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The Rest Is Politics: Leading
183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah)
01:10:53
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- [00:01]
A
Thanks for listening to the Rest is Politics. Sign up to the Rest is Politics plus to enjoy ad free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to the restispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com.
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B
Welcome to the Rest is Politics. Leading with me Rory Stewart and me
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A
Alistair Campbell and we are with Naz Shah.
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B
So before we get going, a content warning. What we're about to discuss in terms of Naz's own personal life includes references to sexual abuse, violence, rape, murder and if you are a listener who is concerned with these issues, please be aware of that content if you choose to continue to listen to this program.
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A
Naz Shah is the Labour MP for Bradford west in Yorkshire. But that is a single fact behind which lies all a pretty remarkable backstory. It's really hard to know where to start. Let me just sort of a few thoughts off the top of my head. One of your earliest memories was the sight and sound of your father beating your mother. A father who then left the family for a 16 year old next door neighbour. A mother then into another abusive relationship with somebody you knew as Uncle Azzam, who was raping your mother and allowing other men to rape her, age 12, sent to Pakistan not long thereafter, a forced marriage and in a way then came back because your mother was first suspected of and then convicted of murder because she poisoned the man that had been abusing her, your so called Uncle Azzam. And in a way that became your first taste of politics because it was where you saw the system working against your mother, being of the class that she was, the race she was, et cetera. And now in your political career as a Labour mp, coming to Parliament via a vicious, brutal, dirty battle with the vicious, brutal George Galloway. And you're still standing. So thank you for being here, thank
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C
you for having me.
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B
Thank you so much for joining us. So I obviously first came across you when we were colleagues in Parliament. So before we get back into this extraordinary backstory, in some ways you are an ordinary Member of Parliament doing your job for your constituents. Tell us a little bit about the sort of more understandable, ordinary part of your life and then we'll get back into this extraordinary past.
- [02:31]
C
Well, you guys know politics, you're old hands at this. You know, I'm only a decade in, just over a decade in a normal day is just getting down to London on a Monday morning or a Sunday night, being here till Wednesday or Thursday depending on the business of the House in between Managing free. Although they're, you know, my youngest was three, Rhys was three when I came in. And now they're 14, 18 and 21, 21 year olds at uni. She'll be the first person in my family to have gone to university. My son will be starting university and it's just managing the Friday surgery as all MPs and then carrying on with the day job and struggling along.
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B
One of the things you write about very movingly in your book, which is actually this beautifully written book, is your faith. You write about going on umrah, you write about doing dhikr with your. With your brother. Talk a little bit about your faith, talk about what Islam means to you.
- [03:19]
C
Well, I grew up with a mixture of culture, not faith. And it was cultural, you know, where the patriarch and misogyny comes in. But from a faith perspective. One of my managers recruited me after I'd done all this campaigning for my mum and pointed out Tupac's lyrics were. I had Tupac playing. He said, can we turn it off? And I said, why? He said, the lyrics are misogynistic. And I was like, oh, my God. It took a Muslim man to tell me that Tupac was misogynistic. So that kind of like opened my eyes. And then the first time I met a practicing Muslim who embodied Islam as he lived and he was my boss. And then 911 happened, then there was the Awakening. And then you realize you learn more about it. And the more I learned about it, the more I realized that actually Islam was the answer to the problems that I'd had all my life. And I then used Islam to fight the patriarchy, to fight misogyny, to fight all of these things. And when you get to a place where. It was a big beautiful book that I've read recently and it talks about actualization, self actualization in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When you get to that position where you suspend your need for you as a person and do it for the sake of something bigger than you, which is what Islam teaches you, it gives you much more power, it gives you comfort, and it absolutely. It releases you from the pressures of the world just to be the best
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B
that you can be for a non Muslim audience. How would you describe Islam in relation maybe to Christianity? Are they very similar religions? Are they different? And what's your sense if you were trying to communicate to somebody who was a Christian what it's like to be a Muslim?
- [04:48]
C
So to me, who's, you know, I Left school at 12, I haven't read much I've only just started reading books recently. I think Islam, Christianity, Judaism, all of them, they're Abrahamic faiths. And for me, the basics of Islam are common sense. Christianity is common sense. Judaism is common sense. Any religion is common sense because it's derived from a value. And that value is steeped in human spirit, human spirituality. But I also see when you talk about values, for me it's just the basics of values. How do we behave in the world? What do we leave behind in the world, how we contribute? What is the purpose of life? And to live a life of purpose is ultimately what Islam is.
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B
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C
payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com have you ever felt,
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A
given some of the things that we'll talk about and that you've outlined in this book that you've written, honoured, have you ever felt your faith fundamentally challenged? Because you write a lot about misogyny, about the patriarchy, and from somebody who's coming from outside looking in, it kind of feels almost that that's embedded into the way that men in particular view their faith. And I just wonder whether that never challenged your faith. At the core.
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C
No, at the core it doesn't at the core, if anything, my faith gives me the. Gives me the ability to challenge that notion because there is no patriarchy in Islam. The idea of misogyny. Had there been more Muslims around my mum, rather than men who lived culture where the patriarchy comes from, my mother would not have suffered the abuse that she did. Had Islam been in my orbit, I would have not had a forced marriage at 15, because none of that is allowed. So the idea for me is about the. The title honored is about reclaiming honor for women. Because in Islam, a woman has much more higher status than a man. And there's a beautiful story that I talk about with the Prophet, peace be upon him, was asked, who do I honor first? And he said, your mother. Who do you honor second? Your mother, third, Your mother, and forth your father. And that, for me encapsulates the status of a woman in Islam, which is absolutely miscontrued by men. And that's for the sake of power. That's deep to misogyny.
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B
Can we come back to the whole context of the book? Because it's an extraordinary story, but part of it is a story about people moving from Azad Kashmir, particularly to Bradford, and actually in your case, an extended family. I think your father's father and your mother's father were brothers, so they were first cousins. So tell us a little bit about that world. Where is Azad Kashmir? Why did people from Azad Kashmir come to Bradford? How different is Azad Kashmir from other parts of Pakistan?
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C
So Azad Kashmir was. It's administered as part. Azad Kashmir is occupied by India and part is administered by Pakistan. The Pakistan bit is where I spent two and a half years there. It's very much the people came when the dam was made and post war to help build Britain back. So they were largely economic migrants, largely from working class backgrounds. So they didn't have education as their kind of framing.
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B
When you say working class. They presumably mostly farmers. Were they or is that not yet.
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C
Lots of farmers, lots of manual workers. So they came and worked in the mills. And my father was one of them. My father, albeit, came a lot younger. My mum's brother came when they were younger. So he spoke broad Yorkshire accent, English, you know, my uncle, I remember somebody saying he was one of the Teddy Boys. I remember back in the days, you know, so the young. They came a lot younger. My granddad and he came when, I suppose when he was in his midlife kind of era. So lots of them, when they came here, Rory, they intended to go back. There were economic Migrants wanted to build here, so they held onto the culture back in the 60s and 50s of how Pakistan and Azad Kashmir was, which was very conservative, very rural. And whilst they lived here, they realized they're not going back. So they then called their families over. First, lots of men came over. They used to do shifts in the same bed, you know, night shifts, day shifts, whatever, they. And then they brought their families over. Then they brought their wives over and the children over.
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B
So your father came when he was 6. He went to a school in Bradford. And you describe him very much as, in many ways, a kind of young English boy, young Yorkshireman. But your mother came over when she was 17 and arrived, I think, not speaking very good English, and finds herself suddenly turning up in a completely alien culture, where there's a massive culture clash, presumably between your father and your mother. Even though they're first cousins, they've lived very, very different lives.
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C
Yes. So my mother was raised in a rural village. One of the youngest of her siblings, she didn't speak English. She speaks a lot better now. You know, she can communicate and get along. But, no, at the time, it was very, very different for her. Very alien.
