Tan Dhesi | |
|---|---|
ਤਨਮਨਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਢੇਸੀ | |
 Official portrait, 2020 | |
| Chair of theDefence Committee | |
| Assumed office 11 September 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Jeremy Quin |
| Member of Parliament forSlough | |
| Assumed office 8 June 2017 | |
| Preceded by | Fiona Mactaggart |
| Majority | 3,647 (8.4%) |
| Member ofKent County Council forNorthfleet andGravesend West | |
| In office 4 May 2017 – 12 March 2019 | |
| Succeeded by | John Burden |
| Member ofGravesham Borough Council forNorthfleet North | |
| In office 3 May 2007 – 7 May 2015 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1978-08-17)17 August 1978 (age 47) |
| Party | Labour |
| Alma mater | University College London (BSc) Keble College, Oxford (MSc) Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge (MPhil) |
| Website | Official website |
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Punjabi:ਤਨਮਨਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਢੇਸੀ; born 17 August 1978), commonly known asTan Dhesi, is a BritishLabour Party politician who has beenMember of Parliament (MP) forSlough since 2017.
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi was born on 17 August 1978 inSlough to Indian immigrants.[1] He spent his early years inChalvey.[2][3] He is the son of Jaspal Singh Dhesi, who runs a construction company in the UK, and the former president ofGuru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara, inGravesend, which is the largestgurdwara in the UK.[4]
Dhesi received most of his primary education inPunjab, before returning to the UK at the age of 9.[5] He has a bachelor's degree in mathematics with Management Studies fromUniversity College London, studied Applied Statistics atKeble College, Oxford, and has aMaster of Philosophy in the History and Politics of South Asia fromFitzwilliam College, Cambridge.[4]
Following in his father's footsteps, Dhesi worked in construction for much of his life, running his own construction company in Scotland.[5] He served as Director for Dhesi Construction Limited which became insolvent as records show on Companies House from July 2002 to January 2007 and DGP Logistics PLC from October 2005 to April 2011.[6]
Dhesi representedNorthfleet North onGravesham Borough Council from2007 to2015, and was Mayor of Gravesham from 2011 to 2012.[7][8] He was elected to represent Northfleet andGravesham West onKent County Council in2017, serving alongsideLauren Sullivan until his resignation in 2019.[9]
Other voluntary roles whilst serving as a councillor include as school governor at two schools, a trustee with Alzheimer and Dementia Support Services, an advisor and member ofMencap and a member of the Independent Police Advisory Group toKent Police.[5][7]
At the2015 general election, Dhesi stood as theLabour candidate inGravesham, coming second with 30.1% of the vote behind the incumbentConservative MPAdam Holloway.[10][11]
Dhesi was elected to Parliament at the snap2017 general election as MP forSlough with 62.9% of the vote and a majority of 16,998.[12][13] He became the UK's firstturbaned MP.[14] Dhesi gave his maiden speech in theHouse of Commons in July 2017.[15][16]
Dhesi served on theHousing, Communities and Local Government Committee from July 2018 until the dissolution of the 57th Parliament of the United Kingdom on 6 November 2019.[17]
At the2019 general election, Dhesi was re-elected as MP for Slough with a decreased vote share of 57.6% and a decreased majority of 13,640.[18]
Dhesi was appointedParliamentary Private Secretary to theLeader of the Opposition,Jeremy Corbyn, in January 2020. He supportedLisa Nandy in the2020 Labour Party leadership election.[19] Dhesi briefly served on theDefence Committee from March until May 2020, when he was appointed Shadow Railways Minister afterKeir Starmer became Opposition Leader. He wasShadow Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury from September to November 2023, and Shadow Exports Minister from November 2023 until theJuly 2024 general election.[20]
In 2021, Dhesi was accused of attempting to hire volunteers for long-term work without pay, with the job being posted on theWorking For an MP website. It was claimed that the posting of the job was an administrative error and that Dhesi himself was unaware of its existence, but he declined to comment to theHuffPost to confirm this.[21]Zamzam Ibrahim, vice president of theEuropean Students' Union, commented that “nobody should work for free ... Unpaid labour is far too often masked as volunteering and used to exploit young people.”[21] One Labour staff member said: “It’s a shame really that a Labour MP would try to offer what is quite clearly a proper job role under the guise of ‘volunteering’ ... I’d like to think that MPs from our party would pay people what they are worth....”[21]
In November 2023, he abstained from voting on a motioncalling for a ceasefire in theGaza war, and said that he received death threats on account of his abstention.[22] In February 2024 he said that police had charged one person behind one death threat against him.[23]
At the2024 general election, Dhesi was again re-elected with a decreased vote share of 33.9% and a decreased majority of 3,647.[24]
In 2012, his mother, Dalwinder Kaur Dhesi, was jailed in India, convicted in 2000 in Punjab of taking part in kidnapping and forcing an abortion on a 19-year-old mother, who later died.[25][26][27][28] The conviction was criticised by many commentators as being politically motivated, and an appeal was filed by Dalwinder in the immediate aftermath of the decision. In 2018, a double bench of thePunjab and Haryana High Court upheld this appeal. All charges against her were subsequently dropped.[29]
Dhesi is familiar with eight languages and is fluent in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, French and English. He also has a working knowledge of German, Italian and Latin.[5]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forSlough 2017–present | Incumbent |
| Preceded by | Parliamentary Private Secretary to theLeader of the Opposition 2020 | Succeeded by |
