Indian nurse defeats former deputy prime minister in UK elections

By Matters India Report

New Delhi, July 5, 2024: A 49-year-old male nurse from India on July 5 created history when he won the Ashford seat in the British parliament by defeating the country’s former prime minister who represented the constituency for the past 27 years.

Sojan Joseph, a Labour Party candidate, defeated Damian Green, 68, of the Conservatives by nearly 2,000 votes, reports kentonline.co.uk.

Sojan, as the native of Kerala’ Kottayam is popularly known, has reportedly become the first Labour MP to ever represent Ashford since the seat was formed 139 years ago. He came on top of six candidates who fought for the seat.

As the counting progressed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with Indian ancestry, conceded his Conservative Party’s defeat and congratulated Labour Party Prime Minister candidate Keir Starmer.

The Labour Party is reportedly poised for a landslide victory in the election held on July 4. As of 5:25 am (9:45 am India), the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer won 360 seats, 34 more than what was required to form the government.

Sojan’s victory was celebrated in his parents’ house in Kaipuzha, a village some 10 km north of Kottayam town.

After his nursing studies in India, he came to London in 2001. He joined the William Harvey Hospital as a mental health nurse in its psychiatry section Arundel Unit and moved to Ashford a year later. Since then, Ashford has been his home.

The psychiatry he studied as part of his nursing course turned a pathbreaker for his political mission. “Being in the field of mental health, I came to know people who go through difficulties that touch the core of their heart,” he said over phone recently.

When people share their pressing emotional problems, he added, they come to know their sociological causes as well. That is what prompted the matron of the mental health unit in Harvey Hospital to venture into the social field that eventually led to the political arena. His master’s degree in healthcare leadership from the UK too helped him to progress in his new leadership.

He says he wants to become a visible presence in his community to create a safer and healthy environment for all in Ashford.

He is now one of the five directors of NHS Kent and Medway that plans and buys healthcare services for nearly 2 million people of the region. This has given him a wider reach to all types of people. He acknowledges that since he grew up in Kerala in the eighties and nineties the socialistic thoughts and values prevalent in the state had its definite influence on him.

His concern for the ordinary working people drew him to the Labour Party founded on socialism, democracy and trade unionism in 1900.

“They have a good quality of treating all as equal,” Sojan explained the reason for joining the party in 2015.

He first stood for the local council election in 2021 but was defeated. He then fought the council election in 2023 and was elected as the Labour councillor for Aylesford and East Stour.

He is also involved in several public service activities and is an elected official of BAME, an acronym for the migrant Black Asian Minority Ethnic communities. Sojan married Brita, a nurse, in 2002 and they have three children – Hannah, Sarah, and Matthew.