Khalid Mahmood says Paul Sabapathy was trying to encourage Pakistanis to better integrate, and urges palace to refuse resignation

The Queen’s representative who resigned after saying the Pakistani community in Britain needed to be taught “basic common courtesy and civility” was simply delivering some home truths and should be reinstated, according to an MP of Pakistani origin.

Paul Sabapathy CBE, Her Majesty’s lord lieutenant of the West Midlands, resigned on Friday after an email was leaked to the Guardian in which he complained that British Pakistanis needed to remember they were living in the UK, not Pakistan.

He complained that attendees at an event to celebrate Pakistan independence day last month had failed to show him respect, and said their children would fail if they didn’t change their ways.

On Monday Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said he would be writing to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to refuse Sabapathy’s resignation.

“I will be making representations to the palace to urge them to reinstate him,” said Mahmood, who was born in Azad Kashmir in Pakistan and became England’s first Muslim Asian MP in 2001.

Mahmood said Indian-born Sabapathy – the first non-white lord-lieutenant – was an “honourable man with noble intentions” who had been made a scapegoat simply for telling the truth about the Pakistani community in Britain.

He suggested that the underachievement of Pakistani children in British schools was down to “isolationalism” in the Pakistani community, which was getting worse, not better, down the generations.

“Because of the low educational achievement, they get in a position where they are further and further isolated. Once you start that cycle you do go backwards. Some villages in Pakistan have moved forward a lot more than some Pakistani communities in Britain,” Mahmmod said.

Community organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain had failed to break down barriers and “cut away from that isolation”, he added.

Mahmood was at the Pakistani consulate event on 14 August that prompted Sabapathy to remark in the leaked email: “Pakistanis are lovely people individually but there is a lot of work to do to teach them basic common courtesy and civility.”

Sabapathy went on: “They talk to themselves and do not engage with the wider community. They are living in the UK not Pakistan. Whilst being rightly proud of their Pakistani culture and heritage they need to explain better and engage more with their non-Pakistani brothers and sisters if they want their children to succeed as British Pakistani citizens.”

Mahmood said: “As lord lieutenant of the county, he should have been given more respect … They do need to understand that. I am happy to say that. We do need to have a lot more respect in terms of the Pakistani community’s understanding of what the civic structures are there for and how they must engage with them. Until they are prepared to do that I don’t think the community as a whole will move forward.”

Queen's representative resigns after saying British Pakistanis need to learn civility Read more

Poor English language skills among many Pakistanis was a contributing factor in their isolation, Mahmood said. “There’s no problem with people speaking Urdu or any other mother tongue. The issue is when people can’t speak English or don’t feel comfortable speaking English – that is where we still need to move forward to break down these barriers.”

He said Pakistanis could learn from the Afro-Caribbean community, who had progressed much further since they arrived in Britain. “The Afro-Caribbean community has moved on a lot. They got involved in the churches, so they have a different angle. They moved out of the inner cities, most of them, and are in more outer-ring areas where there is more integration.”

Mahmood insisted Sabapathy’s only crime was to try to encourage Pakistanis to better integrate. “He was trying to move forward and support the community. I was going to set up a meeting with the Pakistani high commission to discuss how to get the Pakistani community more integrated – and not in the derogatory manner that’s come out [in the leaked email]. I have been very hurt on his behalf.”

He added: “I would certainly urge that he is reinstated. I think he has done the honourable thing, that at the first sight of bringing the Queen’s name into disrepute he has, as her representative, done a very very positive thing to move forward. I don’t think it should be accepted and I will be making representations very soon to the palace to reinstate him.”