Unexpected Interview Outside a Polling Station — Watch This

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Perfect. And then, just here, if you don't mind just ticking these boxes and putting your name again. It's just saying you're happy for your name, your job, and your your constituencies to appear alongside your video.

[00:00:10]>> That's fine. No worries. Yeah. Perfect.

[00:00:11]Thank you so much.

[00:00:14]>> [crying] >> Thank you so much. There we are. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's fine. There we go.

[00:00:24]Thank you so much. I'll just face this towards you by here.

[00:00:29]Fantastic. I'm just going to start the video now.

[00:00:31]I'll just center you in the frame.

[00:00:34]Um and so, do you consider yourself to be Welsh? I'm not. I'm not. I'm a Pakistani. Pakistani.

[00:00:38]>> Yeah. I'm an immigrant in in uh in Wales, yeah. Do you consider yourself Welsh or British at all? Or Well, I'd say I'd say I've got I've got British values, British values because I've been living here for the last Well, in Wales, I've been here for last 5 years. I've been living in the UK since the last 10 years. Okay. So, I consider myself to have the the British values, basically.

[00:00:56]I've adopted the British culture.

[00:00:58]Absolutely.

[00:00:59]>> In that sense, yeah. What does that mean to you, sort of the British or Welsh values? How would they those be different? Well, it would be obviously it would be the way way of life, the way you know they the way you live in Wales, to follow the rules of Wales. Like I know there are some rules different from Wales to England. So, that's that's what I meant. But yeah, just being in Wales, I wouldn't call myself Welsh. Like I love Wales, you know. That's what There's a reason why I'm here because I love it. But to call myself Welsh, I think that's a bit unfair to the people who are actually Welsh. And I mean the people who are born Welsh, like the Welsh Welsh Welsh people. So, for me as a Pakistani coming from Saudi Arabia.

[00:01:33]So, I was raised in Saudi Arabia. So, for me uh I do believe that ethnicity should not be played around with. So, like for me, if I live in the Let's say I was born in Wales. Let's say I was born in Swansea in Sketty. If I was born here and uh to call myself Welsh even then, I said that that's again very unfair to the people who are actually Welsh. But like again, that's my own personal opinion. Yeah. So, that's why I don't see you as about sort of where you were born and raised. Uh no, No. Where you're born, like I said, I could born in in in Wales, but that doesn't mean I become Welsh. I will still be a Pakistani because my both parents are uh Pakistani. So, family ties, then. Yeah, family ties, your heritage, you know, uh for That's like I said, that's just my opinion. But, uh Absolutely. And so, do you feel a sense of belonging to your community here in Wales? Uh, but when you say community, what do you mean? Like I said, uh What does that mean to you? Is it your local area or You're asking me a question.

[00:02:20]Let's ask you. All right, I'll tell you I'll tell you what it means to me, but then you can tell me what it means to you. But, for me, uh the sense of community I I don't see anything as community. I see human being as human being. Just because I'm brown and you're white or I'm I'm a Muslim or you're you know, whatever religion you follow or whatever it is.

[00:02:36]I think community can be formed uh with you all of you guys having the same or similar um values. And values does not come from religion, uh you know, wherever you born. It It just comes from the place where you live in, like the city or the or the for us for the area that I live in. How do you treat each other regardless of their gender, the the way they feel, the which whatever religion they follow, whatever race they come from. I think that is for me is a community.

[00:03:02]So, if you ask me if I belong, if I feel that I belong in the place the area that I live, yeah, I do. I do I do feel uh very much I belong where I live. People are very nice and kind to me, and I I try to do the same as well. And I think yeah, yeah.

[00:03:15]Yeah, as and like I said, as an immigrant, yeah, very The people are very nice. The Welsh people, the English people, all of them, I'd say, the English, Scottish, Irish, and the Welsh people, all of them are nice. But, I find the Welsh people a little bit more nicer.

[00:03:28]Uh uh you know, whatever you make And do you think do you think Welsh community, sort of what it means to to to be Welsh or live in a Welsh community, do you think that's changed over the years or has it always kind of been the same in your experience? I think in my experience, I'd say it has changed a little bit, yeah. Yeah, 100% I'd say. So, I, like I said, I came here in 2019. It was a lot different uh to what it is now, obviously, for me as a brown man myself, I can say this, but uh I hope everybody else can say this as well because if you see it, you should say it. So, what I'm seeing right now, you're seeing less and less of the white Welsh people around the areas where I live in where I grew, which is again, I don't think uh well, for me personally, it wouldn't be a problem. Like I said, I grew up in Saudi Arabia as a Pakistani.

