Foysol Choudhury: 'People do not feel safe and the community is very worried'

It’s the first week back from summer recess at the Scottish Parliament and it’s been a busy one. The first day was packed with five ministerial statements, followed by the Programme for Government on the Wednesday, and then First Minister’s Questions.  

For Foysol Choudhury, who has only been an MSP since 2021, it is business as usual. The recent riots in England have sparked concerns and fears among many of the people he represents, and his mailbox has been busier than normal.

Choudhury holds a wealth of experience in dealing with issues raised for and by ethnic minority communities dating back to his first few years living in the UK, organising community groups and advocating for people from ethnic minority backgrounds who cannot do it for themselves.  

Born in Bangladesh in the late 1960s, he recalls fond memories of the decade he spent there, mainly of primary school. But he tells me it wasn’t until he moved to the UK that he found his voice.  

Attending Drummond Community High School in Edinburgh, he began organising Friday clubs in his second year so his peers could better understand his, and the few other children from ethnic minority background’s, culture.  

“A lot of people had the wrong idea about our religion and our people,” he says. 

Choudhury is a practising Muslim, and recalls being asked questions by school peers like ‘will you have an arranged marriage?’, ‘are you allowed to go out with someone?’. His club allowed students from all ethnic backgrounds to gather after school, where they would talk and eat South Asian food to help his peers better understand who they were. 

He then began a multicultural youth club, after he met Muslim and Arab girls who were struggling because they were wearing hijabs. Much like the Friday club, it allowed people to come in and share the problems they were having and help them integrate into Scottish life while celebrating their culture.  

“I didn’t find many difficulties in making friends, but I felt like I had to stand up for others who were finding it difficult,” he says.

“When I first came to the school there was an English support teacher, although I didn’t need much help, there were others that did. Having us all around and speaking the language – I could understand Indian, I could speak with Pakistanis and of course Bangladeshis – I became a voice for quite a lot of people.” 

Choudhury began a long and successful career in business, although it started through necessity. He had hoped to become a doctor and began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, but his studies were very abruptly halted when his father suffered a heart attack.  

He was in a coma and spent 21 days in hospital. Doctors advised that he shouldn’t return to his work. Choudhury, the oldest of his six other siblings, decided he would have to step up in his father’s place and provide.  

“I thought if I study, I can’t look after my family, and they are very important to me,” he recalls.

“My dad and family were my priority, and I wanted to make sure that my sisters and brother were taken care of the way my father had done. So I gave up my education and jumped into business with my uncle, Dr Wali Tasar Uddin.”

Despite his father being keen on him continuing his studies, Choudhury got involved with the family’s Bangladeshi and Indian restaurant in Edinburgh, the Verandah.  

As his entrepreneurial career progressed, inspired by his uncle, he began charity work and fundraising, giving takings from every Thursday to a different charity each month. This work led to Choudhury being awarded an MBE in 2004.  

He describes his work then as not a typical nine-to-five job, which allowed him to get involved in the third sector. He became the youngest secretary of the Edinburgh Lothian Regional Equality Council (ELREC) and went on to become the organisation’s longest-serving chair, holding the role for over a decade.  

“I knew the difficulties people were having finding jobs so I began a scheme where people could come in and professionals would help them search for jobs,” he says. “My main focus was to help people build careers and help them find the right job.” 

Giving opportunities is something Choudhury has been keen to carry on since being elected in 2021. He tells me most weeks he has a student in for work experience, allowing them to shadow him, get involved in casework, and work on policy.  

He recalls growing up in Edinburgh, a city famed for its celebration of the arts, and not seeing much room for ethnic minorities. “Everyone looks out for the Edinburgh Festival, but back then there wasn’t much for us,” he notes. 

In response to this, he and other members of the Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani communities, as well as those from other areas of the sub-continent, formed Edinburgh Mela – Mela being a Sanskrit word meaning ‘gathering’ or ‘to meet’.  

The first festival was held at Meadowbank Stadium over three days, celebrating South Asian music, dance, theatre and fashion, and it featured food and stalls.  

“We were still young back then, so we had to speak to the older generations and tell them what we wanted to do,” he says. “We had to figure out how to do the fundraising for it – Edinburgh Council gave us £10,000. It started small, but the community was so supportive.” 

