Rupa Huq: From Ealing to Parliament—The Journey of a Trailblazing Politician

Brought to you by:

Sam Habeeb

"Shadow MP Campaigner of Ealing North"

Rupa Huq: From Ealing to Parliament – The Journey of a Trailblazing Politician
Credit: St Benedict

Rupa Huq is a popular British politician, born in Ealing, who has made massive strides in the political arena. She is an MP for the Labour Party, and her most notable work in the political arena is on social justice and education issues, for which she has gained recognition for being vocal and working for public service.

Early Life and Education

Rupa Huq was born on 2 April 1972 in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, Hammersmith, and grew up on Brunswick Road in Ealing. Huq’s father, Muhammad Huq, and mother, Rowshan Ara Huq, moved to Britain in 1962 from East Pakistan. 

Huq’s father came from Maksedpur in Pabna, and her mother from Kuthipara in Pabna. Huq’s father was training to become an actuary for Prudential but gave that up to open an Indian restaurant in Soho, London. After the recession of the early 1990s, the council did not renew the restaurant’s lease so the business folded.

She graduated in 1993 with an upper second in Political and Social Sciences and Law from Newnham College, Cambridge, for a BA. She then finished a PhD in cultural studies at the University of East London, completed in 1999 with a thesis on youth culture, comparing young people in East London and the Alsace region of France.

Writing and Media Career

Huq has written for Tribune, The Guardian, New Statesman, Progress magazine, and The Times Higher Education Supplement. Huq’s specialization of research has mainly been youth culture and pop music. She is specifically interested in David Bowie.

Her book on these subjects, published in 2006, Beyond Subculture: Youth, Pop, and Identity in a Post-Colonial World, was published. It was one of five titles shortlisted for the 2007 British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize. 9, 14 Huq was a contributor to the 2011 book What Next for Labour? Ideas for a new Generation, published by Queensferry Publishing.

Early Political Career

    • Huq worked as a researcher for Tony Banks and Patricia Hewitt. In 2004, she stood as a Labour candidate in the European Parliament election for North West England but failed.
    • In 2005, she was the Labour parliamentary candidate for Chesham and Amersham at the 2005 general election. She came third with 14% of the vote, behind the incumbent Conservative MP Cheryl Gillan and the Liberal Democrat candidate.
    • In 2008, she was a member of a UK government Foreign and Commonwealth “Understanding Islam” delegation to Bangladesh.
    • In 2010, Huq was one of three Labour candidates for a council seat in Walpole in the constituency of Ealing, though she failed to be elected.

Why Was Rupa Huq Suspended from the Labour Party?

In September 2022, Huq was accused of racist comments in a speech at a Labour Party fringe event running parallel to the party conference. On the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, Huq said, “Superficially he is a black man… if you hear him on the Today Programme, you wouldn’t know he is Black.” In response, figures within the Conservative Party, including its chairman, demanded the whip be removed from Huq and her expulsion from the Labour Party.

Labour’s Deputy Leader Angela Rayner called on Huq to apologize, saying her comments were “unacceptable. Labour Mayor of London and friend of Huq, Sadiq Khan, also criticized her statement, saying, “What it infers is that all black people speak a certain way and all black people are working class.

Brexit

In May 2017, Huq said, “I am an MP who is a resolute Remainer. I will continue to fight for the UK to stay in the EU and vote accordingly. For me, this is respecting the will of the people in Ealing, Acton, and Chiswick.”

April 2018 For Business Insider, Huq wrote: “Brexit is not carved into concrete, untouchable and unchangeable”, and added: “If the cost of Brexit reaches a point where the British people decide it’s not worth it, then they’re perfectly entitled to change their minds about whether it’s the right path”.

In December 2018, she accused UK Prime Minister Theresa May of having “a sort of premature parliamentary ejaculation—that has put the lie to the claim that she sticks to her guns” over her decision to delay a parliamentary vote on the government’s Brexit deal. May retorted, “I think she will see that I am not capable of a parliamentary ejaculation,” prompting raucous laughter in the House of Commons.

What are Rupa Huq’s views on housing in the UK?

In 2022, Huq spoke out against a plan to construct a 26-storey mixed-use development, which was meant to host 477 homes—half of them affordable housing—near the Ealing Broadway train station in London. At the meeting of the Ealing planning committee, she stated, “A 26-story tower, out of all character with low-density Ealing, plonked there despite local opposition, sticking out like a sore thumb, marketed to international investors on our public land—really? Good job, #doublingdownon Ealing.” Before the local elections, she mentioned that people do not want to live in flats and that “the skyline will be ruined forever.” After this, Ealing Council scrapped the plans for the building and decided on retrofitting the existing 6-story building.

A-Level History Teaching

In January 2018, Huq stated that the A Level history syllabus, Britain 1930 to 1997, was biased against Labour because it omitted the 1945–51 Labour government, ends just before Tony Blair’s Labour government in 1997, and asks pupils to list Conservative strengths and Labour weaknesses.

In February, in a personal film for the Daily Politics series, Huq said it was “dangerous to deny that these things, the Blair–Brown administrations, or the post-war Labour government that brought in the welfare state and National Health Service, ever happened,” and she argued there was a pro-Conservative bias to what was being taught with a risk of “brainwashing our kids.”.

Is Rupa Huq married?

Rup Huq got married in 2003 and had a son in 2004. Her elder sister is an architect, and her older sister is Konnie Huq, a former Blue Peter presenter. and brother-in-law is Konnie Huq’s husband, the satirist and screenwriter Charlie Brooker. She can speak fluent English, Bengali, French, and Hindi.

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Brought to you by:

Sam Habeeb

"Shadow MP Campaigner of Ealing North"

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