Why does Zarah Sultana want an airport in Mirpur?

So Zarah Sultana, the MP for Coventry South, is in favour of building airports now? That’s a turnaround. In January she railed against Labour party leader Keir Starmer when he dropped his opposition to a third runway at Heathrow. To execute such a U-turn in the midst of a ‘climate emergency’ is ‘reckless, short-sighted and indefensible’, she cried. ‘The planet’ will suffer thanks to Sir Keir, she warned.

Yet now she’s all about airport construction. Suddenly she loves it. Not here, though. Not for us undeserving Brits. No, it’s in Mirpur in Kashmir that she wants to see terminals being erected and runways constructed. She has put her name to a weird MPs’ letter calling on the Prime Minister of Pakistan to acknowledge the importance of building a new international airport 5,000 miles away in Mirpur.

Try to get your head around this. One month Sultana is chastising the PM for even thinking about expanding capacity at Heathrow. And the next she’s pleading the cause of a new global airport in the hotly disputed territory of Kashmir. Won’t that also be a death sentence for ‘the planet’? Isn’t it as ‘reckless’ in a ‘climate emergency’ to fly thousands of planes in and out of Mirpur as it would be at Heathrow? Or does Pakistan, unlike unworthy Britain, get a free pass on spouting out carbon?

For proof of how much the politics of identity has rotted our public life, look no further than this Mirpur letter. It’s the brainchild of Mohammad Yasin, Labour MP for Bedford. It says that having an international airport in Mirpur is a ‘very important matter’, because currently the nearest airport is Islamabad International, which is 80 miles from Mirpur city.

Almost 20 MPs have signed the letter. Alongside Sultana – who sits as an independent after having the Labour whip withdrawn last year – there’s Tahir Ali, Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green. You know what’s also a ‘very important matter’, Mr Ali? Rat-infested streets. If Mr Ali could focus less on building an airport on another continent and more on building a city that works for the people who voted for him, it would be much appreciated.

Labour’s Rosena Allin-Khan also backs the Mirpur airport. Yet, like Sultana, she’d happily deny construction at Heathrow. Expanding Heathrow will cause ‘severe disruption and pollution’, she said in January. Labour’s James Frith backs the massive Mirpur project too, yet he’s previously voted against expanding Heathrow. I wish these people would just come out and say it: Kashmiris can have progress, but Londoners cannot. Their airports are a ‘very important matter’, yours are machines of filth that will only imperil the planet.

The hypocrisy on display here is wild. The same political class that enforces net zero immiseration at home is cheering on massive construction in Kashmir. The same Labour party whose MPs and members tell us the planet will go up in a ball of flames if we keep digging for coal or laying roads or expanding our airports is more than happy for Kashmiris to do such things. It’s eco-austerity for me and you, and shiny new airports for the people of Mirpur.

The hypocrisy on display here is wild

If our politicians cannot see how enraging this is for the everyday Brit, then they’re even more out of touch than I thought. If they do understand how much it will rile their constituents that they seem more interested in building in Mirpur than cleaning up Birmingham, then they’re truly a lost cause. If these people had their way, the thousands of well-paying jobs that would be involved in the expansion of Heathrow would never materialise, and yet it would be boom time for workers in Mirpur. It’s insane.

Starmer should actually respond to their letter. He should tell them that he has no intention whatsoever of commenting on events in disputed Kashmir because that would risk offending our great ally of India. And he should remind them that they represent the citizens of Britain, not the city of Mirpur. That identity politics seems to have birthed a new kind of MP who gets more excited about development overseas than at home should scare us all.