Sharfaraz Khan Raj

The views expressed and any grammatical or spelling mistakes are my own. #Conservative

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: Nigel Farage says he would give Donald Trump the Chagos Islands in return for silence on the Falkland Islands

"I’d have gone in and said, ‘Right, you know what, mate? Chagos, it’s yours... in return, just please stop talking about the Falkland Islands"

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

Just few more weeks and we will be leading the polls by Christmas.

We have the policies and team behind it to deliver them.

Just have to communicate with the voters.

Not everyone knows all our policies yet but we have something for everyone.

[electionmapsuk @electionmapsuk]

Westminster Voting Intention:

LAB: 24% (-3)
CON: 23% (+3)
RFM: 21% (-1)
LDM: 12% (+1)
GRN: 11% (=)

Via @YouGov, 11-12 Oct.
Changes w/ 4-5 Oct.

[Boris Johnson @BorisJohnson]

This is just not true. As soon as I became foreign secretary I asked the security services the same question and they replied that there was no evidence of any successful interference in the 2016 referendum, by Russia or any other power.

Either the security services have changed their view - which would be very odd - or Burnham is lying about what he has been told. After all Starmer was in power for two years and had access to exactly the same information.

https://t.co/rUn9YSZ4wy

[Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes]

YOUGOV: Reform in Third Place for First Time Since 2024 https://t.co/Pkme3WVWFa

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

@IsabelOakeshott Warfare is changing. You need more drones than humans.

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

#CPC26 team #Barking #Dagenham&Rainham #Conservative

-Deregulation
-Low Tax
-Return Illegal Immigrants
-Tough on Crime
-Cheap Energy
-Pro Family Policies
-Defend UK and it’s international territories

That’s our promise for the next Conservative Government!

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

@TiceRichard This picture was taken 30mins before the event.

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

@reformparty_uk Ok she actually don’t know all about it. But the actual plan is to put about £10bn init and make it. Design, planning, logistics, etc. it’s a similar concept to what a UK entrepreneur is already creating in Ukraine for their war.

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

#UK minimum #wage should be scrapped!

It should be negotiated between #employer and union or the employees.

In a free market that’s how it should work. Otherwise there will be no wage growth in an #economy.

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

It’s a very delicate policy to touch on but it is absolutely necessary for growth in UK.

However, it will make sense to bring their functions under DEFRA so elected representatives can have a say whenever it’s necessary.

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: The Tories have announced they would abolish Natural England and the Environment Agency

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

43% increase in the cost of building a house vs 26% increase in wages.

Did the real wage actually increase by 26% since 2021?

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

Tomorrow, a couple is leaving UK permanently for Dubai after 8 years of working here. Together they were making £200k+/year.

They said they were not looked after despite paying so much in tax.

UK is unable to retain global talents due to high tax and unreliable healthcare!

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

How they’ll get mortgage if the income isn’t enough to cover the full cost of it? Don’t just talk headlines, please say the full thing. Is there any help like government backed loans which the @Conservatives provided to the first time buyers?

Price of new homes will be capped?

[Andy Burnham @andyburnham]

Let's be honest.

A lot of young people have stopped believing they'll ever own their own home.

That's what happens when rents are high, house prices are high, and saving for a deposit feels impossible.

My Labour government is stepping in to help.

With Your First Home, first-time buyers will be able to buy a new-build home with a deposit of just 2.5%.

Because hard work and saving should count for something.

And because the dream of owning your own home shouldn't belong only to those with help from the bank of Mum and Dad.

[Helen Whately MP @Helen_Whately]

If you can work, you should.

Nobody should be able to live a lifestyle on benefits.

@Conservatives will make welfare fair to taxpayers and to those who work hard and do the right thing.

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

@DCBMEP @BBCr4today long run benefit even if 30% of those people are prevented from drinking, smoking or gambling. Reduce pressure on NHS and encourage working. Definitely it won’t work 100% as there will be black market created by this policy. But you need to see the overall positive impact.

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

@RobertJenrick Problem is that your plan is theoretical but not practical.

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

@PunishedRWR No way! Want it all blue!

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

@zarahsultana Do you know how many zeros “0” are in a billion?

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

@peg_roger @griffitha Don’t you understand that she doesn’t want to leave her place which she worked for years? Do you live in different Airbnb or hotel every week?

[Sharfaraz Khan Raj @sharfarazbd]

Virtually all populations are the product of migration at some point in their history.

Ancestry, migration and nationality are different things and need to be understood separately. Please use your platform to talk about it and things will improve as people learn.

[Rishi Sunak @RishiSunak]

I was a very fortunate kid. My dad's GP surgery sat between the Dell and Hampshire's County Ground, so at weekends I could go to a game and get a lift home afterwards. It left me with a passion for both sports and a belief that sport opens a window onto who we are.

When I was growing up, the Tebbit test was a matter of intense debate. Which side did you cheer for at the cricket? For all the criticism it received, it was a test anyone could pass. If you supported England because you saw it as home, you were part of the team regardless of the colour of your skin. Born in Southampton, 10 year old me passed it without even knowing about it.

Giving the @MCCOfficial's Cowdrey Lecture on Thursday made me think about cricket's place in our national life and the current arguments about identity.

In Britain we've built the world's most successful multi-faith, multi-ethnic democracy. I was a beneficiary of it. Whatever issues people had with me as PM (and there was no shortage) my race and religion weren't among them. I could read a lesson at the King's coronation or light Diwali diyas on Downing Street with my daughters without controversy. Foreign leaders assumed these must be huge symbolic moments. For most Brits, they just weren't that big a deal.

But Britain's democratic achievement is now under strain. Some of the challenges are ones I've written about before, like Islamism, and the failure of governments, including the one I led, to adequately control immigration. But something else is going on - a risk that we start equating skin colour with nationality.

After I left office, a debate kicked off here on @X about whether I was English at all, because I was a "brown Hindu". During the election campaign I'd been shocked when footage was broadcast of someone calling me a "Paki." It was shocking precisely because it was so unusual. That kind of abuse had simply not been a feature of my political life. But the Englishness argument was stranger still. Call it the reverse Tebbit test. If you're not white, it no longer matters who you support at the cricket, because you can never be English. It's a test no non-white person can ever pass.

I have no truck with people who offend our sense of fairness and come here illegally; I spent half my premiership trying to deport them to Rwanda. I think the bar for legal migration should be high. It is entirely possible to want a radical reduction in immigration and a far more robust approach to integration, and still totally reject the attempt to turn Britishness into a DNA test.

If you're born and brought up in England and view it as home, what are you other than English? Denying people their Englishness or their Britishness because of the colour of their skin is a recipe for alienation and a two-tier society. How are children who hear this meant to feel?

Sport can play a small but significant role here. Cricket is played by nearly every major ethnic group in this country. Ask what my largely white rural constituents in the Dales and the British-Asian kids in Bradford have in common, and the answer is cricket. If cricket can produce England teams in which every kid can see themselves, the impact reaches far beyond the boundary.

As I write in @thetimes today, we must all be on the same side, cheering for the same team.

We cannot allow race to be reintroduced into our politics. We cannot allow Briton to be set against Briton.