“I’m not doing this for the sake of a political career“

Harinder Mahil has been a councillor on Medway Council since 2019. Since then, he has become portfolio holder for Economic and Social Regeneration and Inward Investment and the co-owner of one of Medway's best restaurants. Steven met him at his home, where they sat in the garden and talked about why he is not a doctor, redrawing political maps, how he came to co-own Gurkha Fire, and the circumstances behind a smear campaign...

What is your official occupation?
For the sake of Local Authority, I guess it would be portfolio holder for Economic and Social Regeneration and Inward Investment.
We'll break down what that means in a bit. 

Do you have any other additional roles, paid or unpaid? 
Yeah. I'm one of the owners of Gurkha Fire, a restaurant in Chatham. I also sit on a few boards, but the only one outside of the council that is relevant is the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust. I'm a trustee there.

What political parties have you been a member of? 
Only the Labour Party.

Are you Labour or is it Labour and Co-operative? 
Labour and Co-operative, to be specific. The Co-operative Party is a sister party, and I'm very much a paid-up member of the Co-operative Party as well. 

When did your name first appear on a ballot?
That would have been 2015.

Was that as a paper candidate, or was that an active campaign? 
It was very much a target at the time. It was Strood South, and for a while, it was looking like we would get it. However, there was this little thing of a defection of a certain Mark Reckless to UKIP, and then the whole world got turned upside down. It turned out Strood South was one of the bits that got turned upside down the most.

When did you join the Labour Party? 
I think I've always been Labour aligned, Labour voter, but I think I actually joined in late 2012. I remember it being at university.

Was there a particular moment that led you to join at that time? 
I'd say the reason is I had always been left-leaning. If you go back long enough, very left-leaning. At King's College London, it had the Department of Political Economy that has connotations with public choice theory, with libertarianism, with Austrian School of Economics and so that from someone who is left leaning or even on the left as I am, actually got me. It was quite challenging, because they were putting forward really well thought out academic arguments, ones I don't agree with, but ones that really had to make me sharpen my views on what I believed in and where I stood. That ended up pushing me more into a practical political direction. At that point, I thought, I'll join the Labour Party and get involved in the club at university.
I do remember that I actually got a letter from the late councillor [Nick] Bowler. It was a recruitment drive, and those two things happening at the same time got me to sign up to the Labour Party locally, and then there's a whole bunch of stuff that followed on from that. I would say the combination of good, effective local engagement from a great man, Nick Bowler, and me sharpening my academic position.

In the time you've been a member, who's been the best leader of the Labour Party?
I think I'm going to have to go with Keir Starmer because he's actually had to face being a Prime Minister and taking the decisions. I was really energised and aligned with the things that Ed Miliband was talking about in terms of pre-distribution and reforming markets away from predatory capitalism. However, the fact that Keir Starmer has practically got us the win, we've actually formed a government, just can't be underestimated how big an achievement that is, regardless of how you think he's performed as a Prime Minister. As a leader, he's got us there. 

Which ward are you the councillor for? 
Fort Pitt.

Why that ward? 
Simply because I live here.

Fort Pitt is a new ward. How would you describe it? 
I would have called it Intra, and if my submission had been accepted completely and fully, as opposed to only 95% of it, it would have been called Intra. I would say it is everything in between Chatham Maidstone Road and City Way. It also includes the Intra bit attached to the river, and it goes as far west on the northern end to the railway, the Victoria line, and on the eastern part, it cuts across some alleys, which I can show you on a map. I would love to get a map out if you're up for it. 
No, it's fine. 

Where were you born? 
All Saints, Chatham.

What brought your parents to Medway? 
My parents arrived in 1967, but they first arrived in Gravesend. They followed my uncle. This is when there was an invitation to come to the UK and to help build what was then still the post-war economy, although it had been some time after that. There were factories in Gravesend, and so my family were originally a Gravesham family.

Where had they come from? 
Oh, Punjab in India. My dad got involved in the construction industry. He then moved to Chatham in the mid 80s.

What jobs did your parents do when you were growing up? 
My mum used to work in various industries around Chatham, which don't exist in the same way anymore, but they employed a lot of women at the time for a lot of manual work. My dad was in the construction industry for a long time. He then went into house renovation. He would buy houses, build them and then sell them on. He opened up a partnership with my uncle, opened up a bed and breakfast. They sold that and are retired now.  

Did you enjoy school? 
I loved school. I went to the Math School, and I really enjoyed it. It was the best time of my life, really. I had the benefit of a Labour government and the investment in schools. I had the benefit of being in a good grammar in Medway. I had fantastic teachers and supportive parents that wanted me to thrive. I had a model education.

I have to do something that challenges me to keep me going

What did you specialise in at sixth form? 
I did Biology, Chemistry, Physics. 
This is where it all went wrong for me. Deciding what you want to be at that age is just a really bad idea. 
I was lazy. I didn't have the imagination to think beyond what my sister had done. My oldest sister, who's a doctor and was the first in our family to go to university. I actually studied medicine for two years. After the first year, I realised this isn't for me.
I make a joke, where I usually say, “Then I realised I had Asian parents and I could not be a doctor.” But the truth is, my parents never forced me to be a doctor. I think I knew it would make them happy, but it was my decision. 
But when I was there, it was becoming obvious that it really wasn't right for me. I could learn anything. I could get good grades at anything I put my mind to. I realised then that I have to be interested in something. I have to do something that challenges me to keep me going. I then did politics at King's College London.

What role has faith played in your life? 
Quite a big role. I was incredibly religious for a period of my life. I was born in a Sikh household and family. I would say my family are typically religious in that. It was a cultural thing more than a religious thing, and for me, I was always interested in either spirituality or philosophy. Growing up, I always had more questions than my parents had answers to. I got more religious. There was a period of my life where I kept a turban and a beard and was considering being baptised. Then, over that six-year period, towards the end of it, the last year, I was questioning pretty much all of it. Then there was my sister's trial, which I think precipitated a crisis in faith, if you want to call it that. Since then, I've probably described myself as agnostic or atheist. I take Sikhism as more of what is my heritage. It's something I can't let go of in terms of it's still a shared history. There are shared traumas, there are shared victories, there are shared stories that the Sikh people have that makes Sikhism. As well as just a religion, it's also a heritage that people hold on to, and for me, it plays that role. 

What was your first full-time job? 
My first full-time job was working in a factory stacking plastic boxes. 

Have you ever worked for the national Labour Party? 
After the Rochester West by-election, I then worked for the Labour Party in the data and targeting team. Campaign technology in particular, which really did help in terms of getting the strategy together and getting Medway’s campaigning ability up and running. It was a fantastic job. I didn't even think at that point in time, I thought I would leave it

Why did you? 
My brother had a few months, we weren't sure at the time, left to live. I decided to hand in my notice and spend that time that I had left. I decided, following that, that I'd open up the restaurant.

You were first elected for Chatham Central in 2019. Then, in the last local election in 2023, there was a smear campaign. Why not in 2019?
Because the person orchestrating the smear campaign at that time probably thought it was better keeping me onside, because they think very instrumentally.