Labour candidate and former journalist Yuan Yang has become the UK’s first ever Chinese-born member of the parliament, as her party trounced the ruling Conservative Party in a general election that also saw a record number of women voted in.
The centre-left opposition Labour Party won the election on Friday after racing past the 326 seats needed to secure a majority in parliament, ending 14 years of right-wing Conservative rule. Labour leader Keir Starmer will become the UK’s next prime minister later on Friday, after outgoing leader Rishi Sunak of the Tories conceded defeat.
With five constituencies still to return their results on Friday afternoon, Labour had won 411 seats and the Conservatives 119 – a record low – according to British broadcaster the BBC.
In the new constituency of Earley and Woodley in Reading, Yang, who was a Europe-China correspondent at the Financial Times, claimed the seat with 18,209 votes, beating Conservative candidate Pauline Jorgensen, who bagged 17,361 votes.
With her parliamentary victory, Yang became the UK’s first ever Chinese-born lawmaker. Her family moved to the country when she was four following the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing, according to publicly available information.
She campaigned to win the support of Hongkongers living in the UK, calling the Conservative government’s approach “not really enough” to protect their basic rights and safety, according to a report by Nikkei Asia.
More than 144,000 Hongkongers have moved to the UK since London launched an emigration scheme for British National (Overseas) passport holders after Beijing imposed a national security law in the city in 2020. Many were able to vote in the general election on Thursday for the first time.
Hongkongers interviewed by Nikkei said that many who had settled in the UK supported the Conservatives because of the BNO policy.
The Labour Party had said the BNO visa route would stay under a “controlled and managed” immigration system – part of the party’s election platform.
The other two major parties – the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats – also included policies focused on attracting the Hong Kong vote in their manifestos, while pledging to continue the BNO visa scheme.
It is estimated that close to 3 million Hongkongers have BNO status – a relic of the city’s British colonial past before returning to Chinese rule in 1997.
As Labour swept to a landslide victory, the general election also saw a record number of female candidates winning a seat.
As of Friday afternoon, 242 women had been voted into the parliament, surpassing the previous high of 220 set in the 2019 general election, according to the BBC.
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