London: British Labour MP Keith Vaz’s enemies, and there are many, will be celebrating. One move after another has been made over many years to nail the Indian-born MP somehow. None of the accusations has stuck, earning him the name ‘Vaz-lene’ in some of the media. But this scandal has hit home without doubt. It’s unlikely Keith Vaz will ever fully recover from it.
The substance of the scandal lies in a degree of shame it has brought, though there are no immediate signs of illegality. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said as much: “He hasn't committed any crime that I know of. As far as I'm aware it is a private matter.”
After the tabloid Daily Mirror published a record of Keith Vaz’s conversations with two East European male prostitutes, that private matter became a very public matter. Going by that report, Keith Vaz invited two East European male prostitutes to a flat he has taken near his family home, talked sex with them and then engaged in sexual activity with them for a fee. Under UK law, prostitution itself is not illegal, only soliciting is.
The damage done to his relations with his wife and two children is unimaginable. But further, questions have begun to arise over his position as MP from Leicester East constituency, with a heavily Indian population. Vaz has been MP from there since 1987, making him the longest-serving Indian MP by far. His political base there has been considered unshakeable. Not any more perhaps, even though the next election is three years away, and a lot can change within that time.
But such scandals have a way of sticking in memory. Well before election time, Keith Vaz will now find it awkward, to put it mildly, to face his Gujarati constituents. Nor will his Bollywood connections be so easy to maintain now seeing how very publicity-sensitive our stars are. Vaz has been a bridge for long between visiting Bollywood stars and the Indian community in Britain; he has visiting stars in parliament, a place they have quite enjoyed shining from.
But Vaz’s India connections are far from frivolous, and his connections with the Indian community in Britain go well beyond his constituency. Vaz has been passionate and eloquent in taking up Indian issues and causes, all the way to everyday concerns of local people to rushing to Heathrow to get Baba Ramdev out of temporary detention. And only a couple of weeks back he told News18 in an interview that about the best thing the new British Prime Minister can do in a post-Brexit scenario is to go to India. It will be quite a loss for India and for Indians in Britain to the extent that Vaz may be compromised in the extent he speaks up for them.
The circumstances of the scandal have brought up two issues that have clashed with his prestigious position over the past nine years as head of the UK Parliament’s home affairs select committee. One, he is heard speaking with the male prostitutes about poppers, a sex enhancing drug that his committee debated a ban on. Secondly, his committee had been considering the law on prostitution itself. Both raised conflict of interest questions, leading him to announce he will quit as head of that committee.
However the particulars pan out, many believe already now that as a result of this scandal, the best of Vaz, was.
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