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Record 26 Indian-Origin MPs Enter UK Parliament

Apart from Rishi Sunak, 25 other Indian-origin MPs — including 20 from the Labour Party and five Conservatives — also emerged victorious on Friday, reports Asian Lite News

A record number of 26 Indian-origin MPs are set to enter the UK Parliament after Friday’s General Election results, marking a significant increase from 15, five years ago.

Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak, the first Indian-origin person to have served as the UK Prime Minister, leads the pack after having secured victory from Richmond and Northallerton constituency in Yorkshire.

Apart from Sunak, 25 other Indian-origin MPs — including 20 from the Labour Party and five Conservatives — also emerged victorious on Friday.

Priti Patel

Priti Patel, Conservative MP of Gujarati descent, won from Witham, Essex. Patel, who has served in various capacities, including Secretary of State for International Development, has been representing the constituency since 2010.

Gagan Mohindra, a prominent politician from a Punjabi Hindu background, secured his seat in South West Hertfordshire. Mohindra has been a Conservative MP since 2019, following his initial election as a Parish Councillor in 2004.

Labour Party leader Seema Malhotra retained her Feltham and Heston constituency for a fourth term since 2011. Malhotra has held several shadow ministerial roles, including Shadow Minister for Skills and Further Education.

Lisa Nandy

Valerie Vaz, Labour leader of Goan origin, won the Walsall and Bloxwich constituency for the fifth time. Vaz, who has been an MP since 2010, has served as the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons.

Lisa Nandy retained her seat in Wigan, making her the constituency’s first female MP and one of the first Asian female MPs since 2010. She has served as the Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development.

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Nadia Whittome, who made history in 2019 as the UK’s youngest MP at the age of 23, was re-elected from Nottingham East.

Preet Kaur Gill, the UK’s first female Sikh MP, defeated Conservative Ashvir Sangha in Birmingham, a seat she has held since 2017. Gill has served as the Shadow Minister for Primary Care and Public Health.

Labour Party’s Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi retained his Slough constituency, although with a reduced victory margin.

Shivani Raja, MP from Leicester East

Conservative leader Shivani Raja won the Leicester East constituency, where she was fielded against another Indian-origin Labour candidate, Rajesh Agrawal.

44-year-old Conservative MP Suella Braverman, who was embroiled in controversies and dismissed by the party for her statements, won from the Fareham and Waterlooville constituency for the fourth consecutive time.

Additionally, other Indian-origin Labour MPs to be elected to the UK’s House of Parliament include Navendu Mishra, Jas Athwal, Baggy Shanker, Satvir Kaur, Harpreet Uppal, Warinder Juss, Gurinder Josan, Kanishka Narayan, Sonia Kumar, Sureena Brackenbridge, Kirith Entwistle, Jeevun Sandher, Sojan Joseph and Murina Wilson.

ALSO READ: Starmer Unveils New Cabinet; Names UK’s First Female Chancellor

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Starmer Unveils New Cabinet; Names UK’s First Female Chancellor

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet included a record 11 women in the team of 25, reports Asian Lite News

New UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has appointed his cabinet, making Angela Rayner the Deputy Prime Minister and Rachel Reeves the country’s first female Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Starmer’s cabinet included a record 11 women in the team of 25.

Meanwhile, Yvette Cooper was appointed Home Secretary, David Lammy was named Foreign Secretary and John Healey was appointed Defence Secretary.

Other appointments include Shabana Mahmood as Justice Secretary, Wes Streeting as Health Secretary, Bridget Phillipson as Education Secretary, and Ed Miliband as Energy Secretary.

In his first speech as Prime Minister at Downing Street on Friday, Starmer pledged to get the country’s “struggling” healthcare system back on track, secure British borders, and attend to the need for schools and affordable homes.

“Our country has voted decisively for change and a return of politics to public service,” he said.

However, “changing a country is not like flicking a switch”, said Starmer, noting that the world has become “more volatile”.

He said the work for change will begin immediately but will time.

