What does Keir Starmer's win mean for the Khalistan issue?

Just as jailed and out-on-parole pro-Khalistan Sikh leader Amritpal Singh and Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid were sworn in as Lok Sabha MPs, the UK saw a big shift. With the landslide victory of Britain's Labour Party in a parliamentary election, the party will come to power after 14 years under its leader Keir Starmer. The center-left party's stance on India has traditionally leaned towards separatist movements. While it had backed the separatist movement in J&K, many of its leaders are known for promoting Khalistan.

The party's resolution during an annual conference under former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in favour of international intervention in Kashmir was widely seen as having cost it British Indian votes in the 2019 general election.

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The Labour Party has been seen as "anti-India" by many. In 2021, it was branded “divisive” and “anti-India” by many in the Indian diaspora after a party leaflet for a by-election in northern England used an image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The leaflet showed Modi in a handshake with then Conservative Party Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the G7 Summit in 2019 with the message “Don't risk a Tory MP who is not on your side”. It triggered furious reactions across social media after Tory MP Richard Holden posted an image of it on Twitter, questioning whether it implies that Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer would not be seen in a handshake with the Indian Prime Minister.

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With Labour in power, will India have an adversarial government in the UK which will disregard its security concerns, especially regarding the issue of Khalistan, amid uncooperative postures of Canada and the US over Khalistani activities in those countries.

The Khalistan issue had come to the forefront in the UK when Khalistanis attacked the Indian High commission in London and removed the Indian flag atop it. They were protesting against the action taken by the government against Amritpal and his associates in Punjab. However, since then the UK government has coordinated with India to quell the separatist elements. Then UK security minister Tom Tugendhat had announced new funding during a trip to Delhi to tackle UK-based Khalistan extremism to bolster India-UK cooperation on security.

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Labour's Khalistan problem

To woo radical Sikh voters, the Labour party had once promised in its poll manifesto to hold an independent probe into Britain’s role in Operation Bluestar in 1984. Several Labour leaders have openly supported Khalistani elements and have strong ties with them.

Preet Kaur Gill, who became the first Sikh woman MP in the UK in 2017, is an active supporter of Khalistan. A few years ago, a Twitter spat broke out between her and chairman of the British Sikh Association Rami Ranger over the Khalistan issue.

Ranger tweeted that then UK PM Boris Johnson had assured him that the UK does not support the Khalistan movement, to which Gill replied the PM is not above the law and Ranger does “not understand human rights or the principles of the UN declaration”.

Ranger, a Conservative life peer in the House of Lords, had earlier tweeted: “PM Boris Johnson has categorically assured me that British Government does not support Khalistan movement. Thank you PM.” Gill responded: “The principle of self-determination is prominently embodied in Article 1 of the UN Charter. It is positioned as the first right in the twin Human Rights Covenants (the ICCPR and the ICESCR). Most concerning!” She added: “The PM is an elected representative who is accountable to the British people!”

Gill's father was the longest serving president of the Guru Nanak Gurdwara Smethwick, the first gurdwara in the United Kingdom.

Another Labour MP Tanmanjit SIngh Dhesi, called Tan Dhesi, has been a vocal supporter of Khalistanis. His father, Jaspal Singh Dhesi, was the president of Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara in Gravesend, the largest in the UK.

Starmer's course correction

The Labour party under Starmer has tried to play down its anti-India image. Under his leadership, Labour has shown a weakening tolerance for anti-India elements.

In May, Sikh Labour councillor Parbinder Kaur was being investigated by her own party for allegedly sharing posts that supported Khalistani terrorist groups and militants who assassinated public figures in India. According to the Daily Mail, she allegedly praised Babbar Khalsa, the Khalistan movement responsible for killing 329 passengers with a bomb downing an Air India flight over the Atlantic Ocean in 1985.It is proscribed as a terrorist group in India and the UK. In 2022, she allegedly shared an image of Dilawar Singh Babbar, a Punjab police officer who became a suicide bomber to assassinate Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in 1995, with the caption “Shaheedi Diwas”.

Last year, Preet Kaur Gill lost her position on the Labour front bench in a shadow cabinet reshuffle and was demoted to backbench MP. This was seen as a snub for her pro-Khalistani stance.

Under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour had harboured a notorious reputation of being "anti-Hindu". Since taking over, Starmer has been vocal about repairing UK-India relationships and that with British Hindus. He had said during a meeting with Labour Friends of India: “Any constitutional issues in India are a matter for the Indian Parliament and Kashmir is a bilateral issue for India and Pakistan to resolve peacefully."

The 2024 Labour election manifesto promised to seek a “new strategic partnership with India, including a free trade agreement, as well as deepening cooperation in areas like security, education, technology and climate change". At the India Global Forum, Starmer had said: “I have a clear message for you all today: this is a changed Labour Party. What my Labour government will seek with India is a relationship based on our shared values of democracy and aspiration."

Starmer’s Hindu outreach has also been very vocal. Ahead of the election, while visiting the Shree Swaminarayan Mandir in Kingsbury, he said, "there is absolutely no place for Hinduphobia in Britain" and that Labour would "build a new strategic partnership with India".

While Starmer's approach definitely points at a Labour party which is no longer adversarial to Indian interests, especially its security concerns emerging from separatist activities in the UK, only time will tell if Starmer is able to rein in the anti-India leaders in his party.


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