- [10:43]
A
I said in the introduction that one of your earliest memories was of your father beating up your mother. And that seems to have happened a lot in pretty much all of the relationships, the key relationships in her life. And there is a kind of hope in the story when you get to the end, not least you becoming an MP and she gets her sentence reduced and all that stuff. But it's kind of crushingly sad as to read about the experience of this one human being. And I just wonder how you. How you kind of assess it now, looking back on it, looking back on
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C
it at the time when you're going through it, you're putting one foot in front of the other and just getting on with it. You're campaigning, you in fight off. Like, when you get to the other side, there are still conversations I daren't have with my mother. There are still. We had a Bradford launch, literally on Sunday night. Yeah, yesterday. And we had. You know, it was an amazing turnout. Really. Really. My mum was present in the. That was the first time she was present in the audience. And you look at her and I tried to avoid her looking, you know, looking in her eyes. Cause the one thing about my mum's eyes is that they pierce you, you know, and the memories that I have of her, whether it was that time when he was beating her and she was looking at me to go and get Help. Whether it was the day she got convicted in the courtroom and you could see her, or the eyes when I left her at prison for the first time. It's like a child. The look in her eyes is. There's nothing behind. It's really.
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A
You're like the mother and she's the child.
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C
Yes. It's role reversal. So I've got to still look after her, I've still got to be mindful of her. She still relies on me to get her doctor's appointment because she doesn't know how to use the NHS app, you know, so there's a hollowness inside her and it pains me. So if I'm being honest, I avoid having those. Thinking deep. I avoid deep in what my mother's. How she feels. I know she feels really proud that I'm doing what I'm doing. And she's very supportive of the book because she wants things to change, but actually to talk about what she's been through, apart from when we went through the appeal hearing, we don't really. We don't really sit there even now. You don't? Yeah, because we don't have the language for it. In my culture, we don't have the language. There's no word for depression. I've chaired a mental health charity. There's no word for all of these things. How to unpick them. So women don't talk about them, they don't talk about trauma in the concept of trauma, how I understand it. So it's really difficult. So we try to focus on the best things, which is laughing with the kids and reliving her life and looking at the gratitude of what God has given her, despite all the trials she's been through.
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B
You describe scenes where your mother is holding one of your baby siblings and is struck by another man in the house. To what extent is your mother's experience unusual? Or was your sense. When you moved back towards that Kashmir and lived there, were you getting the impression that almost every woman was being physically assaulted by their husbands? I mean, what. What's happening here?
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C
I thought it was a normal thing. I just. Because you don't know it until you're out of it. You think domestic violence is normal because you do come across other people who do beat their wives. And it happens all the time. Right. So we have. I know now we have two women a week that are murdered by their partners or somebody that knows them. We know. We know that women kill themselves. They're driven to suicide because of domestic violence and it wasn't Something you challenged as a child. Now when I look back at it, I think how appalling how, you know, even as you're growing up, you realize it's wrong because it hurts, right? You. When my uncle hit me in Pakistan, it was my uncle, just because he fought the buffalo and the soap, you know, And I got, I got punched, I got winded. I was a kid, Rory, you know, the. The idea that you can just turn around and unleash your fist on a child or a woman. Would that have happened if I was a man? No, it wouldn't happen. And I think it's way too common, much more common than we'd like to
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B
think, presumably living in the village in Pakistan, because it's a very. I mean, you've gone through something which I imagine basically nobody in Parliament's been through, which is that you have experienced really extreme poverty of a different sort to the kind of poverty we have in Britain. There's real poverty in Britain. But you were living in a village in Pakistan as a 12 year old, 13 year old, 14 year old. You had no indoor toilet. You were going out into the bushes. You were looking after a buffalo. You were an extended family compound. It's a tiny village. It's seven hours drive from the nearest airport. I mean, what is that life like? I mean, what's the. Yeah, try to explain to someone what. Because actually about, I would say one. One and a half billion people in the world live in those conditions, but we barely understand the life of people living like that.
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C
So you, you're getting up in the morning, so it's on it. There's a routine every day, so you're getting up early, hours before dawn. You're literally going and cleaning up the buffalo crap and then moving them into another room and tying them up so they can be milked while they're eating. And whilst they're being milked, you clear up that crap so you can then bring them back out into the garden to tie them up. You've got a donkey that you have to load up. You're going out into. Out into. You're buying an area. The family purchased an area where they can chop the wood from every year. Then you're bringing that wood back on the donkey and then you're storing it in a room for it to dry out. And then you can use it for winter fuel. The kitchen is where you're lighting the fire from scratch. That dung, that buffalo dung, you're using your bare hands to turn it into. Imagine a plate upside down onto the Roof so you're carrying it up, you're cleaning it up the bit that's got the bit of hay in it and it's not so clean you take that onto the manure hump so you're putting it in a basket, putting it on your head, walking down the street. At the end of the street is a manure dump then that gets sold to the farmer for fertilizer and then the rest of it you're drying out on the roof so that you can then bring it down on an evening so once it's dry you're storing it and you're using that.
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A
You're not longing for Bradford by that.
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C
Yeah. Oh God, yes I am.
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B
But as Alistair says, you'd been at school in Bradford till you were 12, you were a little Yorkshire girl.
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C
Absolutely.
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B
So what is it like to. I mean my boy's 11, I can't imagine aged 11, 12 suddenly I pluck him out of a British school as a British boy or girl and suddenly he's moving buffalo dung.
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C
Yeah the first few months were absolutely exciting because it's like living on a farm, right and all of a sudden you've got these chickens and you've got the goat and you've got the donkey and you've got these buffaloes and you
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B
don't have to go to school so
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C
much so you don't have to. When I did go to school school I was teaching the headteacher English because their English is very different right and they're very much so I was acing my two exams that I did there, two years that I did there because they were like years behind us in the UK and I've got a good short term memory so I could learn and read and write Urdu anyway so that was helpful but the, but the idea of the daytime then if you are going to school you're washing up dishes so here you got, you've got a scourer, you've got fairy liquid, you've got hot water right that ain't happening in Pakistan. You've got a little metal glass and in that is some sand and you're wiping this cloth on a soap then dipping it in sand for it to become the abrasive to clean the dishes with and then you're washing your clothes and next door is a big slab, not so bigger than this, this desk that we're in front of and it's a stone slab and you've got a bucket of water and you've got this soap and you're washing your clothes by hand. Right. So it's like all of these things and then when you. In, in the. When I went to my auntie's house, they didn't even have water. At least we had a tank in our vil. So we did have a water tank. We had a water tank which was as big as this room and you had to get in it every few months to clean out all the green stuff off it. So you had to jump in it, clean it up, you know, and then it was, it was a fun, it was an exciting thing to begin with. The excitement soon wore off and then into the mix.
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A
You're still in your mid teens and you get married.
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C
Yes.
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A
And presumably this is not a marriage of love.
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C
Oh hell no. God no, it wasn't a marriage.
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A
Tell us about the marriage and tell us how that that made you feel and how that's made you consider some of the issues that you now address as a politician.
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C
So I was out walking the dog with the boys because I was a bit of a tomboy and my cousin pulled me up and she said to me, you can't do that anymore. And I said, why not? She went, because you're going to marry him. That day my world absolutely changed. I was literally 13 or 14, I was younger than 14 at that point.
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B
And he was your cousin?
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C
He was my first cousin, yeah, he was my first cousin.
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B
And he was the guy that you played with, with the dogs?
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C
Yep.