The festival quickly grew “way beyond expectation” and was moved to Pilrig Park in 2000, and to Leith Links in 2010. Today it welcomes between 20,000 and 25,000 each year. 

It’s clear Choudhury has always looked to help people, particularly from ethnic minority backgrounds. I ask him why he thinks that is.  

“When I first came [to Edinburgh], if I didn’t have my family behind me, have the brilliant teachers that I had, or a strong group of friends, I think anyone starting new would struggle,” he explains. “Life is made easier when you have people supporting you, it removes a lot of pressure, and it helps you concentrate on your goals.” 

His progression to party politics was spurred on while he was chair of ELREC by the belief that “if you want your voice to be heard you have to be part of the policy-making process”.  

At an ELREC event featuring the Scottish party leaders at the time, a member of the audience, comprised of small third-sector organisations and people from the community, said they would never become a politician and parties “only want us to tick a box”, adding that they will never be selected or elected.  

“That presented as a challenge to me,” he says. “Although at the time I had never thought about being in a party because of the role I was in, I was very close to the people in the Labour Party.  

“I became more serious around the time of the referendum. I was finding a lot of the people from ethnic minority communities were saying they could not raise their voices. Particularly people who were against independence were telling me they were getting targeted.  

“Some people who were supporting the Yes campaign were questioning why they were opposed to Scottish independence when they celebrated Bangladeshi independence, for example.      

“It was totally out of order. The situation of Bangladesh in 1971 was totally different from Scotland’s situation. Later, once I was elected, one of my colleagues asked me in the chamber why I don’t support Scottish independence when I celebrate Bangladeshi independence. That made me so angry. 

“So that really got me involved. I had to become a member of a political party to raise my voice. I’ll always remember my dad telling me when I was younger, ‘Labour is for everyone, and others are for themselves’.” 

At the 2017 general election, Choudhury was selected to stand for Labour for the Edinburgh South West constituency. Throughout that campaign he faced a lot of racism and describes the first week after selection as “a very dark moment”.  

“A person burned a leaflet in my face and told me they would never vote for an Asian or black person, others threw the leaflets back at me,” he recalls. “Another thing I felt was that was many people were asking me questions that they wouldn’t ask another candidate, things about my religion, for example. And I have had threats as well, which sadly is normal. But I have very supportive colleagues who told me to stop reading social media, and I have done.”  

Choudhury tells me about what his staff has experienced: “People have told my staff when they finish work late at night as they get the bus home things like ‘the bus doesn’t go to Poland or Bangladesh’. My team and I have faced racism quite a lot.” 

Comparing his first election campaign to the present day, Labour’s fortunes at the polls have improved markedly, with the party winning a landslide victory at the UK general election this year and re-entering government for the first time in 14 years, at the same time reducing the SNP’s huge haul of Scottish seats to single digits.   

But already the party’s government has been tested with a raft of cuts set to be made by the chancellor, and far-right anti-immigration riots.  

Choudhury speaks to Holyrood just a month after the riots caused havoc and spread fear through ethnic minority communities south of the border. And although violence did not take place in Scotland, two days on from the interview a right-wing ‘pro-UK rally’ took place in George Square in Glasgow, which was publicised by the co-founder of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson. Two arrests were made by police, one for committing a hate crime, the other for possessing a weapon. 

“People do not feel safe,” Choudhury says. “I am part of a mosque, and I pray every Friday. The community is very worried. Being involved in ELREC and the stories I am hearing from schools; it’s really bad.  

“Mosques are experiencing break-ins; people have forced themselves in even though people are inside. Muslims have been attacked and the community is feeling unsafe because of the Gaza situation as well, which is not helping the ethnic minority communities either. A lot of women, particularly older women who wear hijabs, feel very uncomfortable to walk around.” 

Throughout this portion of the conversation, Choudhury commends Police Scotland for its role in giving confidence and support to faith leaders, organisations and communities, but he is scathing of certain politicians, who he would prefer not to name but who he says have “been getting away” with online discourse which has “aggravated” the situation. He believes they should be “punished”. 

“What politicians can do is make people more accountable on social media, because at the moment a lot of people are creating social media accounts. And the type of fake news we have seen should have a tougher sentence,” he says. 

“I know it will be difficult because resources are not there, but one of the biggest problems we have in society at the moment is fake news.”