Labour passes controversial Kashmir motion, India’s UK mission cancels annual dinner

LONDON: Labour delegates have unanimously passed a controversial emergency motion on Kashmir at their annual party conference in Brighton, leading to India's UK mission cancelling a dinner with Labour Friends of India.


The motion, carried at the annual party conference on Wednesday, claims a "major humanitarian crisis" is taking place in the "disputed territory" and calls for "humanitarian and international observers to enter the region".

It states the people of Kashmir should be given the right of self-determination in accordance with

UN resolutions

and urges the party to stand with the Kashmiri people "fighting against occupation."

The Indian high commission India in London cancelled its annual reception with Labour Friends of India on Tuesday night immediately after the debate on the motion began. "We cancelled it. The reason was because of the motion," a senior Indian diplomat told TOI.

The motion also sparked anger amongst the British Indian diaspora with Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP) UK president Kuldeep Singh Shekhawat saying "the entire Indian diaspora in Britain will not support Labour at the next general election because of this motion".

There has been growing dismay amongst PIOs ever since Labour leader

Jeremy Corbyn

's August 11 tweet that said "the situation in Kashmir is deeply disturbing. Human rights abuses taking place are unacceptable", and since several Labour MPs supported and spoke at the August 15 protests outside India House which descended into violence.

Reacting to the motion, Manoj Ladwa, former chair of Labour's Indian Community Engagement Forum, said the Labour party had been "hijacked by a coalition of hard left extremists and jihadi sympathisers".

British Pakistani Uzma Rasool from Leyton, who submitted the motion, gave a speech in which she referred to PoK as "Pakistan-administered Kashmir" and stated that Kashmir had seen "72 years of human rights violations, of gang rapes and mass rapes state endorsed by armed forces, and pellet gun injuries."

"We must urgently request India opens access so humanitarian agencies can go in and provide help," she said. "This is now a major crisis. We cannot allow a century of oppression to take place. For too long we have said Kashmir is a bilateral issue but the Kashmiri people need intervention," she had said.

The motion urges a Labour representative to attend the United Nations Human Rights Council to "demand the restoration of human rights, including the freedom of speech and communication and the lifting of curfews".

The motion also urges Corbyn to meet the high commissioners of both India and Pakistan "to prevent a potential nuclear conflict".

British Pakistani Kashmiri Labour MP Naz Shah pleaded with delegates to support the motion, saying "750k Indian military personnel are placed on guard in the most militarised region in the world, barbed wires cover the city, political leaders are under house arrest and there are reports of the most horrific human rights abuses. The path to genocide is opening up and the world remains silent."

Motions passed at the Labour conference contribute to its policy-making process.

"If there was any one thing that Jeremy Corbyn could do to completely alienate the British Indian community and to destroy any prospects of a cordial post-Brexit,

Indo-British governmental relationship

, it would be to pass this resolution," Global Hindu Federation president Satish K Sharma said.