The UK still has 5 vegan MPs. This 23-year old activist is the newly elected MP for Nottingham East, and the UK’s first non-white vegan MP.
Since being elected on December 12th, Nadia Whittome has already made headlines as the “Baby of the House” and for giving away most of her salary.
Her family background is a mix of Punjabi and Anglo-Indian, and she told Naomi Canton of the Times of Indian about her food:
“I eat a mixture of Indian and Western food,” said Whittome, who is vegan. “The Indian food I have is a mixture of Punjabi and a kind of Anglo-Indian Bengali.”
Times of India, Jan 13, 2020
Nottingham has long been the home of Veggies Catering Campaign since 1984, and has more vegan businesses than you’d expect from a city of its size. It’s known around the world for its place in the Robin Hood stories, popularised by the eighteenth century antiquarian and promoter of the “vegetable diet” Joseph Ritson. Whittome calls it “a banging place to be vegan”.
As a young MP in a safe Labour seat she has the choice of a very long political career, with an enormous impact for animals.
