British Bangladeshi MPs split over Trident

Rushanara Ali, Labour MP for Bethnal Green & Bow, voted for Britain to update its Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the Trident debate on Monday night. Rushanara, who had previously voted against using conventional explosives to bomb Syria, seems to be OK with nuking hundreds of thousands of foreigners to death with a single device.

Jim Fitzpatrick, MP for Poplar & Limehouse, joined her in supporting the Tories on this issue. His vote in favour of Britain having WMD comes over a decade after he voted in favour of the UK invading Iraq because Saddam Hussain had WMD (according to Tony Blair and very few other people and despite a 2 million-strong demonstration against the invasion).

However, Tulip Siddiq, Labour MP for Hampstead & Kilburn, voted against spending over £30 billion on renewing the Trident nuclear weapons system. Rupa Huq, Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, abstained. MPs cast their votes by leaving the Chamber of the House of Commons via the “Aye” (yes) door or the “No” door. Rupa went through both doors, one after the other. This is usually something MPs do if they accidentally go through the wrong door on the first attempt: they cannot undo that vote once they have passed through, but they can then go through the other door to neutralise their own wrong vote.

While Tower Hamlets MPs were united, then, the Trident vote left Labour’s three women MPs who have a Bangladeshi heritage voting three different ways!

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