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B
And you just saw him as a
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C
friend, two years older than me. Yep, my cousin. And all of a sudden you're marrying him. So I can't go out and play anym anymore. So my playing days are over. So I've got to behave in a certain way. So that took that, that robbed me of my childhood. And then by the time I was 15, the family wanted me to have a nika and get married. I was, I was, I wasn't 15 at this point. So they were negotiating with my mum. My mum didn't want me to do it, but we had a three minute phone call. The phone call. My mum's in Bradford. So what they do was you get a phone call. So my uncle said, your mum wants you to do it. So I said, only when she tells me this is Uncle Azam. This is not Uncle A, Uncle Azam's in the uk. This is my mum's brother in Pakistan. Yeah. Whose son I ended up marrying. And then you go to a house, imagine a village, there's a few streets and there's only one street, one house that has A phone. So that phone call is only three minutes long. So you've got to get out of your house, climb and go into another house, climb up the roof, go down the roof, the other side to get to the other street. And that three minute phone call, you've lost 40 seconds then. So you've got about 120 to 150 seconds left of his call, if that. And then by time you get to the phone call, the rest of catching up, right, that my auntie, my grandma, whoever it is, and you get a 20 second conversation with your mother. And my mom, I just said to mum, whatever you want me to do, I'll do. It's up to you, I'll do whatever you want. And she said, no, you do whatever you know, I, whatever you want, I'm happy with. That was it. And then the phone was taken off me. So in that miscommunication, she never told me because she thought, she was told that I wanted to get married. I was told she wanted me to get married. And actually when I came back, my mum was really angry. Why did you do it?
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B
And from your uncle's point of view, amongst other things, he wants his son to marry someone with a British passport.
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C
Yeah, absolutely that, you know, you're British, you're gonna get your, it's gonna affect your family status, it's going to affect your economic status, it's going to obviously impact on all of those things. But the bit about the bit before that, the emotional blackmail which I only recognized the forced marriage in my 30s was Imagine. So here's mum, she's a 23 year old with three kids, went to her brother, her husband leaves her, said to her brothers, turned around and said, give up the kids and we'll look after you. She's saying, I'm not giving up my kids. So she loses two brothers. Then my cousin sits me down and says, your mother has got one brother left. She's given up two brothers because of you. For you children.
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B
If you don't, sorry, remind me, how does she give up the two brothers? What did that mean?
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C
Because her brothers said, give up the kids and we'll look after you. And she chose her kid kids. So she lost effectively her two brothers support. So here was one more brother left. She's only got three brothers and that brother, if you do not marry his son, you will then separate them in death, in their graves. The language that was used, you imagine saying that to a 15 year old, you're responsible if your mother loses the last brother, she's Got that's on you. Because she's given up the brothers because of you children, am I right?
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A
That you were in Pakistan in the first place? In part because your mother had recognized that the man she was now with. Uncle Azam.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Was abusing her and potentially abusing you as well.
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C
So she thought that he had designs on me. He said, the grass is greener with your daughter. So when. Before I hit puberty. But by 12, when I was hitting puberty, it was like, go to Pakistan. And she left me there for two and a half years. And then the forced marriage happened at the same time.
- [22:06]
A
And she eventually killed him.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And that is. I mean, she goes through this wave after wave of this story, then suddenly we've got a murder.
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C
Yeah.
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A
I mean, just talk us through that.
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C
Well, she got arsenic from Pakistan. She visited Pakistan as a folklore remedy for sexual drive. So she made him. You know, she killed his libido for a few months because she gave him a dose that would stop him from
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A
escaping, from raping her, and his friends were raping her and all that.
- [22:33]
C
So he went to prison. He literally pimped her from prison for favors. So there wasn't just him. So she went through all this abuse and exploitation and who was.
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B
I'm so sorry. But, you know, was he working? Was he a relative? How did she come across him?
- [22:46]
C
He was a neighbour's nephew. And she needed a house, Rory, she wanted a house. So she sold all the jewelry and said to the neighbors, she went to her brothers, they wouldn't buy the house because she couldn't get a mortgage. So she was cleaning, she was doing voluntary work. She was doing bits and pieces with disabled children, but she couldn't get a mortgage. He bought the house in his name. That was the noose around her neck because she'd give all her jewelry to have the safety of a secure home for her children. The first day he took her to the house, he raped her. And that was what set her life on that trajectory of abuse and sexual abuse. Me and my brother both had tb. You know, we were malnourished. We were living in abject poverty.
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B
You had TB in Britain or in.
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C
Yeah, in Britain. In Britain. Me and my brother both had TB when we were young. So the conditions that we were living in, we had outside toilets. We only ever stayed in one room because it was too cold. We couldn't heat the house. You know, we lived even in Britain at that time. We lived in real poverty. And my mum was a single parent. She didn't know the Language. And ASM came along with bringing fruit for the kids. So to her, he was like a knight in shining armor. And then the neighbors said, well, he's a businessman, he's got a warehouse. Why don't you let him buy the mortgage, get the mortgage on his name and then you can pay him back and when your daughter turns 18, you can transfer the house. That was the noose that kept her in that space. That was the pressure, that was a leverage that he used on her. And this was a fallen woman, remember? So she was a dishonored woman because her husband had left her, because he gets away, she carries a burden of shame. And now, if you imagine, she can't talk about sexual abuse. We don't talk about sex anyway. We don't talk about sexual abuse. And then she's a fallen woman. And this man is a married man as well, you know. So all of this concoction comes together. There is no way she's going to tell anybody about what she's actually going through. So when she did kill him, when he did die, and. And when she went to court, she did not tell the truth at all out of shame. Yep, absolutely.
- [24:40]
A
Your definition of the truth. Do you think if she'd told the truth, I. E. She was being raped, she was being farmed out to his friends and he was pimping her out when he was in jail and he was drug dealing and all that stuff, you think there's a possibility that she might have been let free?
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C
I genuinely think that that is true because even the jury performance stepped up and it was very rare, very unusual. When we did the campaign to go to a court of appeal, he actually came forward and went to the press and said, had I known what I know now, I would have never found her guilty of murder.
- [25:14]
A
Because it was a huge case at the time, wasn't it? It was like, all over the media. And how has your mother come through that? I mean, I'm fascinated by. Because you still describe somebody who, you know, doesn't speak English, doesn't know how to do the NHS app yet she's been through this experience and gets sent, kills somebody, gets sent to jail, doesn't defend herself, almost takes the punishment, and then you campaign and you persuade Jack Straw to part commute the sentence and you get a big campaign going. But I just wonder how your mother comes through it and what you make of your mother today.
- [25:48]
C
So in some ways, we dragged her through it because she was still. I'm not going to talk about this. She was still the concept of izzat, izzat, izzat, which is honor. I can't because of shame, because of, you know what, the prospects for you guys, et cetera in the community. And then we had to literally sit her down and figuratively speaking shake her head and say to her, look, who's is he trying to protect? The brothers who abandoned you, the community who abandoned you. You know, all of this, we're serving that sentence with you. You know, we lost the house, the house went back to Uncle Azam's estate. You know, we lost all of that. We became homeless again. You know, I spent nights in a crack house. You know, the poverty that we had, the psychological impact it had on my brother. From a star model student, he was only 13, you know, who went to truanting, smoking, all of these things. My sister was sent to Pakistan. Just before she got arrested, my mum was sent to Pakistan. I had to get her back to stop her from having the same fate that I did of a marriage to another cousin who was lined up for her. So all of these things we had to really say to my mum, who are you trying to protect? You know, we want you home. So then she agreed to tell her story, but it was like washing your dirty linen in public. Even at the time it was horrific for her and even now me writing this book, that's why it's taken me 10 years from when I was first offered a book deal to actually get to it. Because the amount of stuff that you've got to deal with, the amount of pain that you've got to go through to write it and then to take, take your family on that journey with you because my sister and my brother didn't they love the inspiration of a story. My sister said to me very frankly last week it's an inspiring story, but I just wish it wasn't ours, you know, because it's painful for them.
