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November 17, 2024 - 8:00am
Under the premiership of Keir Starmer, Downing Street has found itself embroiled in a variety of controversies. The latest has come within Number 10 itself, with the Government apologising this week after meat and alcohol were served at a Diwali celebration last month.
In recent times, there has been a fraying of relations between the Labour Party and British Hindu voters — especially those of Gujarati heritage in cities such as Leicester. A 2021 survey into British Indian attitudes found that a plurality of Hindu voters held a preference for the Conservatives over their supposed “natural party” — something which accelerated under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.
A variety of factors drove this shift in the Corbyn era, such as the perception that Labour fraternised with questionable Muslim organisations, as well as the party’s oppositional stance towards Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This view was reinforced after Labour passed a 2019 party conference motion that supported “international intervention” in territorially disputed Kashmir — a motion submitted by local branches in towns such as Blackburn, Keighley, and Wakefield, with these three having notable populations of Pakistani Muslim origin.
While Starmer has sought to distance the Labour Party from the “Kashmir” issue and rebuild ties with British Indian voters, the only gain the Conservative Party made in its disastrous general election showing in July — under the UK’s first Hindu prime minister Rishi Sunak — was in Leicester East. A constituency which Labour had held since 1987, Leicester East elected Gujarati Hindu-origin Tory candidate Shivani Raja to Parliament. The seat incorporates the area of Belgrave, with nearly three in four residents in Belgrave South being Hindu. On Leicester City Council, Belgrave is represented by three Conservative Hindu councillors: Shital Adatia, Yogesh Chauhan, and Jaiantilal Gopal. Nationally, the demographic where the Tories lost the least support in the July election was British Asians, particularly Hindus.
While the Tories suffered a series of general election losses in the capital, Bob Blackman’s hold on Harrow East remained steady, winning 53.1% of the votes cast in a constituency where Indian-origin Hindus are a critically important voter group. In fact, Blackman — who has previously expressed support for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and who took his oath in Parliament on the Bhagavad Gita as well as the King James Bible — increased his majority over Labour from 8,170 to 11,680 votes.
It is worth noting that during the 2022 English local elections the London borough of Harrow bucked the general national trend, with the Tories gaining control of the council from Labour — and eight councillors at the expense of Starmer’s party. While much of England has deserted the Tories in recent national and local elections, that has certainly not been the case in the Hindu-concentrated areas of London and Leicester.
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SubscribeAny “faith and culture” adviser with a reasonable understanding of British Hindu practices, customs, and norms would know that serving meat — especially beef — would be hugely undesirable at a Diwali celebration.
And they think that not only can they run the country but improve its situation?
As Mr Roussinos has pointed out elsewhere, in a sectarian society voting is a census.
It’s just as well there are no large groupings of people following the Jedi religion, otherwise Starmer would be dressing himself as a Jedi knight and Rachel Reeves would be using the Force to influence everyone else into accepting the budget.
Identity politics?
Which group of people in Britain do not have a common identity, and do not vote for a party that promotes their common identity?
There must be many people like me who are floating voters; whose votes all the electioneering is designed to catch. But like other correspondents here, I worry that our “multicultural” society is really lots of religious groups living cheek by jowl.
That is probably true, and the best traditions of British law and custom say it should be so — but the various religious groups must not trespass on each others’ rights or try to force conversion. We in the United States have the same traditions and the same problems. We won’t have the same solutions, but they will be similar. Let’s learn from each other the things that work.
Did Raja win election because he was Hindu? The article certainly implies his religion and that of the constituents was relevant.
This is racism. This is sectarianism. This is the poisoned fruit of multiculturalism.
The constituency was three-fourths Hindu. They elected someone like themselves who would represent their interests — and not serve booze at a Diwali fete.
It’s a ” she”- Shivani is a female name
Labour basically think that all brown people are Muslim (although that doesn’t explain the alcohol, of course).
If anyone thinks many indigenous British are wary of Islam they should check in with Hindus.
And also with Sikhs.
