Why we need more migrants in political office

Today (4 July) marks the one-year anniversary of the Labour government coming into power. Their time in office has been marked by wins such as the Employment Rights Bill and the decriminalisation of abortion. But many of these have been overshadowed by the government’s seemingly continuous lurch to the right, particularly with regards to migration. 

Migration seems to be at the forefront of the political conversation for this Labour government – but the conversation is neither positive nor inclusive of migrant voices. Their Border Security Bill, which looks at further speeding up deportations and strengthening the border regime, has been followed by their most recent immigration white paper.

Home secretary Yvette Cooper promised a deluge of reforms and legislation affecting the everyday lives of migrants across the country. Doubling down on the hostile environment, these reforms contain alarming restrictions for many migrants, most notably those restricting access to settlement and citizenship – for both incoming and already existing community members.

Read more:

• Tory MP Robert Jenrick says mass migration to blame for rising rents. Here’s what he’s not telling you
• I’m a refugee. My favourite thing about Britain? The weather!
• Asylum seekers share their dreams for future: ‘I want my children to have a safe life’

Yet, given all this talk of migration, migrants themselves have had very little opportunity to shape or contribute to the conversation. From lack of voting rights to a shortage of migrant politicians, migrant voices are missing from the political debate. To counter the anti-migrant policies and rhetoric in our political environment, we need to build a democratic system that better reflects the realities of our diverse communities.

In London, 40% of the population is made up of first-generation migrants. Yet only 16% of our elected councillors are first-generation migrants. This absence of lived experience and the migrant voice in politics has contributed to the relentless dehumanisation of our experiences; we are always strangers to be feared and never friends, neighbours, or active creators of a shared community.

But it is not just representation for the sake of representation, there are practical policy impacts of migrant leadership in politics. When I was elected as the first Brazilian councillor in Hounslow, I drew on my own experiences of navigating council services to inform policy discussions. 

I pushed for more translation within council services, ran migrant-focused voter registration efforts, and utilised my role as chair of the Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny panel to investigate how council services were meeting the needs of unaccompanied asylum seeking children under council care.

This value does not just appear in policy but also in civic engagement. Once news got out of my election, Brazilians from across the UK got in touch with me asking for more information on what councils and councillors do and how they can get involved. Now, a new Brazilian parish councillor has recently been elected in Swindon. 

Examples exist in both global media and on all levels of our political system. Locally, Romanian councillor Alex Bulat worked within Cambridgeshire County Council to pass the migrant charter. Bolivian councillor Claudia Turbet-Delof worked to pass a motion calling for an end of hostile environment policies in Hackney. Across the ocean, Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York City Democratic primaries stands as a shining example of what migrant political leadership can look like: true democratic representation without the compromise of progressive values.

While I no longer work as a councillor, as the executive director of the Migrant Democracy Project (MDP), I still organise for the democratic rights of migrants who have made the UK their home. We register migrant communities to vote, campaign for residence-based voting, and for the last two years, our MPower programme has been training first-generation migrants to stand as elected leaders.

Councillors like Kemal Çufoglu, the first Cypriot councillor in Colchester, and Gabriel Duduta, the first Romanian councillor in Watford – both MPower alumni – have gone on to champion the rights of migrants in their councils by passing motions in support of Votes for All and their daily actions in support of their communities.

The drive and action of these leaders show just how much could be achieved if we continue to platform and highlight the experiences and voices of migrants here in the UK. 

A year on from the government coming into power, we are marked by the lack of these humanising and powerful voices in the decision-making chambers – and just how important it is to have them included. We do not have to keep fighting policy after policy that alienates, divides, and harms our community members. We have the opportunity to shift the political tides and build a truly progressive and representative democracy. We just need to take it.

Lara Parizotto is the executive director of Migrant Democracy Project, an organisation working to support the political empowerment of migrants across the UK. She is from Brazil and has spent the last 10 years in the UK working on migrant justice.

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