Sojan Joseph

Sojan Joseph is the first ever Labour MP for Ashford, a seat that had returned a Conservative for 95 years and had not elected a non Conservative since 1929. Born in Kerala, India in September 1983, he emigrated to England in 2002 and moved straight to Ashford, where he has lived for 22 years. An Indian immigrant who arrived as a junior nurse and went on to defeat a former de facto Deputy Prime Minister is a more remarkable story than most.

His career is an NHS ladder climbed from the bottom. He began as a junior nurse at the Arundel unit of the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and progressed through ward manager, matron and mental health nurse to become Head of Nursing, Quality and Patient Safety at the Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust, completing a master's in Health Care Leadership while working on the frontline. He joined Labour in 2015 to oppose the austerity whose effects he saw firsthand in the NHS, served as a local Labour BAME Officer, and was an Ashford borough councillor from 2023 until he resigned on becoming an MP, after which Labour lost the council seat to the Greens.

The man he defeated, Damian Green, was no ordinary incumbent: First Secretary of State and de facto Deputy Prime Minister under Theresa May, Shadow Education Secretary, and chair of the One Nation Conservatives. Joseph turned a notional 35.4 point Conservative lead into a Labour gain, winning 15,262 votes (32.5 per cent) and a majority of 1,779 (3.8 per cent), with Reform UK on 21.6 per cent. He sits on the Environmental Audit Committee, served on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill committee, and voted against that bill.