David Lammy was named Foreign Secretary

The new Prime Minister highlighted his focus on things that “working-class families like mine can build their lives around”.

“If I asked you now whether you believed that Britain will be better for your children, I know too many of you will say no — and so my government will fight until you believe again,” he said.

ALSO READ: Starmer’s Victory Draws Global Praise

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Labour on track for landslide

The Labour Party is on course to win more than 450 seats and the biggest majority of any post-war government predicts poll, reports Asian Lite News

The Labour Party is on course for a 256-seat majority at the general election while the Tories are heading for their worst-ever defeat, according to a new poll.

In its first MRP model of the 2024 campaign, Ipsos estimated Sir Keir Starmer’s party could win 453 seats and the Conservatives 115.

If correct, that would hand Labour a historic majority of 256, the biggest of any post-war government, while plunging the number of Tory MPs to record lows.

It would also mean senior Conservative figures such as Grant Shapps, Penny Mordaunt, Gillian Keegan, Johnny Mercer and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg losing their seats.

While Labour have consistently enjoyed a 20-point lead in the polls, the Ipsos survey is the highest projection yet of what their majority could look like.

The poll also predicts the Lib Dems could win 38 seats, the Scottish National Party 15, three for the Green Party and three for Reform UK.

According to the projection, Nigel Farage is on track to overturn a huge Tory majority to win in Clacton while former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, standing as an independent, is predicted to lose to his old party in Islington North.

The poll is likely to cement fears within the Conservative party of an extinction-level event.

Despite promises of further tax cuts in his manifesto, Rishi Sunak has failed to shift the dial in a campaign marred by political gaffes – notably his early exit from a D-day event.

Repeated forecasts of a Labour landslide have prompted gloom from some Tories, with the prime minister forced to insist on Monday that his party could still win the election after Mr Shapps, the Defence Secretary, conceded that defeat was likely.

In recent days, senior figures have taken to warning voters about the risk of a Labour “supermajority” in a bid to convince undecided voters to stick with them.

The Ipsos projection predicts a huge majority for Labour even when factoring in more than 100 seats which are “too close to call”.

The model finds 117 seats are on a knife edge as they have a winning margin of less than five percentage points. This underlines the extent to which the number of undecided voters could change the outcome for the Tories.

Kelly Beaver, chief executive of Ipsos UK and Ireland said: “Labour is increasing its 2019 vote share across the country, especially in Scotland and the North East, while the Conservatives are losing votes in all regions – especially in the East and South of England, and across the Midlands.

“What is perhaps most concerning for them are signs in the data that they are particularly losing vote share in the areas where they were strongest in 2019.”

The poll used the multilevel with poststratification (MRP) technique to model individual constituency results based on a survey of 19,689 British adults and took place between 7-12 June.

It is the second poll released this week to use the technique, following a Survation poll on Monday that estimated a similarly massive Labour majority.

The Ipsos poll is the first MRP survey to be conducted entirely after Mr Farage announced he would be taking over as leader of Reform UK and making his eighth attempt to become an MP, this time in Clacton, Essex.

The poll suggests Farage is on course to win that seat, with his Reform UK party also picking up Lee Anderson’s Ashfield constituency and possibly one other seat with 12% of the national vote.

That puts the party level in terms of seats with the Greens, who Ipsos suggests could win in Bristol Central, North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley while losing their current seat in Brighton Pavilion to Labour.

The poll also sees the Liberal Democrats making gains in the South East and South West, increasing its number of seats to 38 and regaining its position as the third party in the Commons.

Meanwhile, Ipsos said the fate of the SNP was “still very much up in the air”, with the party running a close second to Labour in Scotland and expected to win around 15 seats, a significant reduction from the 48 seats it won in 2019.

Beaver said the poll was “just a snapshot of people’s current voting intentions” and there was “still time for things to change”.

She added: “But this data, in line with most of the evidence that we have seen both in the run-up to this election and since the campaign started, in terms of the mood of the nation and real election results in local elections and by-elections, suggests that the British political scene could be heading for yet another significant shift.”

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