Success story of expelling Ugandan Asians in United Kingdom and abroad
Many others have had their own success stories too. Baroness Shriti Vadera was born in Uganda in 1962. Her family owned a tea plantation near Kampala until they were expelled in 1972, fleeing first to India and later settling in Britain.
Success story of expelling Ugandan Asians in United Kingdom and abroad
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OPINION
By Lord Dolar Popat
History has shown that Uganda’s loss was Britain’s gain. A large number of the generation that was part of Idi Amin’s expulsion, and their children, are now on the UK's rich list. But more importantly, they have been heavily involved in public service. Several are Members of Parliament. There are many success stories, including Lord Dolar Popat, who is originally from Tororo. He was, until recently, Britain's Trade Envoy to Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC, and supported Ugandan exports to the UK.
He left Uganda in 1971, aged 17, arriving in Britain with just £10 in his pocket. He worked his way up from being a waiter at a Wimpy bar on Kilburn High Road, studying at night school to qualify as an accountant.
He went on to build a career in business and corporate finance, was appointed to the House of Lords in 2016, and served as a Business Minister under David Cameron.
Being appointed as Trade Envoy, Lord Popat helped secure a new international airport for Uganda, built by the UK company Colas at a cost of £280 million, and worked towards the first direct flights between London and Entebbe. He also supported the Gridworks energy project, a £1 billion partnership with British International Investment, and a £150 million contract for NMS Infrastructure Limited UK to help modernise Uganda's agricultural sector.
She served as a minister in Gordon Brown's government between 2007 and 2009, covering International Development, Business, and the Cabinet Office, and was made a life peer in 2007. She later chaired Santander UK, the first woman to chair a major British bank, and now chairs Prudential plc.
Most Ugandan Asians in British public life are Conservatives, a party often regarded as racist, but which for this community has meant aspiration and enterprise. Shivani Raja has been the Conservative MP for Leicester East since July 2024, the first Conservative to win that seat in 37 years. She was born in Rushey Mead, Leicester, in 1994.
Shailesh Vara was born in Uganda in 1960 and brought to Britain by his Gujarati parents in 1964, aged four. He became the UK's first Hindu MP, representing North West Cambridgeshire from 2005 until 2024. He held several ministerial roles under David Cameron and Theresa May, and served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the summer of 2022.
Dame Priti Patel was born in Harrow in 1972. Her Gujarati parents left Uganda for Britain in the 1960s. She has been the Conservative MP for Witham since 2010, served as Home Secretary from 2019 to 2022, and is now Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Lord Jitesh Gadhia was born in Kampala in 1970. He built a career as an investment banker, working with Barings, ABN AMRO, Barclays and Blackstone, before being appointed to the House of Lords as a Conservative peer in 2016.
The late Lord Sheikh was born in Kenya in 1941 and brought up and schooled in Mbale, Uganda. His family arrived in Britain penniless in 1972. He built a successful insurance broking business, Camberford Law, and became the first Conservative Muslim peer in 2006, founding the Conservative Muslim Forum.
He took his seat in the House of Lords in 2021, supported by Lord Popat among others, and sits as a Crossbench peer, with no political affiliation.
Many other politicians have their roots in Kenya, not Uganda, part of the same wider East African Asian story. Suella Braverman's father, Christie Fernandes, left Kenya for Britain in the 1960s; her mother came from Mauritius. She served as Home Secretary and Attorney General.
Our former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's father was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and his mother in Tanganyika, now Tanzania, both to Punjabi families who had settled in East Africa. Rishi Sunak became the first Hindu, and the first person of Indian descent, to serve as Prime Minister.
Lord Popat has regularly lobbied the Ugandan president on behalf of the community. For decades, Uganda itself had no Indian Members of Parliament, and no Indian Cabinet Ministers. That has now changed.
The Honourable Sanjay Tanna, a Ugandan of Indian descent from Tororo, served as an independent MP for Tororo Municipality from 2006 to 2016 and built a prominent business in Eastern Uganda. In June 2026, he was sworn in as Uganda's Minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, the first Ugandan of Indian descent to hold a full Cabinet post in decades.
Following Imi Admin’s expulsion, tremendous success in business, politics and philanthropy has been achieved. Of course, many never forget where they came from. Lord Popat, through his charitable trust, has built a children’s hospital in Bulsowe. As well as a new computer centre at his old school, Manjasi High School, in which the First Lady opened.
Of course, we cannot forget the Mayor of New York, Mamdani. Zohran Mamdani was born in Kampala. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, a scholar now at Columbia University, was among those expelled from Uganda in 1972. His mother is the filmmaker Mira Nair. Zohran Mamdani took office as Mayor of New York on 1 January 2026, the city's first Muslim and first South Asian mayor.