- [27:26]
B
When you were first getting involved in politics 10 years ago, how much of this did you talk about openly? Or have you become more confident talking openly about these kind of things? Over the last 10 years, I've become
- [27:38]
C
more confident talking about them. I've become more responsible for talking about them because you have to be, you have to. You know, if Islam says something beautiful, which is what do you give, what God will ask you, you, what you did with the gifts that I gave you. And the gift I've got is power, right? It's a platform. So what do I do with that platform if I'm not going to make it better for others. And even by talking about this, talking about sexual abuse, talking about izzat and honor, because it still happens, there are still girls and boys who are forced into marriage, who are coerced into marriage. They might not even recognize it because they see it as it's a normal, done thing. That's what parents do. No, it isn't. And to be able to stand up, to give them the confidence to say, look, this is not okay. And. And to get the community to move and shift, you have to then give confidence to people to talk about it.
- [28:25]
B
And do you have people from the community or indeed politically, saying, you can't say any of these things because you're going to give a bad reputation to our community?
- [28:33]
C
No. So so far, I can honestly say to you, the amount of. And my. If you'd have been in Bradford last night, you know, looking at the people that were there last night, it was two nights ago, you know, you would see all the businesses in Bradford, the Pakistani men who were proudly supporting me.
- [28:49]
B
And this is so interesting, because your mother's fear around Izzet would have been that by talking openly about this, you would shame yourself. And in fact, you had a great success. You've become a public figure, you've been elected. People from these communities are voting for you in Bradford. That's another side of it which is difficult to understand. So tell us about that other side, that positive side, where you're getting men from this community instead of ostracizing you in the way that your mother feared, in fact, supporting you, voting for you, making a member of Parliament. What's going on there? I mean, this is another interesting thing.
- [29:20]
C
So there's one member of a family who's spoken to another member of family saying why she done this, didn't she? Because I went viral when I stood for Parliament in 2015, when I got selected on International Women's Day, I put out a blog because I was against Galloway, right? And we know Galloway doesn't have reputation for his supporters, certainly don't have a reputation for a clean, clean campaign. So I thought, well, he's going to drag this up, so I might as well claim it and put it out there. So I wrote a blog inspired by Barack Obama's dreams of my father. Mine was dreams for my mother and my daughter, because I have a daughter. And then it went viral and that's when it turned. It was like a little by election campaign where everybody turned up and we really put their effort into it, won the seat. So I talked about it then and
- [30:02]
A
did he not try to make out that the story wasn't real? Oh yeah, forced marriage.
- [30:06]
C
So somebody posed as my dead father in Pakistan and got a copy of my second Ghana. So the legal, the law here, you cannot be married at 15, you can only be married at 16. Now it's changed to 18, rightfully so and so we had to re register the nigger when I was 16. So when I went back to Pakistan at 16 I had a second Nikah registered. So in the same building you had two marriage certificates. So he was. So somebody went poses. My dead father pulled out and in the hustings, the first hustings he pulled out my Nika Naaman said she is lying. She wasn't 15 and it wasn't a forced marriage because her mother was there and it was like mate, you're so off for it, you know and he just, you know, he carried on like that but hey that's, that's history as it is. But he, A lot of women's rights campaigners spoke up because what he did was undid a lot of the work that we've done around forced marriage and in and stuff around, you know, your parents. The fact that your parent was there, your parent might have put you into his forced marriage in the first instance so he got condemned a lot for that. But what I didn't talk about was how we got through those years, you know, what it was actually like. So the campaign is out there. My mum's story is very much out there. It's in, you know, anybody can go to the Court of Appeal, look through the documents and see all of that. I've got documentary on BFI from 20 something years ago in 20, 26 years ago, a young me still with a cigarette in my hand and my cat, you know. But now it's like reflecting on all that. You get to a stage where pre menopause kind of thing in my 50s and it's what do I do with all of this, this, you know, how do you tell this story? I wanted to tell my story in 2015. I'm glad it, I didn't at the time. I'm glad I'm doing it now because I'm wiser so, you know, it's just a influence I suppose.
- [31:44]
A
And do you worry that in a way because it is such an extraordinary story, you've now put it into a book that will be kind of there forever, as it were. Do you worry about being defined by this issue as a politician?
- [31:56]
C
No, because that's up to Me, isn't it? It's up to what I do with it. So some people. So for me, the thing I want to be defined by is my fight for justice, and that is it. And that justice could be in other forms. So the idea. So I did the assisted dying building. I was on the build committee and I was fighting around vulnerability and safety. So safety and justice go hand in hand for me.
- [32:17]
B
Just sorry to explain, you were worried that some vulnerable people could be pressured into assisted dying.
- [32:22]
C
So the idea of coercion, because coercion is so subtle and if you're not an expert in it, it's really, really hard to. Hard to pick up. So coercion and anorexia was another thing for that.
- [32:33]
B
So, interestingly there within the layperty, you've got a colleague who's pushing hard for this bill and assisting dying, and you're sounding notes of caution. And that's partly your experience of coercion, it's partly your faith leading you to be more cautious around these things.
- [32:46]
C
Yes, absolutely, Rory. I have a responsibility to safeguard, and that's when. Because I don't want that injustice to happen. So that is what I want to be defined by. I want to be defined by leadership. I want to be defined by. She's brave enough to put her head above parapet, but that's on any issue, although it stems from my. It stems from who I. What my experience and lived experiences. But the jury's bill, you know, that's coming through the. The. All of these things. I want to be able to contribute to them.
- [33:10]
A
And do you worry? One worry I had reading through the book was I was sort of putting myself in the mindset of a kind of Nigel Farage or a Richard Tice or one of these reform people, thinking, you read this book and say, you know, this shows that we're right, we. We should not try to mix our cultures in the way that has happened and therefore mass immigration has failed. Do you worry that this paints a picture of this part of Pakistan and its impact on a place like Bradford in a way that actually your political opponents would exploit and use against you?
- [33:46]
C
So I had to think about that. I'd be very naive and silly if I didn't think about that. But here's the first. I give an example. When I was campaigning for my mum, people would come up to me for the petition for Jack Straw saying, now I support you, but I can't put my name to this now. In 2016, a girl was taken, went from Bradford. My constituent was brutally raped and murdered Samia Shahid in Pakistan. It was a clear so called honor killing. Now in 2019, I had an event, so I support Islamic Reeves campaign for honor her. And it's a campaign to literally claim that word back. And when I did an event, 25 of the top Pakistani businessmen put their names on those tables and sponsored them and sponsored the campaign for honour her. So communities shift. It was only over 100 years ago that a woman threw herself in front of the king's horse, right? To change things. You know, 50% of the population of women, we gave birth to the other 50%. That doesn't mean to say you throw every man out with the bathwater. What you do is you change the culture and you change the mindset. So you change the culture of parliament and the institution itself. And that's what you did. But you do that by working with those communities, not against those communities.
- [34:55]
A
Okay, now it's a really quick break. Then back for more.
- [35:00]
C
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- [35:33]
B
And one of the things I think so wonderful about you is that you're taking a huge risk, which is that by being honest, you think you can solve the problem more clearly if you're honest about what the problem is. Whereas a lot of us feel maybe if we don't talk about it, we don't have to confront it because it will help our enemies by talking about it. Tell us about, how would you explain maybe to an international audience because this has become so politicized in the U.S. the issue around grooming gangs. What was that story? What went wrong? What should we do about it?
