YouSaid · the spoken record

Naz Shah

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73
first
2026-04-05
most recent
2026-04-05
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1
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podcast

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  1. “Absolutely. You're British, you're going to get your, it's going to affect your family status. It's going to affect your economic status. It's going to obviously impact on all of those things. But the bit about the bit before that, the emotional blackmail, which I only recognised as the forced marriage in my 30s, was imagine. So here's my mum, she's a 23-year-old with three kids, went to a brother, her husband leaves her, said to her brothers turn around and say, give up the kids and we'll look after you. She's saying, I'm not giving up my kids. So she loses two brothers. Then my cousin sits me down and says, your mother has got one brother left. She's given up two brothers because of you, before you children. If you don't”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “And then you go to a house, you imagine a village of a few streets, and there's only one street, one house that has a phone. So that phone call is only three minutes long. So you've got to get out of your house, climb and go into another house, climb up the roof, go down the roof the other side to get to the other street. And that three-minute phone call, you've lost 40 seconds then. So you've got about 120 to 150 seconds left of his call if that. And then by time you get to the phone call, the rest of them are catching up, right? My auntie, my grandma, whatever it is, and you get a 20 second conversation with your mother and as you said to mom, whatever you want me to do, I'll do. It's up to you. I'll do whatever you want. And she said, no, you do whatever, you know, whatever you want, I'm happy with. That was it. And then the phone was taken off me. So in that miscommunication, she never told me because she thought she was told that I wanted to get married. I was told she wanted me to get married. And actually, when I came back, my mum was really...”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “My mum's in Bradford. So, what they do was you get a phone call. So, my uncle said, Your mum wants you to do it. So I said, only when she tells me.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Two years older than me. Yep, my cousin. And all of a sudden, you're marrying him, so I can't go out and play it anymore. So my plain deers are over, so I've got to behave in a certain way. So that took that robbed me of my childhood. And then by the time I was 15, the family wanted me to have a nigar and get married. I wasn't 15 at this point. So they were negotiating with my mum. My mum didn't want me to do it, but we had a three-minute phone call. The phone call. It was in Brussels.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “So I was out walking the dog with the boys because I was a bit of a tomboy and my cousin pulled me up and she said to me, you can't do that anymore. And I said, why not? She went, because you're going to marry him. That day, my world absolutely changed. I was literally 13 or 14. I was younger than 14 at that point.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “All of these things, and then when you in the foot, when I went to my auntie's house, they didn't even have water. At least we had a tank in our village, so we did have a water tank. We had a water tank which was as big as this room and you had to get in it every few months to clean out all the green stuff off it. So you had to jump in it, clean it up, you know, and then it was an exciting thing to begin with. The excitement soon wore off.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Much. So, you don't have to when I did go to school eventually to school, I was teaching the head teacher English because their English is very different, right? So I was acing my two exams that I did there, two years that I did there, because they were like years behind us in the UK. And I've got a good short-term memory. So I could learn and read and write anyway. So that was helpful. But the idea of the daytime, then if you are going to school, you're washing up dishes. So here you've got a scour. You've got fairy liquid. You've got hot water, right? That ain't happening in Pakistan. You've got a little metal glass. And in that is some sand. And you wipe in this cloth on a soap, then dipping it in sand for it to become the abrasive to clean the dishes with. And then you're washing your clothes and next door is a big slab. It's so bigger than this desk that we're in front of. And it's a storn slab. And you've got a bucket of water and you've got this soap and you're washing your clothes by hand. Right. So it's like...”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “The first few months were absolutely exciting because it's like living on a farm, right? And all of a sudden you've got the chickens and you've got the goat and you've got the donkey and you've got these buffaloes.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “You're getting up in the morning. So there's a routine every day And whilst they're being milked, you clear up that crap so you can then bring them back out into a garden to tie them up. You've got a donkey that you have to load up. You're going out into, you're buying an area. The family purchased an area where they can chop the wood from every year. Then you're bringing that wood back on the donkey and then you're storing it in a room for it to dry out. And then you can use it for winter fuel. Your kitchen is where you're lighting the fire from scratch. That dung, that buffalo dung you're using your bare hands to turn it into imagine a plate upside down onto the roof so you're carrying it up, you're cleaning it up. The bit that's got the bit of hay in it and it's not so clean. You take that onto the manure hump so you put it in a basket, putting it on your head, walking down the street at the end of the street is a manure dump. Then that gets sold to the farmer for fertilizer. And then the rest of it, you're drying out on the roof so that you can then bring it down on an evening. So once it's...”