The decision of the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, to effect the Anschluss of Indian-occupied Kashmir as an integral part of an increasingly Hindu nationalist controlled India is a

major international crisis. The arguments over the status of Kashmir, after the bungled Mountbatten partition of the Indian empire in 1947, have produced and will produce as many books and

polemical arguments as the creation of the state of Israel. The Kashmir issue is explosive in British politics, as the majority of the UK’s 3.4 million Muslim citizens come from families

with roots in and links to Kashmir. They are often described as Pakistani, as so-called Azad or “Free” Kashmir lies within Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. But they see the Indian-controlled

identity campaign for separation, lashes out brutally, as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have endlessly reported. It is a dispute over land, nation, identity and faith, far

worse and more murderous than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the same decades since post-1945 retreat of British imperialism. The Indian case is that all the movements for Kashmiri

political, cultural, and faith identity are just promoted by the Pakistani intelligence services and military to destabilise India. For Delhi, it is simply an Islamic terrorist operation

that must be crushed. There are also bitter divisions in Kashmiri politics between those who want Kashmir to be an independent state and those who want it incorporated into Pakistan.

Everyone is right and everyone is wrong on Kashmir and no-one accepts there is an objective truth. But Kashmir matters in British politics, where up to 2 million Pakistani origin (nearly all

from Kashmir) citizens live with full voting rights. Prominent British Kashmiris, like Sajid Javid and Sadiq Khan, have risen to the top of politics’ greasy poles. There are 130 local

Kashmiri councillors – 70 Labour, 36 Conservative, 18 Lib Dem, 8 SNP – with around half the constituencies of the UK having a Kashmiri community presence. When I was MP for Rotherham

(1994-2012), with 8-900 Kashmiri constituents, I would read Urdu papers like the Nation and Jang. They would have four pages of news in English about Kashmir – often carrying photos and

reports of what Kashmiris in the UK considered atrocities carried out by Indian forces. In 1997, just before the election, Robin Cook, then shadow foreign secretary, casually made reference

to Kashmir “in India.” There was an explosion of rage in the UK’s Kashmiri community. Cook’s effigy was burnt in Birmingham and a procession of Labour MPs and candidates came to complain he

might cost them their seat. Labour rushed out a special declaration which upset the Indian government but was necessary to shut down the row. Political bigwigs from Mirpur, the capital of

“Azad” (free) Kashmir tour UK Kashmiri communities, and British Kashmiris follow Pakistan TV and endless online programmes as if they lived in Kashmir. Thus, as Britain enters a potential

political storm over the nationalism and identity politics of Brexit, the UK’s highly politicised Kashmiri voters will be looking keenly at whose side British politicians are on, following

the incorporation of Indian-occupied Kashmir into India. Modi is already a hate figure among British Kashmiris and other Muslims. In 2002, as Chief Minister in Gujerat, he presided over

anti-Muslim pogroms as he whipped up Hindu sectarian hate against local Muslims. Up to 2,000 people were killed, and Muslims in the UK are still bitter that, far from being held to account,

Modi is hailed as the great nationalist leader of India. Boris Johnson, as Foreign Secretary, was careful to visit India and Pakistan, where he got on well with Imran Khan, in many ways cut

from the same posh Oxbridge cloth as the UK prime minister. But much Brexit language has been about a free trade deal with India and privileging India as the new big economic partner to

replace the EU. Two days after Modi’s announcement, there was still nothing on the FCO website about any reaction by Britain to a move of great interest to voters  – despite widespread

concern and condemnation around the world. This reticence will be playing badly in the highly political Kashmiri communities in key UK constituencies. If Prime Minister Johnson is seen as

siding with Modi or not rebuking an act which raises tension between two nuclear powers who loathe each other, then a price will be paid by Tory candidates in the ballot box. _Denis MacShane

was a PPS and Minister at the FCO 1997-2005 and regularly visited Kashmir and Islamabad._