- [36:02]
C
So back in 2013 12, before I had political ambitions, I worked with a guy, a really amazing guy called Ansa Ali, who set up together Against Grooming in Bradford. We remember we did a sermon Friday, sermon for all the mosques. And at the time, we think it was the first time it was ever done in the history of Islam. But I know it was the first time it was ever done in the UK where we campaigned to get every mosque to condemn grooming, to talk about it and talk about child sexual exploitation. This was before the Robinsons and the Laxley Yennens and Rupert Lawrence Laws talked about grooming. So we Stood by the victims and the community stood by the victims. And what happened was it then got. You had the selective outrage for victims from people like Tommy Robinson and others who then. And then the first there were campaign, you know, this idea that Muslims haven't stood up against this. That is one for the birds and the bees because we have got a track record, but that never makes the press. We've got a track record. I remember being on TV talking about this before my political career. So there is absolutely. It is not racist to say there is a pertinent model of abuse, of grooming, of street grooming where the abuser is of Pakistani heritage. That is not racist to say. Right. What is not right is to say every Pakistani is like that. That's not okay. So what do you do when we do the drink driving campaign? We didn't go to the churches on a Sunday to talk to people about not drinking on a Saturday night and getting drink driving home. We went to the pubs and the clubs and a public health campaign to try and shift a culture and a mindset. And it's the same. You don't go to right wing press to talk about the issues. You'd go to work with those communities. And where I think we failed is we've not talked to them communities and we've allowed the banging of the noise to drown out what the actual community says.
- [37:52]
A
So what's your, what's your honest assessment of the state of first of all that issue, but also that your assessment of the relations between the Pakistani community in Bradford and the white working class community in Bradford.
- [38:08]
C
So my honest opinion is that I think we have lots and lots of miscommunication. I think that is fanned and fueled through the media. I think we need to build a lot of bridges. I think we need to be stronger. The Muslim community. Now when I said in parliament not so long ago, you know, Muslims stand with victims of grooming. Lots of people WhatsApp me and said thank you. Finally, finally, finally. Because it's been lost because people shrink and people shrink when you get attacked. And when people shrink, it doesn't give you the confidence to talk about these things. So it's about reclaiming that space. And that's down to people in positions of leadership. And we need to do that more forcefully about Pakistanis against grooming. I need to claim that space back to say this is what Muslims actually stand for. That's on me and that's on the community to be more confident. But we need to give them that confidence because they've shrunk because of Islamophobia and the attacks that they get, so many different things.
- [38:58]
B
And I think there's another thing that Alistair was pushing towards there. But just to connect two threads in this, is there a connection between that culture of izzat honor domestic abuse that you experienced with your father and your mother's boyfriend? Does that also create some of the background for the grooming gangs?
- [39:19]
C
So there is, I'll tell you what, creates a background for grooming or anything, and specifically, it's about power juxtaposed with vulnerability. And what really irks me, really irks me is that the idea that it was because of racism that we didn't tackle it, that is reverse racism in itself. Because if you have an issue, and this is Rory, my bane of my life is Bradley politics in Bradford and patriarchy. And that is about the Labour Party not dealing with block voting and selecting their candidates because they're Labour Party members. And that's been going on for years. When you don't deal with that issue because you're afraid of what the community say, that's racism. You wouldn't treat any other community. So don't you tell me that you're actually being racist by not dealing with it. So, for me, the idea that those people in positions of power, and this has never been looked at, and this is what I'm really pleased that we're starting to look at, is what about those police officers in South Yorkshire Police at the time who said, said, no, they didn't treat them girls like humans. They did not see them. And it took a Muslim man, it took Nazir Afsal to prosecute, it took a Muslim man to see those victims as victims and human beings worthy of justice. That's what it took. So when I look at that, it irks me the idea that, you know, these liberal white people who thought, oh, well, we can't do this because of culture. No, no, no, that's not. You wouldn't do that to any of a culture. So white. Why do that to this culture or dismembers of these communities?
- [40:43]
A
Just broadening out the sort of bigger picture of your political career. You've been a front bencher, but then you left the front bench because you voted in a particular way on Gaza. Your majority was trimmed very, very substantially.
- [40:57]
C
Understatement.
- [40:58]
A
Because I assume largely because of Gaza.
- [41:01]
C
Yeah.
- [41:02]
A
Just talk me through, from your perspective, what that issue has been like to deal with as an MP in, in Bradford West.
- [41:09]
C
So my constituency, I've got the largest Muslim constituency in the UK and there's 60%. You know, I'm born there, raised there. Palestine is something that also politicized me without a shadow of doubt. The, the thing for me was, what really upset me more was that I'd done so much on Palestine and it was the. And. But I also recognize it was difficult to recognize.
- [41:28]
B
You were fired by Jeremy Corbyn for being more outspoken on Palestine than Jeremy Corbyn.
- [41:33]
C
Yes, so I was, I was suspended for anti Semitic Semitism. Right. So.
- [41:37]
B
And then what were you accused of doing? What was the exercise?
- [41:39]
C
I tweeted out during the 2014 Gaza, when the war in Gaza happened, and I tweeted out things and then I'd.
- [41:47]
B
But this was you. You put an image of Israel.
- [41:49]
C
Israel inside of America. Same transportation. You know, why don't we just take Israel to America? It was a Finkelstein's meme. And then when I was suspended, I went and did the non political thing, which was. Worked with the Jewish community and didn't do it for, for the tick box exercise. I genuinely, I didn't understand it and I was very, very honest about that because I didn't understand it. To me, anti Semitism was the hatred of Jews and I don't hate Jews. My first official engagement as a member of Parliament was going to my local synagogue and Rudy Lever, may he rest in peace, he was very, very. He then came out and said, she's not anti Semitic. I'd been to a Cedar the week before, you know, with Rabbi Laura Jana Klausner. And she was like, well, no, she's not anti Semitic. So I was like, okay, so how do I apologize rather than trying to make a reason, you know, this is why, etc.
- [42:36]
B
What did you learn through that experience from sitting down with Jewish community and thinking about Israel?
- [42:40]
C
Well, what I bought to Victor from my mind, which was from my background, was compassion. And what I got was compassion. I went into a synagogue, I was open and honest with the people in the synagogue who were very angry with me, rightly so. They thought I was a core minister. You've got to remember, remember, I didn't know left and right politics. I came into politics of fairness and justice. As naive as that sounds, I'm still in that space. So for me it wasn't that. And they had an assumption that I was this Corbinista. I'd never met Jeremy Corbyn before he'd become, before he became the leader of a party. You know, I'd become PPS to John McDonald. I'd never actually Met him before, you know, so it was like. So to me, it was about making sure that people understood that I don't have this hard left politics. There was an assumption that because I'm from Bradford and I'm Muslim and that's where I'm going to. And actually my big fight was around patriarchy. And then the Jewish community were very. Mark Gardner from CST came to see me the next day and actually said to me, you know, this is what it is. And then I thought, oh, okay, I get it. And when I got it, I was open about getting it. I wasn't trying to do the political spin of the world.
- [43:41]
B
You know, what had you not understood about anti Semitism before?
- [43:44]
C
So what I didn't understand, Rory, was the narratives. I understand it in the context of Islamophobia because of my experiences. I didn't understand that when you talk about Jews as a. A collective and use the tropes that you use, it creates that hatred, it creates that division, and it targets the community. And that Jews here are not responsible for the actions of Netanyahu, albeit, wasn't Netanyahu time. The Jews here are not, you know, the idea that we lump people together and hold them responsible. And that is what, you know, I. I'd learned about Anne Frank when I was at school, but I left at 12. But I didn't understand the Holocaust in all its horror, horrors. You know, I knew the horrors of people dying. I knew the, you know, I'd learned about the shoes and the hair and all of these things I understood from Anne Frank's diary. But I was very, very young. But I didn't understand how that manifested like it does. And I see it as Muslims now, how Muslims are treated in the press, how we talk about Muslims. It makes more sense. And once Mark made that analogy to me, it clicked and it dropped. And I'm like, okay, so it's not about just hating people. It's more than that. It's how it's is structured and manifests. And that understanding was what I was missing.
