Interview by Kurdistan Hasan
Bakhtiar Mam Sheikh is from the village of Berkot near Erbil. He has been living in the UK since 1997. He started his political career by joining the Labour Party. He was elected to the borough council, and later appointed deputy mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea by the area’s ruling Conservative Party. He told Rudaw he was appointed at the request of the prime minister.
Rudaw: You are known to many Londoners, but I want Rudaw readers to know you better. Where do you come from in the Kurdistan Region?
Bakhtiar Mam Sheikh: I wasn’t born in Berkot, which is home to two great people – Aziz Mohammed who passed away last year, and Abdullah Pashew, who is a great Kurdish poet and thinker. Pashew is probably my closest friend.
When did you leave Kurdistan and arrive in the UK?
I arrived in the UK in late 1997.
When did you enter politics in the UK?
Most Kurds turning to the UK from impoverished places either become members or are sympathetic to the Labour Party 
How come the Conservative Party appointed you as deputy mayor of Kensington and Chelsea?
This was at the behest of the ruling Conservative Party. Theresa May herself called for this. They had seen me in action. They knew what I was doing and what I could do. They thought I could facilitate things for them.
What is the importance of the position of deputy mayor for a Kurd living in the UK?
Municipalities are like frontlines of war. Politicians supervise wars from the capital, and soldiers fight on the frontlines. Whatever we do in the leadership and parliament will reflect on them, and vice versa. We live in the west, and should know how important the role of municipalities is. It is council members that become members of parliament in the future. There is a connection between the parliament and council.
Many Kurds live in the UK, yet we see only one running for parliament, whereas five Kurds are members of parliament in Sweden. What is this?
The leader of the party, Jeremy Corbyn, knows the Kurds well and is well aware of the Kurdish problem.
It seems that the Labour Party cares about the Kurds and their cause more than other parties of the UK. What do you make of this?
This is true. The leader of the party, Jeremy Corbyn, knows the Kurds well and is well aware of the Kurdish problem. Most officials working in the parliament, government and political parties know Corbyn and have relations with him. There are many Kurds living in the area where Corbyn lives. This is how politics is done here. People won’t reelect me if I don’t protect the interests of the people of my neighborhood.
You were a candidate running on the Labour Party’s list, but the ruling Conservative Party called for you to assume an important position in this area. Can you explain this?
They asked me to help them alleviate the anger directed at them when they saw this in me. I think it is the second or third time you have run for council. Was this at your own or your party’s request?
Let me tell you the truth. There might be people even within my party who didn’t like me taking this position. After working as a council member for four years, I was in the fifth year elected deputy mayor. I want to serve people. After the Grenfell incident where a building caught fire in mid-2017, which caused 72 casualties, I was very active and went to the aid of those in need. I helped them a lot. I was working for whoever was turning to me. They asked me to help them alleviate the anger directed at them when they saw this in me.
Members of the royal family live in the borough for which you are responsible. Do you think this makes your duties heavier?
No, I don’t think so. There are people even within my party, the Labour Party, who are against the royal family. They think the royal system should be abolished. I myself only think about serving. I do what I believe in. I think the royal family has become a symbol of stability in this country and has played a great role. I think people in our country should think the same.
How do you feel now that you have been appointed deputy mayor? What can you do?
The moment they called on me to become deputy mayor, I was thinking of how I could become mayor. How can this be done? By hard work and dedication. You spoke earlier about your response to the Grenfell disaster.
It is times of difficulty and crisis that test a leader. Everyone can show himself as a leader at times of peace and security. This place needed help when the building caught fire. I helped people out when no one had asked me to do so. I helped them when it wasn’t my duty and responsibility to do so. I wanted to be there as a leader. I was there daily, and my wife was cooking for them, delivering food for a thousand people, the police, and the needy. I did what my heart wanted me to do.
You are now deputy mayor of an area that has housing difficulties. Do you think you will face problems in the future?
Kensington and Chelsea are old boroughs that don’t have the capacity to expand. People should be housed in apartments in order to tackle this problem. If this apartment catches fire and results in large numbers of casualties, if God forbids this happened in Kurdistan, the KRG would have come into contact with local councils and investigated it. But because the council here is run by someone from the ruling party, the party would suffer financial loss itself.
Why does the UK still support a strong and united Iraq and doesn’t support the Kurdish cause?
I helped people out when no one had asked me to do so. I helped them when it wasn’t my duty and responsibility to do so. I wanted to be there as a leader. How does taking this position as a Kurd benefit the Kurdish question?
If Bakhtiar has a strong position in this area, it is true that I have to serve the UK, its benefit for Kurdistan is that this active person is a Kurd. We will surely work for the Kurdish cause. We can be a bridge between the people of Kurdistan and UK, I am not saying between the KRG and British government. We can play this role. We have a KRG representation office here, although their work and activities are limited. We might be able to do better work. I recently had a plan to organize some conferences on the Kurdish cause, but the war on ISIS, the loss of Kirkuk and half of Kurdistan along with the great treason put us off.
It has been several years you have been working in the council. Has anyone from the Kurdistan Region sought information or advice on how to run councils there?
It’s been three years I have wanted to meet with the Kurdish diaspora and parties and talk to them about my experience as to how I started and what I did, in order to be able to increase the number of Kurds in councils. But unfortunately for the Kurdish diaspora, the Kurdish diaspora from northern Kurdistan are more united than those from the south. Southern Kurds are very dispersed. Southern Kurdistan’s political and social mistrust are even reflected here. Our political parties have played a very bad role in dividing the Kurdish diaspora abroad. Even if we are 10,000 Kurds here, it is still a large number if we are united. We can then apply pressure. We shouldn’t look to the divisions in Kurdistan because we live here and our interests are the same.
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