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I thought it was a normal thing. I just, because you don't know it until you're out of it, you think domestic violence is normal because you do come across other people who do beat their wives. And it happens all the time, right? So we have, I know now we have two women a week that are murdered by their partners or somebody that knows them. We know that women kill themselves. They're driven to suicide because of domestic violence. And it wasn't something you challenged as a child. Now when I look back at it, I think how appalling, how, you know, even as you're growing up, you realize it's wrong because it hurts, right? You know, in my uncle hit me in Pakistan, it was my uncle just because he fought the Buffalo to eat and the soap, you know, and I got punched, I got winded. I was a kid, Rory. You know, the idea that you can just turn around and unleash your fist on a child or a woman, would that have happened if I was a man? No, it wouldn't happen. And I think it's way too common, much more common than we'd like.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Yeah, because we don't have the language for it in my culture. We don't have a language. There's no word for depression. I've chaired a mental health charity. There's no word for all of these things, how to unpick them. So women don't talk about them. They don't talk about trauma in the concept of trauma, how I understand it. So it's really difficult. So we try to focus on the best things, which is laughing with the kids and reliving her life and looking at the gratitude of what God has given her despite all the trials she's been through.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yes, it is role reversal. So I've got to still look after her. I've still got to be mindful of her. She still relies on me to get her doctor's appointment because she doesn't know how to use the NHS app. You know, so there's a hollowness inside her. And it pains me. So if I'm being honest, I avoid having those thinking what my mother's, how she feels. I know she feels really proud that I'm doing what I'm doing. And she's very supportive of the book because she wants things to change. But actually to talk about what she's been through, apart from when we went through the appeal hearing, we don't really sit there”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Looking back on it, at the time when you're going through it, you're putting one foot in front of the other and just getting on with it, you're campaigning, you're in fight or flight. When you get to the other side, there are still conversations I daren't have with my mother. We had a Bradford launch literally on Sunday night here yesterday and we had, you know, it was an amazing turnout, really. My mum was present, that was the first time she was present in the audience. And you look at her and I tried to avoid her looking, you know, looking in her eyes because the one thing about my mum's eyes is that they pierce you and the memories that I have of her, whether it was that time when he was beating her and she was looking at me to go and get help, whether it was the day she got convicted in the courtroom and you could see her eyes or the eyes when I left her at prison for the first time. It's like a child. The look in her eyes, there's nothing behind. It's really, really mother.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “So my mother was raised in her rural village. She was one of the youngest of her siblings. She didn't speak English. She speaks a lot better now. She can communicate and get along, but no, at the time it was very, very different for very alien”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Lots of farmers, lots of manual workers. So they came and worked in the mills and my father was one of them. My father, albeit, came a lot younger. My mum's brother came when they were younger. So he spoke broad Yorkshire accent English. You know, my uncle, I remember somebody saying he was one of a teddy boys. I remember back in the days, you know. So there were young people, they became a lot younger. My granddad, and he came when I, I suppose when he was in his midlife kind of era. So lots of them, when they came here, Rory, they intended to go back. They were economic migrants wanted to build here. So they held on to the culture back of the 60s and 50s of how Pakistan and Azad Gashmir was, which was very conservative, very rural. And whilst they lived here, they realized they're not going back. So they then called their families over. First, lots of men came over these to do shifts in the same bed, you know, night shifts, day shifts, whatever they were. And then they bought their families.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “So Zad Kashmir was administered as part of Kashmir is occupied by India and part is administered by Pakistan. The Pakistan bit is where I spent two and a half years there. It's very much the people came when the dam was made in post-war to help build Britain back. So they were largely economic migrants, largely from working class backgrounds. So they didn't have education as their kind of framing.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “No, at the core, it doesn't. At the court, if anything, my faith gives me the ability to challenge that notion because there is no patriarchy in Islam. The idea of misogyny, had there been more Muslims around my mum rather than men who lived with a culture where the patriarchy comes from, my mother would not have suffered the abuse that she did had Islam been in my orbit. I would have not had a forced marriage at 15 because none of that is allowed. So the idea for me is about the title honoured is about reclaiming honour for women. And that for me encapsulates the status of a woman in Islam, which is absolutely miscontrued by men. And that's for the sake of power, that's deep to misogyny.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