- [44:52]
A
So there's somebody coming from the Jewish community and somebody who's charged with protecting the Jewish community. Explains something. And you get it. But I wonder how you feel about the issue of Gaza, like, now today, Rory. And I've been pointing out on the, on the podcast that the. There's a real risk that with all the stuff that Trump does, and particularly in recent weeks, Iran, that Gaza's just keeps dropping further down the agenda.
- [45:16]
C
Yeah.
- [45:17]
A
And I just wonder whether what you've just described was an incredibly reasonable approach to something. Whether there's a danger, you, you lose a bit of the fire or whether that fire is still burning.
- [45:27]
C
Oh, God, that fire still burns. That fire still burns. On the Palestinian issue, I just saw Hossam Zomlo, the Palestinian ambassador, last night. I'm really, really pleased that we've recognized Palestine. I'm really, really pleased. I'm not happy with this board of peace that's trying to, you know, I'm not convinced that it's going to achieve anything where it's going. And the actors that are on that, you know, the right wing kind of bad fear factors. I'm not convinced that Trump's going to resolve that. I think it needs more leadership. You know, I am very, very much about peace in the Middle east. And I just. What's happening at the moment is. It is painful. It's painful because when I came into politics, I remember the day that Trump moved in his last term, moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem, and I was literally in tears. And one of my mentors said to me, me, God doesn't ask you to. You're not responsible for that. God asks you to do the best that you can do. That's all you have to do. So I realized, actually, yes, because I couldn't have stopped it. I couldn't have done anything. But that did, did damage to the Palestinian cause. You know, where we need to get back to. I think we're lacking leadership on these issues now. I feel we have like, it's kind of like a, you know, bankruptcy of intellectual thought and leadership on, on these issues. And that worries me. So I'm very, very, very much, very, very much in that space of peace in the Middle East. But I understand a lot more in depth now of how geopolitics works.
- [46:45]
B
Tell us a little bit then about how you analyze Israel's position, its military strength, what it's doing in Iran, what it's doing in Gaza, what it's doing in Lebanon, its perception of itself as vulnerable, other people's perception of it as very powerful and aggressive. What's your sense about Netanyahu's government?
- [47:02]
C
My sense of Netanyahu's government is it's, it's not brilliant. It's not brilliant. It's not good for Israel, it's not good for peace in the region. His right wing rhetoric is very concerning. It's not just his rhetoric. The idea of the previous guy, I forget his name, saying that, you know, Turkey is the next Iran. Yeah, that was it. That is A worrying conversation. That's a worry, I think anywhere across the world. That the idea of how we're moving into that right wing space, I think we need to go back to the centre. I think that needs, that needs some real effort by other people. And I'm genuinely, really pleased with the position we took in the last week.
- [47:40]
B
And on your constituents in Bradford, presumably they would be a little bit blunter and more outspoken on this issue than you are. I'm listening to you. It's become quite sort of. It's the only time you sounded more like a politician.
- [47:52]
C
Yes, I do. So one of the things that I've realised, Rory, is you come in here and add a conversation today. This morning I had a meeting. My first one was the National Police Chiefs Council, chair of a National Police Chiefs Council on the issue of Islamophobia and the definition and how we need to work on it. And I said to Gavin this morning, I said, look, I said, you come in here and you want to change the world and then you realize it's not by bashing and saying it publicly that the change happens. The change happens in conversations behind the doors and it happens when you convene people and you find allies in your issues. It's not about, you know, grandstanding and looking out in the chamber and being able to say it forth and forcefully. Will that change anything? Will that. You know, as I said this to the independents after the bruising election that I had by, you know, I held on by 707 votes. The only reason they didn't win was because they were crap at campaigning. If they were half as good as me, trust me, I wouldn't have been here, you know. So one of the things I've realized with that campaign is, yes, you get it off your chest, you say what you need to say, but what then? What next? What have you achieved because you felt better? But we do not have the moral authority to be outraged whilst there's still things to be done on Palestine. And that does not take me shouting, that takes me having conversations like politicians to convince people and make the case. And we need to do more of that.
- [49:09]
A
My last question, bringing it closer to home, what's your analysis of how Labour has gone from three figure majority landslide to a place now where people are openly speculating that Nigel Farage could be prime minister, that Keir Starmer probably won't last? The cause that we're below the greens in the polls. Two questions. How have we got there and can we get out of there sufficient for you with your 707 majority to get back in, okay?
- [49:41]
C
So my majority I'm less concerned about. And the reason I'm less concerned about that is because. Because I know my community was upset with the Labour Party, not me, right? So that's my responsibility to convince them I'm the best MP for them, right? So that I'm less worried about. And I'm being really honest, I'm less worried about Faraj simply because I know that in the elections, local elections, when they take over more councils, as they've been doing and making a crap of it and not knowing how it works, because they want to, you know, shooting from the hip, they've not got leadership. Once you scratch the surface of Faraj's talking points, there isn't any depth there. Once that becomes apparent current and the election isn't till 2029, I think it will be really, really, it will be. We'll be able to take a stronger case to re electorate. That's what I genuinely think. Call me naive, but I genuinely am an optimist in terms of where we got to. I think we scored some serious home goals, you know, with the winter fuel allowance, with the child cap benefit. You know, I gave one of the things when you get into politics and you realize that when you get into government, you know, it was a new thing for us as after nine years, not opposition. Am I going to vote against the government who I've just been elected with, or am I just going to make my position clear by not voting with it? But I'm not going to vote against it. And those are difficult, you know, conversations you have to have. And then you'll know this better than anybody, guys, you know, is it the hill that you die on? Because there might be a bigger hill around the corner and you've got to make them assessments. So for me, for the child to child capital issue, you've the party committed to a, you know, a review and to be honest, they didn't need that to tell them they should have just done in the first place, you know, the winter fuel allowance. Again, home goals. How I think we've got there, I just think were we ready for government? We had so much crap in the nine years before and it was swallowed up in your time, remember with party gate and all of these things that we didn't have the kind of robust political debates that we should have been having because the parliamentary time was concerned. It became culture wars and it became all of them things. And I think we should have been more prepared and I think you know, and I'm glad. As much as I liked Morgan as a person, I think the factionalism was not healthy for us. That was not healthy for us at all because you have to have differences of opinions and we didn't create the space for that. And since Morgan's gone, I think that has already shifted.
- [51:56]
A
So do you think Keir will be the leader at the next election and can win it?
- [51:59]
C
I don't know if he'll be the leader of the Labour Party in the next election. I genuinely don't know. But how he's behaved in the last few weeks has been. There has been a marked shift. I was in the PR LP when he walked in the day before, day after Morgan left and the stand. Innovation he got. Because the one thing that we need to, as Labour MPs, we need to understand is what we can't have is the chaos of the last government. And that was after Prime Minister, after Prime Minister, and after Prime Minister. We can't have that. But equally, how do you balance it? And I'm. And it's, you know, it's not something that I'm thinking. I am thinking about it, but it's not my ultimate decision. It's down to the hall of a plp. Do we want to get to that chaos? But then how do we respond to people not liking Kier? And there has been a shift in the last two weeks that I've seen, and I'm just like, okay, I'm gonna rethink this now. You know, that's genuinely where I'm at. But, you know, I'm one of those Fig 3 signatories to the letter which said we should have let Andy Vernon back in, because even if it wasn't to challenge him, if it was to bring. If you've got the best, you've got your best horse outside, you bring him into the. You know, you bring him on the track, he helps you change that, shift that narrative. And we should have done that. And I don't think. I think that was bad optics of us from Kier, from a leadership perspective, because you don't run away from challenges. When you lead, you put your foot forward, not back.
