Ashes hero Monty Panesar wants to be an MP, but he’s already got himself in a spin

London: Monty Panesar’s greatest moment in Ashes cricket came not with his favoured ball but with the bat in the dying light in Cardiff in 2009.

Alongside fellow tailender James Anderson, the pair survived the final 69 deliveries in a last-wicket stand to deny Australia first blood and spark wild celebrations in the stands.

Leader of the Workers Party of Britain George Galloway (right) looks on as former England cricketer Monty Panesar (centre) addresses fellow party candidates in Parliament Square.Credit: Getty

Brits around the world shared in the joy, even then-soldier James Heappey – later Conservative MP and the UK’s Minister for the Armed Forces – who was in Helmand province of Afghanistan at the time.

“It was a moment which inspired,” Heappey said this week. “Remember watching Monty and Jimmy fending off the Aussies from the Ops Room in Sangin ... those were bleak days but England holding on for that draw and setting up the series win that followed put occasional smiles on otherwise grim faces.”

This week, the former England left-arm spinner, who took 167 Test wickets in 50 matches between 2006 and 2013, declared he would stand as a candidate at the next general election for George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain in Ealing Southall, west London, currently a safe Labour seat.

He followed up his announcement with a series of awkward interviews, which included backing in Galloway’s position to leave NATO, a defensive military pact between 32 Western countries in which the UK plays a leading role.

Monty Panesar took 167 Test wickets for England in a career between 2006 and 2013.Credit: Tim Clayton

Galloway, a veteran left-wing firebrand, is seeking to taunt and target Labour in its traditional working-class and multicultural seats at the next election and has them running scared after winning a seat for himself earlier this year. He has objected to the UK’s support for Ukraine following Russia’s illegal invasion and is aiming to make the situation in Gaza a flashpoint in Muslim communities.

But Panesar, who says there must be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, this week was confused about the role of the security alliance, suggested leaving NATO could even help curb illegal migration and that British membership was making it more difficult to control the border.

“We don’t really have control on our borders,” he said. “We have illegal migration and then what ends up happening is some of these illegal migrants go into the poorer, more deprived areas, and then the resources get strained in [those] areas.”

“And I think that’s one of the reasons, you know, our party wants to maybe, you know, have a debate about is it really necessary to be in NATO or not.”

Heappey took to social media saying it was a "shame to see him reduced to this".

Panesar is not the first cricketer to flirt with politics. Alfred Lyttelton, who played four Tests against Australia, was secretary of state for the colonies between 1903 and 1905. Former prime minister David Cameron made fruitless attempts to recruit Panesar’s contemporaries Darren Gough and Andrew Strauss as Conservative candidates.

Test greats Ian Botham and Colin Cowdrey have both sat in the House of Lords as well as Learie Constantine, the great Trinidadian all-rounder and activist against racial discrimination.

Panesar’s star quality as a candidate has commentators saying he has a chance, albeit one at long odds, to win the seat. His high name recognition, engaging personality and Sikh background will do him no harm in a constituency with the largest Sikh population of any in the UK.

On the negative side is the sheer size of the Labour majority won by Virendra Sharma in 2019: 16,084, or 38.1 per cent. The hard-left Workers Party of Britain hasn’t contested the seat before, and Panesar and Galloway will need to build a local organisation and win support for their controversial policies.

Panesar wants to end foreign billionaires owning football clubs, instead putting them into the hands of fans and wants to scrap London’s contentious Ultra Low Emission Zone for vehicles. He said he’d close the gap between rich and poor with a one-off wealth 1 per cent tax on estates over £10 million, and direct it to health and housing funding.

Revealing he has never voted at an election, Panesar argued he had joined the Workers Party to “give people a choice before they just go for either Tory or Labour”.

He has experienced high-profile off-field troubles, including a bitter divorce following a row with his wife in a pub car park in 2011 and problems with alcohol. In 2013 he was fined by police after urinating on nightclub bouncers in Brighton.

“I’m here to represent the working-class people of this country,” Panesar said at his unveiling. “When I played cricket for England I know that I got so much support from the public, and now it’s my time to give back, give back to the working class, make sure the gap between the rich and poor gets closer.”

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