[00:04:08]The Saudis, the Arabs, they made sure that they had a limited amount of people living in a limited amount of foreigners living in Saudi Arabia because they wanted people when the people visited Saudi Arabia from an outside and when for somebody who is a tourist in Saudi Arabia, they the first thing they arrive, they see Arabs. They see the Saudi culture, you know, they If they wanted to see the Pakistani culture, go to Pakistan. If you want to see the Indian culture, go to India. The same if you want to see the English culture, you go to England.

[00:04:35]And the same way, if I come to Wales, I would like to see the Welsh culture. I wouldn't want to see anything else because like I said, it feels like a bit of a replacement. It feels like I'm not saying it's a takeover or something, but it does feel like that it is yes, has lost its um a little bit of its way the way it's supposed to be, you know what I mean? And you can uh also consider that a lot of people uh not speaking Welsh as well. That's again a thing because when you're in Saudi Arabia, the only and the first language you do speak is Arabic. If you don't speak that, you cannot go by because they avoid speaking any other language and I I think they should do that in Wales as well. It should be compulsory if you live in Wales, if you are from Wales, if you're Welsh, yeah, you should have the Welsh language. But again, we understand uh because, you know, it's part of the United Kingdom. English again is also uh one of the biggest languages that's provided by the by the British people to to the whole world. Then yes, of course, you will have English, you'll have Welsh as well. But I would honestly I would believe that people living in Wales, especially if your kids are going to the Welsh school, they should be not forced, but they should be, you know, they should be learning the Welsh language.

[00:05:34]Let's keep the Welsh language alive.

[00:05:36]Absolutely. That's what I think. Yeah, I think that for me, that would be the sense of community and everything else.

[00:05:40]Right. And that. Fantastic. And so, who have you voted for today? Well, who I voted for Reform. Yeah, I Yes, I have voted for Reform, yeah. And what about Reform speaks to you sort of as a person living here in Wales? Yeah. Oh, sorry, if What what about the party sort of speaks to you as someone living here in Wales?

[00:05:55]>> I think I think with Reform the one of one of the few things that I would say that I do that obviously there's a long list, but one of the things that I would say the biggest thing that they've spoken about is the 20 miles speed limit that they are going to take that off and then bring it back to 30 and even extending the speed limit on the motorways from from I think from 70 to they're going to go up to 80. But that is like I said one of the many very things that they have said.

[00:06:18]Second thing that I have spoken to some of the can Reform candidates here locally and they have made very clear to me and some of the other concerned people is that that there will be a very strict policy of the kids being taught a different religion. Like obviously for me again I can you can agree or disagree. Obviously this is the beauty of democracy. We can say what we like as long as we don't we're not inciting hatred or violence against other. We can say what we like. So what I as a Muslim I would not want my kids going to school here a primary or grammar school here and they are being taught about Islamic religion even though I'm a Muslim I am against that. I would want my kids to go there I want them to learn English. I want them to learn Welsh. I want them to learn maths. Everything academic. Let's keep the religion out of it. And obviously then people would say oh what about Christianity? Well, Christianity it's a Christian country.

[00:07:06]You cannot tell me that you're not going to teach Christianity in a Christian country the same way you're not going to go and tell Arabs that you cannot teach Islamic studies in in a Muslim country.

[00:07:15]But the only thing that is that it's a difference between Saudi Arabia and the UK right now that um Islamic studies are not forced upon the people who do not follow the religion.

[00:07:25]In UK fortunately many many cases we've seen people that I've spoken with that if they were not Muslim they were still told that they need to go to the mosque.

[00:07:32]They need to wear the headscarf. Right?

[00:07:33]They need to It's not they're not converting them or anything, but they're like oh we're trying to educate them.

[00:07:39]But what I would say the reason why one of the again one of the many reason why I voted reform is that is something that they said they would say, you know what, that is unacceptable. And as a Muslim, as an immigrant, as a brown person, I think it's absolutely it's a silly ridiculous thing to do to a child that you put in there. The kid goes there and you teaching them about different religion and all that. Let the kids be kids. Let the kids grow up in their own time. Let us not force kids to become something that we we want to indoctrinate them. Just let us not do that. And I think that's the reason Labour have destroyed it. Like I said again, I've been a tenner so I still call myself an immigrant even though I am a British citizen, but still like I said, for me the ethnicity matter a lot and I do not want to be one of the people or see a lot of people who look like me in this country. And that also means if a time come when the white you know, when the white British people says, you know what, we have had enough.

[00:08:25]We have too many people of color here and they want people to leave. Guess what? I will pack my bags and I'll be the first one out of the country. Even though I don't know where I'm going to go. I call this country my home, but again, this is the reality. This is where we are right now and unfortunately, it is the hard truth and I have to accept it and I will accept it. Yeah.

[00:08:40]Okay. Well, this was fantastic.

[00:08:42]>> Oh, thank you very much. No, thank you very much for taking the time out. Thank you.

[00:08:44]>> Thank you. Thanks for taking the time out.