UK’s First Sikh Woman MP Preet Kaur Gill Appointed to Shadow Cabinet

United Kingdom’s first woman Sikh member of Parliament, Preet Kaur Gill has been appointed to the Shadow Cabinet by the opposition party leader Jeremy Corbyn of Labour Party.

The announcement was made by Corbyn on Jan.12. 44-year-old Gill won her Birmingham Edgbaston seat for the Labour party in the snap polls held on June 8, 2017. By July, she was a member of the Home affairs Select Committee in the British Parliament. The Home affairs Select Committee is the cross-party parliamentary panel that examines the workings of the United Kingdom’s Home Office.

As a part of Corbyn’s New Year reshuffle of, in his words, “government in waiting”, Gill has been promoted to the post of shadow minister for international development. He took to the social media to make the announcement.

Pleased to make appointments to strengthen Labour’s frontbench, which is a Government in waiting.

I look forward to working with them holding the Tories to account, developing our policies to transform our country and preparing to form a Government for the many not the few. pic.twitter.com/5BYgnOvySe

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) January 12, 2018

The Shadow Cabinet, that Gill has been appointed to, is the team of senior parliamentarians formed by the Leader of the Opposition to act as mirror to the Cabinet in Government. The Shadow Cabinet is an alternative government in waiting.

“We had no Sikh MPs prior to this election. So, Sikhs had no representation and we had no female Sikh representation. Parliament must reflect the people it serves,” Gill had said at the time of her election, according to media reports earlier. She is also the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for British Sikhs.

Among Corbyn’s new appointments was Clive Lewis’s as the shadow treasury minister. Lewis had resigned as the shadow business minister in February last year for wanting a vote against the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill. He was one of 52 rebel MPs to defy Labour party orders to back the bill in a Parliament vote. His appointment comes with fair share of controversy not only because of his position on Brexit, but for sexual harassment allegations against him as well.

British Prime Minister Theresa May had announced a reshuffle of her top team earlier this year– which led to the appointment of three new Indian-origin MPs Rishi Sunak, Suella Fernandes and Shailesh Vara.

May had released a statement about this reshuffle: “This reshuffle helps us do just that by bringing fresh talent into Government, boosting delivery in key policy areas like housing, health and social care, and ensuring the Government looks more like the country it serves. It also allows a new generation of gifted ministers to step up and make life better for people across the whole UK.”