THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
Bal Ram Sampla
Geopolitics
A Political Analysis
Why Are British Asians Supporting Reform UK?
This is a examination and exploring a surprising shift in British politics
For decades, British Asian communities — people with roots in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka — were seen as reliable Labour voters. The assumption was simple: minority communities would naturally support the left-leaning party that championed multiculturalism and equality.
But something is changing. In the run-up to the 2026 local elections, a growing number of British Asians are not just voting for Reform UK — they are standing as its candidates. This has surprised many people, especially those who see Reform as a party opposed to immigration and diversity.
So what is going on? The answer is interesting and more complicated than most people expect.
The first and most important thing to understand is that British Asians are not a single, unified community with identical views. They come from many different countries, religions, and backgrounds.
A Hindu business owner from Gujarat has very different political priorities to a Muslim factory worker from Mirpur. A Sikh professional in Harrow sees the world differently to a Bangladeshi student in Portsmouth. They cannot be lumped together.
Some British Asian communities — particularly many British Hindus and British Sikhs — have been moving away from Labour for years. Others are angry at the government for different reasons. And a growing number are finding that Reform UK, despite its controversial reputation, speaks more directly to their day-to-day concerns than any other party.
Secondly, many British Asians, Labour was their natural home for generations. But that loyalty has been wearing thin.
The feeling in many communities is that Labour has taken Asian voters for granted — assuming their support without really listening to them. Meanwhile, many feel that Labour’s priorities have shifted in ways that don’t match their values.
Several Reform candidates with South Asian backgrounds have previously been Labour members. One example is Pritpal Singh Mann, a Sikh businessman with over 30 years of professional experience, who left Labour and joined Reform. His story is not unique. Across the country, people who were once committed Labour supporters are looking elsewhere.
The 2024 and 2025 elections showed that Labour’s grip on minority communities has been declining. Many Muslim voters, in particular, turned away from Labour over its position on Gaza. But the drift among Hindu and Sikh communities had already been happening quietly for some time.
One of the most overlooked reasons for Reform’s growing Asian support is simple values alignment.
Many British Asian communities — especially Hindu and Sikh families — place enormous importance on entrepreneurship, personal responsibility, low taxes, and strong families. These are traditionally conservative values. Reform UK’s economic platform, which promises to cut taxes, reduce red tape, and reward hard work, speaks directly to business owners and self-employed individuals who feel squeezed by the current system.
Dr Savitha Prakash, a first-generation immigrant from India standing for Reform in Harrow, said that alignment in political outlook was one of the key reasons behind growing British Indian support for the party. For people who built their lives through hard work and enterprise, a party that promises to get government out of the way can be genuinely appealing.
Reform UK is famous for its tough stance on immigration. Many assume this would automatically put off communities whose parents or grandparents came to Britain as immigrants. But the reality is more nuanced.
Many British Asians who came to the UK legally — often through highly skilled work routes, or through the proper visa system — are themselves frustrated by what they see as uncontrolled illegal immigration. They feel they did things “the right way,” going through years of paperwork, English language tests, and financial requirements.
They resent a system that appears to reward those who bypass those rules entirely.
This is not a contradiction. It is a distinction: between legal, controlled immigration that serves the country, and chaotic, uncontrolled illegal immigration that many feel is unfair to those who played by the rules.
Many of the South Asian candidates standing for Reform are motivated by deeply personal experiences — not just abstract politics.
Ayesha Shamim, standing in Leeds, publicly described battling cancer and domestic abuse, and feeling completely abandoned by public services. “All my appeals for help and support fell on deaf ears,” she said. For her, Reform is not about ideology — it is about fixing a system that failed her when she needed it most.
This pattern repeats across many Reform candidates from minority backgrounds. They are not ideological true believers. They are people who feel let down — by the NHS, by social services, by local councils, by Labour — and who have decided that something has to change.
Reform’s anti-establishment, “break the system” message speaks powerfully to people who have felt personally failed by that system.
It would be dishonest to ignore the fact that Reform UK itself has made a deliberate effort to recruit candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Having visible, diverse candidates serves a practical purpose: it makes it harder to dismiss the party as simply “racist,” and it opens doors in communities that might otherwise be closed.
Some critics argue these candidates are being used as window dressing, placed in wards they cannot win simply to give the party a more diverse image. Others point out that the candidates themselves have real motivations and are not naive about why they were recruited.
Reform benefits from having diverse candidates. But many of those candidates also genuinely believe in what they are standing for.
The mainstream media and left-wing politicians frequently describe Reform as racist or even fascist. So why doesn’t this put off British Asian supporters?
For some, they simply don’t recognise their experience of Reform in that description. When they attend Reform meetings or talk to candidates, they don’t encounter people who hate them. What they encounter is anger at the government, frustration with immigration policy, and a desire to fix public services.
For others, the constant use of words like “racist” and “fascist” has become background noise — labels thrown at anyone to the right of centre, which have therefore lost their power to shock or persuade.
And for some, there is a sense that the parties calling Reform racist have done very little for their communities in practice, which makes the moral lecturing feel hollow.
This is not to say the concerns about racism within Reform are baseless — there have been documented incidents involving individual candidates and members. But for many British Asian Reform supporters, the personal and economic appeal of the party outweighs the reputational risk of supporting it.
A Changing Political Landscape
What is happening with British Asian support for Reform is part of a much bigger story about how British politics is changing.
The old assumption — that working-class and minority voters naturally support Labour, while middle-class and white voters support the Conservatives — is breaking down. Reform is pulling together a new and unlikely coalition: traditional white working-class voters who feel left behind, business owners frustrated with taxes and regulation, and now a growing slice of British Asian communities who feel their values are no longer represented by either of the old major parties.
Conclusion
The rise of British Asian support for Reform UK is not a simple story. It cannot be explained by a single reason, and it cannot be dismissed as confusion or tokenism.
It reflects genuine frustration with Labour. It reflects shared values around enterprise and family. It reflects the lived experience of people who feel failed by a system that promised to look after them. And it reflects the fact that British Asian communities are diverse, independent-thinking groups of people — not a monolithic bloc that should automatically vote in any particular direction.
Whether Reform UK can hold together this unlikely coalition — and whether its promises will match its performance if it gains power — remains to be seen.
References
1.https://www.seeac.org.uk/blogs/major-changes-to-uk-immigration-rules-what-asian-migrants-need-to-know-in-2025
2.https://www.reformparty.uk/policies
3.https://www.desiblitz.com/content/who-are-the-british-south-asian-reform-party-candidates
4.https://theenglishchronicle.com/News/15594/
5.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zia_Yusuf
6.https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10575/
