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It is 16 years since I was first elected a Member of Parliament in the UK Parliament in 2010, when we defeated George Galloway’s Respect Party - making Bethnal Green and Bow one of four Labour gains. It’s the privilege of my life to represent the place I grew up in and to have been the first person of British Bangladeshi heritage to be elected to our Parliament. I am also proud to be one of the first three Muslim women to be elected to the UK parliament along with Yasmin Qureshi and Shabana Mahmood. I am incredibly grateful to my constituents who chose me to represent them in the last five general elections.
I was born in Sylhet, Bangladesh and moved to the UK with my family at the age of 7. We settled in the East End of London where I attended St Peter’s Primary School, Mulberry School for Girls and Tower Hamlets College. I was the first person in my immediate family to attend university studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St John's College, Oxford University. Education was my passport to opportunity. It was the support of my family, my wonderfully inspirational teachers and the wider community that enabled me to achieve all that I have been able to achieve. It provided me the opportunity to work in Parliament, at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office where I helped establish what became the Forced Marriage Unit, the Home Office where I led a programme of work to support local areas after the 2001 riots and civil disturbances and in the charitable sector where I set up charities that supported thousands of young people to get into employment and take up leadership positions.
After getting elected, in the 14 years of Labour in opposition, I served as Shadow Minister for International Development, Shadow Minister for Education and Young People and Shadow Minister for Investment and Small Business. From the backbenches, I served on the Treasury Select Committee, the Communities and Local Government Committee and the Energy and Climate Change Committee and as Governor of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. Between 2016 and 2023, I also served as the UK government’s Trade Envoy to Bangladesh. As Shadow International Development Minister, I fought for the protection of overseas aid to some of the poorest people in the world, including in Bangladesh. We successfully built a cross party consensus to protect the aid budget which lasted until that commitment was ended under Boris Johnson’s premiership. I also successfully campaigned with the community to ensure money transfer companies were not prevented by banks from sending remittance to developing countries. This work was vital for families trying to support their loved ones in Bangladesh and other parts of the world, including in Somalia and Somaliland during the East African famine.
As Shadow Education Minister, I fought against the Conservative government’s austerity programme which meant cuts to education budgets. I secured funding for the ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme for Tower Hamlets to give our children the school facilities they deserved. This was at a time when the Conservative government was cutting such programmes around the country. I also secured £165 million for the Decent Homes Programme for Tower Hamlets which meant much needed repairs and maintenance could be done by the council on our social housing stock that was below the Decent Homes Standard. Following the Grenfell Tower disaster, with my colleagues, and using my position on the Treasury select committee and after years of campaigning, we successfully secured an extra £1 billion nationally to support the remediation of unsafe cladding on residential buildings which benefited many in Tower Hamlets. I have continued to push for more resources to ensure all buildings with unsafe cladding get the remediation that is needed.
In health and education, we fought tooth and nail against austerity. We stopped the Conservative government from closing local GP surgeries, saved Whitechapel fire station from closure and stopped the closure of some of our nurseries and advice centres. During the darkest days of the pandemic, I was proud to help secure millions of pounds in funding for Tower Hamlets Council’s response, support my constituents during lockdown and assisted thousands of UK nationals stranded abroad to return home safely. I was also one of the first MPs to expose corruption and misuse of public funds in the form of the £3.5 billion in crony Personal Protective Equipment (PPE ) contracts and £4.3 billion in fraudulent Covid loans.
I know our community has long been impassioned by injustices not just in the UK, but around the world. As the UK government’s Trade Envoy to Bangladesh, I used my position to ensure the UK provided millions of urgently needed vaccines to Bangladesh to protect people against Covid-19, which saved lives. I also successfully campaigned during the pandemic to ensure that UK retailers honoured £2.4 billion worth of contracts they were withholding from Bangladeshi garment manufacturers, ensuring the jobs and livelihoods of Bangladesh’s garments workers (who depending on exporting to the UK) were not lost forever.
I was one of the first MPs to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, a country whose suffering has often been neglected on the global stage, despite the devastating conflict, which resulted in mass atrocities against Rohingya Muslims with 1 million of them being forced to flea to refugee camps in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. I have consistently raised the plight of the Rohingya Muslims in Parliament and demanded the UK Government do more to hold to account the Myanmar Military which is responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocide. I successfully led a campaign which mobilised hundreds of parliamentarians in the UK and aboard to call for a referral of the Myanmar military to the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. After years of campaigning, we secured the UK Government's support for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against Myanmar, the case referral of Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and for targeted sanctions against key members of the Myanmar military and state-owned entities.