- [53:16]
B
I guess, returning to the question of the Buraddery, which is, I guess, these brotherhoods or these male networks. You were talking about Andy Burnham and of course, that was relevant because we're by election. It's a by election that the Green Party just won. And they won it partly through leaflets and Urdu statements about Modi appealing to the Brady. I Mean, what's going on there? What's, what's the Green Party up to? And do you think that's the right way to campaign?
- [53:42]
C
Okay, I think that's all parties are guilty of that one, Rory. You know, I remember the Tories putting out leaflets in Hindi not so long ago. So there's no.
- [53:49]
B
And then tell us about that because I don't think people know about that. So, okay, so the Tories put out
- [53:53]
C
leaflets about in certain areas where there was a Hindu majority communities in Hindi language. And that was just in the last general election. You know, people, community.
- [54:03]
B
So appealing in that case to Hindu communities against Muslim and Sikh communities.
- [54:07]
C
Yes. So there's the culture politics. And it comes back to the idea of where we've gone wrong in the last 10 years. Even we've gone down this road where we've allowed culture politics and culture wars to invest our politics. What didn't happen in Denton, which I really, really do take issue with, it wasn't secretarian voting. That was not the case. And it wasn't brotherly politics. It was people, people who were the young Muslim community, just like the ones in Bradford west, who did not like the leadership. You know, didn't, didn't like the labor leadership for one reason.
- [54:35]
B
Why did young Muslims not like the labor leadership?
- [54:37]
C
Well, because on Gaza and where the way the economy is going under home goals that we've made haven't exactly covered isn't glory. So we've got a lot of, not just young Muslims, the white working class communities as well don't exactly love us at the moment, do they? Let's be honest. So we've got a lot of work to do. And here was a fresh person, local, local working class saying, do you know what, I'm going to go. And I remember speaking to one guy in Goaton because I went and dawnled and he said, and he actually said to me, he said, oh, she's been to all the Palestinian rallies. And she said, he said this to me. And I said, yeah, but you know, it was our government that gave recognition. And he said to me, and I actually went into his house to pray because I was fasting and, and he said, I think he still voted the Green candidate to be fair, you know, but he was, he was like, I'm just fed up of mainstream politicians and that's enough narrative across the board right
- [55:22]
B
now on the sectarian thing or non sectarian thing, do you think we should be a little cautious of putting out leaflets, Tories appealing to Hindus against Sikhs and Muslims Or Labour appealing to Muslims against. I mean, it begins to feel a bit like Northern Ireland when you start. And the problem is that you're reinforcing division, you're reinforcing community tension, you're reinforcing tensions between people.
- [55:48]
C
I'm not sure I agree with that. So here's the thing, right? I remember Nigel Farage attacking me when the, that last election happened and I put out a video in Urdu, right. I've got language skill set and I've got older people. Like my mother doesn't understand fluent English, right. But she's not divided. She's very much part of a community. You know, she gets a train up and down London and she goes to, you know, she knows how to make her way around all the charity shops and there ain't no Asian person.
- [56:11]
B
Okay, maybe not language. Okay. I, I'm very happy you're communicating in a different language, but I, I guess if the messages are deepening diversity between Muslim, Hindu and Sikh communities or between white communities and non white communities, that's not a good thing, right?
- [56:25]
C
Yeah, that isn't a good thing. I completely agree with you 100% on that. When we're going out to the electorate and when we're talking in a different language to be able to communicate those who don't necessarily have English as their first language or as fluent English, and we're talking about policies, we should be, the language should be equal across the board. Translated it shouldn't be that as Muslims. But having said that, that one thing I will caveat that with is when I'm talking to my lecturer in Bradford and the Tories have been. Have a problem with Islamophobia. If you think I'm not going to talk about it, you've got a different thing coming. Because the Tories would not give us a definition in 2017. We were looking for a definition of Islamophobia. I am going to use that where they failed that community and they've targeted that community. So I am going to be saying reform is. This is what reform thinks about. This is a narrative that reform uses. This is. It absolutely divides that I won't apologize for, for. But ultimately it's about the policies. And you will find, I promise you, in my constituency, the I, I had a text from, you know, when the, when the business stuff was happening from one of my leading business guys who will still vote for me. But it was like your labor government. No. And he sent me an article. I get that all the time. But so, so you've still got the policies affect the communities and you know, Bradford has got more startups than anywhere outside of London, I can promise you. Every person wants to be a businessman, wants to be self employed and they want to create wealth. Right, right. Wealth creation is not a bad thing. Progressive politics for me and progressive socialism is not a bad thing. How do you instill that? That comes back to our policies. That doesn't come back to whether you like the Muslims or not. That comes back to wealth creation is wealth creation. And poverty ain't asking you whether you're white or black or brown. Poverty affects you all. The kid, the lad in Bradford to the lad in Barnsley. White, working class, Asian, Muslim, working class. The same issues affect the all. That's what we need to be talking about. That's what we need to take to our electorate and that's what we're not doing well enough.
- [58:15]
A
Well said. I also, I think this thing about sector, I hated the way that on the back of Gordon and Denton they
- [58:22]
B
talked about sectarianism, including Keir Starmer, your leader.
- [58:24]
C
Yeah.
- [58:25]
A
Because it just felt to me like the Greens had put together a very effective bioelectric campaign and they targeted key demographics.
- [58:33]
B
I, I didn't, I don't mind talking demographics. What I mind is if you're increasing community tension by pitting people against each other.
- [58:39]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and you know, we've had, you've definitely had it in Bradford at times, you've had it in Leicester at times where essentially conflicts that are happening in other parts of the world come in. And really, of course it is.
- [58:50]
B
And I also get a bit nervous when people start taking on the battles from abroad. So, you know, I, I, and I, I'm going to equally offend all the parties here. Right, you've got, I have Conservative of colleagues literally taking Modi's line on Kashmir and Hamrick through the House of Commons, I'm afraid largely because his voter base and Harrow wants him to do that. I have labor colleagues speaking in Urdu to Pakistani television, taking Pakistani lines, got Bangladeshi colleagues taking lines on different political allegiances in Bangladesh.
- [59:26]
A
And you've got reform taking Donald Trump, Trump's lines. Right.
- [59:28]
B
And actually, you know, often Israelis will say it's an anti Semitic trope to talk about people taking Israeli lines. But I'm trying to say that it isn't actually just about that happening with Israel, it's happening with Cyprus, it's happening with Kashmir, happening in Crossroads. At some level, one's got to say, you're a British Member of Parliament, what we've got to think about is the British national interest, not the question of what somebody's relative, relatives back home.
- [59:55]
A
What happened Global Britain, this is what was created by your government.
- [60:00]
C
That's it. That comes back to it, doesn't it? It comes back down to Palestine, where we're at with the Balfour Declaration. I remember when we were celebrating 100 years of Balfour Declaration, I went in and spoke, yes, we can celebrate the part that was delivered. But there was a part that wasn't delivered, mate. And we need to, as Britain, we have an obligation, so we have to. Kashmir is exactly the same stuff now. People of heritage, of Kashmir heritage. And there's a whole generation still, you know, very, very knock everything that happened. Every time that something happens in Kashmir, the Kashmir groups go to their MPs, have lots of pictures and, you know, and what worries me is that there's not the younger generation involved in that conversation. I want to start that conversation up more because it's an injustice and it's an inequality and we have a responsibility for that. And I think we abdicate our responsibility at this time because we are big.
- [60:46]
B
But we also have to accept that sometimes communities have to be challenged because they can be too close to, to the conflict. They're too embedded in a particular view. And I'm an equal offender. I want to challenge pro Israeli, pro Palestinian, pro Indian, pro Pakistani, pro Turkish, pro Greek. I want to challenge them because people are not objective. They can't look at these things cleanly. They come from where they come and somebody needs to step back and say, what is the UK national interest here? Not what does this particular community think from their particular view about the news?
