called a total of eight times, including the 2017 elections. The last occurrence before this was in 1974 and the events of those elections bear striking resemblance to the results produced in the 2017 elections. During the February 1974 general elections, the first to take place after the United Kingdom became a member of the European Union, the nation was certain that Conservative party leader Edward Heath would win, but the results produced a hung parliament. Similar to the current scenario, Edward did not resign as premier of the United Kingdom immediately and instead entered into negotiations with the Northern Ireland's Ulster Unionist party hoping to persuade them into forming a coalition government. When the Unionist party leader demanded major electoral reforms in exchange for such an agreement, unable to agree to the terms, Heath was left with no choice but to resign from his post.

The Labour party, as is the case after the hung parliament results in 2017, did not have enough seats to combine with another party to achieve an overall majority. What become obvious soon enough was that forming a stable government in a divided parliament was practically impossible and in October 1974 of the same year a snap election was called in which the Labour party successfully attempted to convert their minority to a majority, but were only able to do so by a mere three-seat margin. This was the last general election won by Labour until 1997 – the four elections that followed were all in favour of the Conservative party.



Another resident of Newham, lawyer by profession and Pakistani by descent, Shahid Nadeem had predicted a ‘real chance’ for a split vote. “The Labour party may not have won, but the hung parliament shows how many seats they acquired during this election. The Tories have formed a minority government, but we are still happy because this means Labour will win for sure next time,” said Shahid. “Because of the split in parliament, there will never be a consensus, especially in the case of Brexit. This may lead to yet another election being called in the near future.”

Michael Harris, however, is of a different view. The Northern Ireland Army veteran was camped outside the prime minister’s residence with microphones, banners and flyers. “People should not be voting for Jeremy Corbyn because he shook hands with IRA terrorists. You can’t have somebody like that in charge of your country, now, can you?” said Michael, leading a group of veterans protesting the government’s silence over their grievances. “The IRA has to be made responsible for what it has done, and people like Jeremy Corbyn will never understand that.”

With a heavy police presence, 10 Downing Street was packed with crowds, but back in central London people seemed less interested in the political drama ensuing and chose to go about their normal lives. A disappointed Jeanette Tait explained how, had she been able to reach the polling station in time, she would have voted Conservative hands down. “There are some aspects of the Conservative party that are frustrating, but I would not vote for Jeremy Corbyn, I know that for sure.”

When asked what the downside of the Conservative party is, she said, “Well, the terrorist attacks that have taken place right now should have been pre-empted and they weren’t. May will also most likely raise the cost of living here, but it is for our own benefit; she will bring the UK back to the UK.”



Talking about the hung parliament, she added, “Theresa May is a very capable person — she will bounce back from this faster than the Labour party can ever imagine.”

In the time following this report, May refused to resign from her position as prime minister and instead apologised to supporters saying, “I wanted to achieve a larger majority. That was not the result we secured. And I’m sorry for all those candidates and hard-working party workers who weren’t successful, but also for those colleagues who were MPs and ministers and contributed so much to our country and who lost their seats and who didn’t deserve to lose their seats.”

While Conservatives are still recovering from the shock of the election results, Pakistanis in Newham, like many other Britons, celebrate their small win. “Of course, this is a moment of celebration for us,” said Imran. “We (Labour party) may not have won, but we formed a majority opposition. We won seats from boroughs that were Conservative strongholds and that goes to show that people want to see change. The Tories have aligned themselves with DUP [Democratic Unionist Party] but their policies do not align with each other.”



And Shahid explained: “Look at it this way, when her own party supporters are asking her to ‘consider her position’, which is code for ‘you should resign’ then there really isn’t much of a future left for her.

“Historically, when the results of an election have produced a hung parliament, the prime minister has resigned. Mark my words, Labour will win the next elections by a landslide.”

While the validity of his prediction can only be gauged with time, what is for certain is that the election result is a ray of hope for the Pakistani community — and that, for them, is worth the celebration.