In 2024, thanks to the tireless efforts of campaigners and volunteers, we won a historic election victory and the first Labour Government in 14 years. I am proud of what this Government has achieved in less than two years and the foundations it is laying to improve our NHS, deliver a generational boost to affordable housing and to tackling child poverty. Ending the Two Child Limit is lifting 450,000 children out of poverty, easing the burden on families forced to make impossible choices. Tackling child poverty early is not only the right thing to do, but essential if we want better long-term outcomes in health, education and employment. It means thousands of children in my constituency are being lifted out of poverty.
The renewal of our NHS is at the heart of our mission. After years of record-high waiting lists and corridor care and people dying while waiting for treatment, the Labour Government has implemented a comprehensive 10-year strategy backed by a record £29 billion of funding. Alongside our reforms, this is helping to deliver immediate improvements - offering extra appointments and cutting waiting listings - whilst building a stronger and modernised NHS that is fit for the future. We have already hit our goal for 65% of patients to be treated within 18 weeks by March 2026. But we know much more progress is still needed. On the economy, we are rewarding hard work again. This Government has overseen the biggest boost to workers’ rights in a generation through our New Deal for Working People, banning exploitative zero-hour contracts and ending "fire and rehire" practices. We have delivered a significant increase in the National Living Wage to help with the cost of living, ensuring that work pays.
When serving as a Minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, I was proud to announce a billon pounds to tackle homelessness, which included extra funding to Tower Hamlets, and we secured £39 billion pounds of investment in social and affordable housing announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the Comprehensive Spending Review. I was also proud to have led work on the modernisation to our democracy that reflect the Britain of today. We believe that if you are old enough to work, pay taxes, and contribute to your community, you should have a say in how it is run. That is why we are progressing reforms to grant votes to 16 and 17-year-olds, so it is fit to tackle the challenges of the next generation. And we are reforming political finance, which includes an annual cap of £100,000 on political donations by UK nationals living abroad and a moratorium on crypto donations. We are also introducing measures to tackle harassment and intimidation in our politics to strengthen and preserve our democracy.
On the Middle East, as a member of Labour Friends of Palestine, I have consistently campaigned for the recognition of Palestinian statehood and for the UK Government to increase humanitarian aid to Palestinians. I have campaigned against Israel’s occupation of Gaza and its illegal settlements in the West Bank. Following the outbreak of war in 2023 and Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza, I repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Parliament and was one of the first MPs to warn of regional escalation if the conflict was not bought to an end. After coming to power, this Labour Government took the historic step of recognising the state of Palestine. The first ever UK Government to do so. The Government has also significantly increased the humanitarian aid to Palestine, including a £116 million aid commitment for this year, in addition to £74 million already allocated for life-saving assistance. This Government has also sanctioned Israeli government Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich following their incitement of violence. This comes alongside sanctions on individuals, illegal outposts, and organisations that have promoted violence against Palestinian communities. Since the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza, we have worked with European allies to demand the implementation of "Phase Two" of the peace plan. This includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces, the decommissioning of Hamas’ weapons, the deployment of the International Stabilisation Force, and a clear timeline for transition of governance from the Board of Peace to a reformed Palestinian Authority.
On domestic policy, after over a decade of austerity, this Labour Government has delivered record public service investment and we are already seeing improvements. We are on track to deliver the fastest reduction in NHS waiting times since the service’s creation in 1948. Knife crime is significantly reduced. The asylum backlog has been slashed by 46% with hotel use also falling. Childcare investment has saved working families an average of £8000 a year. We were the fastest growing economy in the G7 at the start of this year and borrowing is on track to come down quicker than any other major economy. There have also been six interest rate cuts since the 2024 general election, helping to reduce mortgage costs which soared after Liz Truss crashed the economy. And despite the conflict in Iran, inflation fell last month.
Since my election in 2010, I have fought tirelessly for greater investment in my constituency and our country and against Tory austerity, so we can live in a fairer society where everyone has the chance to succeed no matter their background. The last two years have shown what we can achieve when we remain united in defiance of those who seek to divide us. At a time of rising populism and threats from the far right, it is more important than ever before to work together and deliver for all communities and face down those who seek to divide us. We must ensure we do all we can together to continue to deliver the progressive change that people in our community and country voted for and deserve.
Finally, I would like to congratulate the team at Dazzling Dawn on their 3rd anniversary. It is great to hear that as a fully fledged mainstream newspaper from the British Bangladeshi community, Daily Dazzling Dawn does not accept any donations, gifts, or subscriptions, ensuring their commitment to independent journalism. I’m also delighted that the team have sought to work actively to build community awareness against drugs and domestic abuse as well as to shine a light on important health and social issues. I wish the team every success for the future.
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Author: Rushanara Ali, MP for Bethnal Green and Stepney
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