By England local elections 2021
(BBC) A councillor, who is the first Muslim woman to take charge of a council in the north of England, hopes her historic election win will inspire a new generation of women into politics.
Labour’s Arooj Shah will be ratified as leader of Oldham Council on Wednesday. During her time as a councillor, she said she had faced opposition from traditionalists within her community as well as misogyny and racism.
Ms Shah said she felt a “huge duty to get it right”. “I want any Asian woman who’s looking at me and watched [what] I’ve gone through to feel like they can do it too,” she said.
‘Horrible nastiness’
Ms Shah has lived in Glodwick, one of the country’s poorest wards, her whole life after her parents moved to the UK from Pakistan to work in the local textile industry in 1968.
After representing her neighbourhood for four years, Ms Shah lost her seat to an independent male candidate in 2016, a result that she believes was a reaction from the male Asian community,