- [61:22]
C
Yeah, no, no, I get it. Right. So I would be, you know, when everybody turns up and I have said this to the community at times, you know, whenever turns up for a Kashmir photo and I said, guys, you know, if you did this when we have an education policy or something else that the Tories did, it'd be really, really helpful. You know, you have that and you have that in a humorous way. And with Pakistan, you know, I, I get frustrated. What's happening at the moment in Pakistan with Imran Khan and my constituents, no matter where they're from, they have a belonging, a sense of belonging to their home country, to immigrants. Right. And then that sense of belonging isn't just about race and where you've come from. It is that kind of Farage and Trump belonging, of values that are aligned, you know, how do you then separate? It's the same thing with right wing politics. Whether it's Victor Orban, whether it's, you know, all of these right wing people who are coming together and talking about things. So for me, what really worries me and keeps me up at night is we don't have that kind of leadership in politics anymore. So we had this layer of the last kind of leader. I mean, Hamdani kind of books a trend, but the last kind of leader was the Obama esque type. And after that, all we've got is the Trumps and the Farages and all the rest of it. Where's the next tier of leadership? Where's the leadership that steps up? And Zach Polanski I don't think is the answer. You know, I don't think all of them carries. The problem is you've got the charisma on social media, which is two minutes of a nice speech and, and all airy fairy. But the detail of that and you know, you guys have been in government, you know what it's like, the detail of how it actually works at the petrol pump, at the dining table, when it costs you, your bananas cost more or your milk costs more or your bread costs more and it costs you more for your shoes and all of these things and taxes and all of these things. They've got a clue about that stuff. They ain't got a clue. Farage hasn't got a clue. And it is Tory 2.0 the way he's carrying on, let's be honest, right? And then you've got Polanski, who talks a good talk, but where does, does it, where's the actual detail of how to run institutions? How do you. Where's that leadership? And for me, pushing against Farage is about offering, making an offer to the electorate because, you know, there is, and like I said, poverty ain't looking at what race you belong to. It ain't looking at whether you're white working class or whether you're brown working class. It is, it is just poverty.
- [63:35]
A
Certainly not looking at Nigel Farage.
- [63:37]
C
No, definitely not. Hell.
- [63:38]
A
Anyway, listen, lovely to talk to you. Well done with the book. It's an amazing, amazing read it really.
- [63:42]
C
Thank you.
- [63:43]
A
And yeah, I think about your mum quite a lot.
- [63:46]
B
Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us.
- [63:47]
C
Thank you for having me.
- [63:51]
A
Well, she is quite a woman and it's quite a story.
- [63:56]
B
It's an incredible story. And as you say, I know very few people who communicate as accurately and clearly the sort of warts and all story of some of the things that are happening within the community. In Bradford, for example, I mean, she. It slightly reminds me of when we interviewed Angela Rayner, who I thought was far better communicator, more relaxed, more funny, more open about her own child of extreme poverty than most kind of sociologists or politicians talk about it. I thought the moment that really revealed her as a communicator was just the naturalness and the detail with which she talked, talked about her life in the village in Nazam Kashmir. Every detail of exactly how you move the buffalo dung around for the roof, for the fertilizer, for that. Yeah.
- [64:42]
A
It's also the reason I was interested in her being defined by this, because it is an extraordinary book and anybody who reads it will just think this, you know, even some. Somebody like me, it's very hard to compute that here's an MP that sits in Parliament and this is the life that she led and this is where her politics have come from. But she is a great communicator. She really is. And I thought it was fascinating as well, the way she, you know, you pointed out to get. To get done by Jeremy Corbyn for anti Semitism when he was leader of the Labour Party, you've got to be kind of out there. And yet she, unlike a lot of the Corbynistas, who I think went away and basically said, oh, we're the victims of this, we're being sort of misrepresented, etcetera, she went away on a kind of voyage of discovery to say, why did I make that mistake and why didn't I understand it?
- [65:30]
B
You'll see in the, you know, but I mean, when people go on Wikipedia and research her, they'll see that she retweeted stuff on the grooming gangs and on Israel, which absolutely feeds into a far right narrative where she was portrayed as profoundly anti Semitic, defense of the grooming gangs. But what becomes clear when she talks is that isn't her position at all. In fact, she, I think, is genuine in trying to really put effort into understanding the Jewish community. And she is brutal in her criticism of the grooming gangs and the failure to act on them. I mean, your point is, it's got to be the big point underlying all this, which is it's a bit like, you know, in a tiny way, people often say to me, you know, how can you be so rude about Parliament and policy as you're going to put people off? You know, how can she be so rude about her community without worrying that, you know, the far right is going to exploit that? Yeah, yeah, because I guess if you're from the right. Listening to this, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. As you said, this can sort of confirms people's approaches.
- [66:35]
A
Sent away at 12, forced marriage with a cousin, boyfriends farming out women for rape. I mean, it sort of plays into that, that agenda. What she was trying to say, I think, is that unless people like her stand up against it and challenge it and define it in a different way, then it won't change. She was. I think she was trying to tell us that things are changing.
- [66:56]
C
I think.
- [66:56]
B
Yeah. And also that unless you describe the problem, you can't solve it. And thirdly, I thought very moving how much the Muslim community coming behind her and the Bradford community comes behind us, that she, rather than being ostracized, she's been voted in.
- [67:12]
A
Yeah.
- [67:12]
B
And celebrated.
- [67:14]
A
I always quite liked her confidence about her own position, sitting on a majority of 707, saying, I'm in a better place than the government as a whole. And I've got to say, anybody who beats George Galloway is. Is to be commended.
- [67:27]
B
There's also things she didn't put in the book because she's almost too modest to mention them. She fostered a young Afghan when he was 14, and so she's almost an honorary grandmother. He's now got children. She was herself in foster care. She doesn't talk much about that either. I mean, I do think there's something amazing. And she left formal education. 12.
- [67:46]
A
Yeah. She said right at the start, you know, she's really just only started reading books again. But she's bloody bright. And I'll tell you what, they should listen to some of the stuff she's saying about Farage as well, because I think there's far. There just isn't enough confidence to my mind, in the way that Labour attack Farage and she's got it.
- [68:01]
B
I could have gone going forever. And one of the only things that I would have loved to talk to him about more is the many positive aspects of Pakistani culture and even Pakistani men culture. I mean. And I think it would have been nice to hear on that, because I think she'd be the first to accept that. Yes. Is art and honor have horrible aspects. They also have things which are very positive. And, you know, it would be nice if we ever got her back to talk about.
- [68:29]
A
Well, as we know, Rory from a recent episode, you're very much in the Shia Muslim.
- [68:35]
B
Well, she. We didn't get onto that either. I think she also comes from a sayed family. I think she's descended from the. The family of the. The Prophet Muhammad. Well, look, I thought. Wonderful. Thank you for pushing us to interview Nas and incredible story and also a very, very different story. We've interviewed Sadiq Khan, we've interviewed Sajid Javid. They also have stories about parents coming from Pakistan. Sajid's mother also struggles with NHS apps. Has to be translated for by Sajid when she goes into the doctor, but
- [69:03]
A
they've not gone with buffalo dung on their heads.
- [69:05]
B
And I would have been interested to see what she feels she has in common and doesn't have in common with that whole experience and everybody's different trajectories. Anyway, we're lucky to have her in Parliament, Lucky to have her on the show. Thank you.
- [69:16]
A
See you soon.
- [69:23]
C
Hi, it's Steph McGovern here from the Rest Is Money. Now, obviously there are big economic consequences to all the geopolitical tails.
- [69:30]
A
Them all.
- [69:30]
C
Listen to us to find out how investors are reacting and whether we're heading to a financial Armageddon. I'm talking to Karen Ward, a chief market strategist at Morgan Asset Management. Listen to the Rest Is Money to get her take.