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    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Them, all of them, they're Abrahamic faiths, and for me, the basics of Islam are common sense. Christianity is common sense. Judaism is common sense. Any religion is common sense because it's derived from a value. And that value is steeped in human spirit, human spirituality. But I also see when you talk about values, for me it's just the basics of values. How do we behave in the world? What do we leave behind in the world? How do we contribute? What is the purpose of life and to live a life of purpose is ultimately what Islam is. This episode has brought you by IG. If you're listening to this podcast, the chances are you're someone who thinks seriously about politics, economics, and your own financial future”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Realized that actually Islam was the answer to the problems that I'd had all my life and I then used Islam to fight the patriarchy, to fight misogyny, to fight all of these things. And when you get to a place where it was a beautiful book that I've read recently and it talks about actualization, self-actualization in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, when you get to that position where you suspend your need for you as a person and do it for the sake of something bigger than you, which is what Islam teaches you, A gives you much more power. It gives you comfort and it absolutely releases you from the pressures of the world just to be the best that you can be. For a non-Muslim audience, how would you describe Islam in relation maybe to Christianity? Are they very similar religions? Are they different? What's your sense if you were trying to communicate to somebody who was a Christian? What it's like to be a Muslim? So to me, who's, you know, I left school at 12, I haven't read much. I've only just started reading books recently. I think Islam, Christianity, Judaism.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “One of the things he writes about very movingly in your book, which is actually beautifully written book, is your faith. You write about going on Umra, you write about doing Dikar with your brother, talk a little bit about your faith, talk about what Islam means to you. I grew up with a mixture of culture, not faith, and it was cultural, you know, where the patriarch and the misogyny comes in. But from a faith perspective, one of my managers recruited me after I'd done all this campaigning for my mum and pointed out two packs lyrics were, I had two-pack plane. He said, can we turn it off? And I said, why? He said, the lyrics are misogynistic. And I was like, oh my God, it took a Muslim man to tell me that Tupac was misogynistic. So that kind of opened my eyes. And then those first time I met a practice in Muslim who embodied Islam as he lived. And he was my boss. And then 9-11 happened. Then there was the awakening. And then you realized you learn more about it. And the more I learned about it, the more I...”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for joining us. So I obviously first came across you when we were colleagues in Parliament. So before we get back into this extraordinary backstory, in some ways you are an ordinary Member of Parliament doing your job for your constituents. Tell us a little bit about the sort of more understandable ordinary part of your life, and then we'll get back into this extraordinary part. Or you guys know politics, your old hands at this. I'm only a decade in, just over a decade, in a normal day is just getting down to London on a Monday morning or a Sunday night, being here till Wednesday or Thursday, depending on the business of a house, in between managing free kids, although my youngest was free, Rhys was free when I came in. And now they're 14, 18 and 21, 21 year olds at uni, she'll be the first person in my family to have gone to university. My son will be starting university. And it's just managing the Friday surgery as all MPs and then carrying on with the day job and struggling.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “So before we get going, a content warning what we're about to discuss in terms of NASA's own personal life includes references to sexual abuse, violence, rape, murder. And if you are a listener who is concerned with these issues, please be aware of that content if you choose to continue to listen to this program.”

    2026-04-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 183. From Bradford to Westminster: Faith, Identity, and Power (Naz Shah) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source