The opposition Labour Party is widely expected to win by a landslide, replacing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party which has been in power for 14 years.
Voting for the first time in a British election, Oyinkansola Dirisu and other immigrant voters said they are excited to be casting their votes in the July 4 ballot.
Dirisu, 31, a support worker from Manchester who came to Britain in 2022, said she would be voting for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Labour Party.
She added that she wanted whoever won the election between Labour and the Conservative Party to make it easier for people like her to move to Britain.
Refugees and immigrants from Commonwealth countries, mainly former territories of the British Empire such as Nigeria, India, and Malaysia, are eligible to vote in British elections.
Prathesh Panjak, 27, who came to Britain in February last year, said he was excited to cast his vote after missing the election in his native India.
“In my country, they don’t allow people from other countries to vote … I came here on a student visa, but they are giving us an opportunity, like British citizens,” said Panjak who works part-time as an ambassador at his university in Manchester, northwest England.
Others, like Esther Offem, 26, who came from Nigeria last September, are still undecided: “None (of the parties) have done much in the areas I am most interested in.
“But at the moment, I would probably go for the Conservatives … I’m not sure yet.”
Teh Wen Sun, a 33-year-old Malaysian student from Salford, said she did not see much difference between the two main parties but was keen to vote for a party that is more receptive to immigrants.
The opposition Labour Party is widely expected to win by a landslide, replacing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party which has been in power for 14 years.
Immigration is an electoral battleground in Britain, with Sunak promising to cut net migration levels if the Conservatives win, amid concern from many British voters that it was too high and put excessive pressure on the state-run National Health Service, housing, and education.
Mr Sunak has since tightened visa rules and made international headlines for a policy to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
