Sikh MP Tan Dhesi challenged the Reform leader to serve his constituents, while also calling for Rachel Reeves to soften the blow of winter fuel payment cuts
Britain’s first turbanned Sikh MP has challenged Reform leader Nigel Farage to get on and hold advice surgeries with his voters.
Slough’s Tan Dhesi said after the race riots he met with local police in his constituency to discuss safety risks of meeting the public.
“I’ve had death threats. My team try to keep it away from me but of course you see it,” he said. “I had to go in and catch up with our local police and local councillors and others to ask, how are we going to tackle this?”
He also told the Mirror’s News Agenda podcast he now has to have a police presence when holding his own surgeries.
Mr Dhesi said: “I’m proud to be a turbanned Sikh and also proud to be British. I’m not going to let racists and others deter me from what I’m going to do.
“But now I can’t even do my own advice surgeries without security and a police presence, that’s par for the course unfortunately. Having received death threats that abuse and so on it’s something we’ve been advised. It’s not just my safety. If something happened they’re going to come for me, but I also have the safety of my staff to consider and the people who are coming to see me.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage has been criticised for not holding meetings in his Essex constituency, claiming he is at too much risk of attack, while spending time in America on the presidential campaign trail.
Mr Dhesi said: “The good people of Clacton should be able to see their MP, should be able to be seen and heard, and there’s no point that individual and others giving lectures about pensioners and so on when they’re not even willing to meet those pensioners. You’ve been elected to serve here, so you need to meet up with constituents just like the rest of us are doing.”
He told the News Agenda Explained podcast, at the Labour conference in Liverpool, he had lobbied Chancellor Rachel Reeves to soften the blow of the planned changes to winter fuel allowance for pensioners.
He said: “The likes of myself have been advocating to our colleagues, especially those making these decisions in Cabinet. We understand the need to balance the books, we understand the need to make sure we’re progressing with our economy. That cliff edge, where all of a sudden someone’s eligible and then they’re not, we need to make sure the support is there.”
He added that No10 should have realised there would be a backlash about the poorer pensioners who do not qualify for pension credit, which guarantees the fuel payment.
“There are a lot of Slough pensioners who are just above the threshold and they will find it difficult if they do not have that support,” he said. “Whenever a government takes away something there’s going to be a lot of opposition to that. The Prime Minister and Chancellor will have been well aware of that, or they should have been aware. We need to make sure we’re protecting the most vulnerable.”
He also said voters wanted to “move on” from the row about frontbench freebies.
Mr Dhesi said: “There is nothing illegal that has happened here. Everything has been fully registered. We want to move on from this. This is not what people want to talk about.
“People want to see government addressing the issues of the day. I think those in government have listened and changes have been made and I hope we can move on to talk about the real issues of the day.”
Asked “who pays for your turban” he laughed and said: “I always dress to impress.”
He added: “I wanted to make sure the Daily Mirror viewers had a well-dressed MP. My wife makes sure she goes out with me to make sure I’m properly dressed. There is no Tan Dhesi private fund that exists.”