Religious sectarianism is horrible, whether it be interdenominational (Catholic v Protestant, Sunni v Shia, etc), or interreligious (Hindu v Islam, Christian v Paganism, etc). On top of this is the clash between extreme political-power philosophies (communism, fascism, etc) and between these philosophies and religions. The most horrible of all is a combination of an aggressively proselytising religion with an equally expansionist political philosophy.
We are currently moving dangerously close to this with the unholy alliance of Islamism and the extreme left increasingly influencing mainstream politics and cultural freedoms.
They have similar rationales: together, destroy liberal democracy and suppress all other religious and political systems; then fight it out between them till the bitter end. Each believes it will win and cares not how many people are destroyed in the process. They share one simple aim: each demands total subjugation to their own system and the eradication of individual freedoms of belief and expression.
As well as being british and do feel some relationship with the state of Israel and Jews worldwide, but I try not to base entire my UK vote on ‘Israel’ as I think it is unfair to use my vote in the UK election simply for foreign geopolitics. ‘What is good for Britain’ should be the question you vote on at an UK election, not geopolitics or community interest or self interest.
What a great photo of 2 tier Keir grovelling with a red dot on his forehead. Put it in the gallery alongside him and Angie taking the knee for BLM.
This duplicitous charlatan is going to be fully exposed for what he really is when the Southport murderer’s trial starts, which is why, according to Nigel Farage, they are desperately trying to delay it further.
Red dot from a sight would be more appropriate. It might concentrate his mind, or what passes for one.
lol! Be careful, officers may be along shortly to bring you in for a “hate” speech incident!
With or without a Barrett light 50?
It’s looking like we won’t need to wait for the trial. Starmer’s time could be up in the next few weeks. Christmas come early, but what sort of cretin are Labour going to give us to replace him?!
Interesting.What makes you think that “we won’t need to wait for the trial”?
There are quite a few like this already out there. Pandora’s box is cracking open and my guess is he won’t be able to reseal it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayYmTwFLcQE&t=15s
I wonder what Cargo Cultists think about 2TK and the 2024 l***a Party?
Honest question, although HMG’s economic policy (and even more their energy policy) have much in common with the Cargo Cult, I have no doubt that the adherents of the latter are mainly kind and honest people, which is much more than can be said for the former.
Who cares if they served alcohol and meat? What country do we live in? And does serving these items force anyone to partake? No.Would the French apologize for serving frogs legs? No, they would give a gailic shrug. Kier S should not have apologized. The correct response who have been “get over yourself” in diplomatic speak of course
It is no different than if they are celebrating Hanukah, invite the Chief Rabbi round, and don’t bother having kosher food. If you’re going to do it at least check up on “dietary restrictions” on Wikipedia or something. It is not like it is some esoteric knowledge that Hindus revere cows as sacred, and, thus, don’t eat beef. Alcohol, well, there is a lot of variation amongst Hindus so you could skirt that, but serving beef to a Hindu when you have invited them round is spectacularly ignorant.
We haven’t got to the bottom of Dwaligate yet.
Whist it is conceivable that Labour is this stupid, there is a distinct possibility of malign intention. We haven’t been told who made the “mistake”.
Rodney adorned himself with a red dot, a Bindi – ie the holy third eye of wisdom (!!!). He makes huge play of his atheism in this context, was has action respectful or blasphemous? To show how strange his action was, just ask would he go down on a prayer mat during Ramadan?
I am inclined to think that he is an almighty plonker, incapable of thinking things through, then again…
British Hindus are the cleverest, highest achieving, hardest working, biggest contributors to every aspect of British life academe and its economy, and have the lowest crime rate. It baffles me that British politicians are incapable of seeing that India should be our biggest and closest allies, not least because Indian Hindus are more aware than we are of the global threat of Islamist extremeism and terrorism, that in itself is the source of more war than any other single factor in the world.
Why did I had to scroll down to the comments to find the string “slam” while it is the elephant in the room. So basically this article is pointless drivel by a random hack who pontificates for 9 paragraphs while being oblivious to the obvious main issue.