.jpeg)
British Tamil, Uma Kumaran, has been successful in her bid to be Stratford and Bow’s first MP securing 19,145 votes.
On Twitter, she thanked her supporters for placing trust in her and vowed not to let them down.
It is the honour of my life to be elected to serve as the first ever member of parliament for Stratford and Bow
— Uma Kumaran (@Uma_Kumaran) July 5, 2024
Thank you to all who placed your trust in me and in the Labour party.
I’ll always be your voice and your representative.
I wont let you down pic.twitter.com/IriJCAvTU7
Last week Kumaran spoke with the Tamil Guardian about her experience getting into politics and her Tamil roots. Speaking about her parents she said:
“Britain offered them safe refuge. Tamils fleeing the initial pogroms and violence were given amnesty in the UK and also in Canada. It was a Labour MP who took up their casework and helped them with their immigration status in the 80s”.
Speaking on the Tamil genocide of 2009 she stated:
"It’s genuinely unbelievable that to date, no one has been held accountable for the war crimes that took place in the run-up to and during May 2009 in Sri Lanka".
We will never forget the devastation, the loss of life, loss of land. Those images of hundreds of thousands of our people sheltering in the sand, in the narrowest of strips of land, the deliberate shelling of hospitals and Red Cross sites, the so-called “no fire zone”. And the torture and sexual violence they subject Tamil men and women to - we will never forget.
She further noted that Labour's Foreign Minister, David Lammy, had called on the UK government to “stand with the Tamils and heed the recommendations of the UN High Commissioner to refer the perpetrators of the atrocities to the International Criminal Court”.
"I have been advocating internally to the Labour Party on this for the past 15 years - I won’t stop now" she told the Tamil Guardian.
Read the full interview here: Interview with Uma Kumaran - British Tamil running to become UK Member of Parliament
