Britain's first-ever Chinese MP says it's 'no big deal' and doesn't care what Chinese think of him

By Ryan Kilpatrick, May 8, 2015

The Great British public elected its first-ever ethnically Chinese member of parliament in yesterday's general election.

The Conservative Party's Alan Mak retained the safe Tory seat of Havant, situated in the southeast corner of Hampshire. Mak, who is of Chinese-Malaysian background, picked up 23,519 votes in the ballot, winning with a comfortable majority of over 51 percent.

Although the landmark victory was 800 years in the making, Mak was quick to shrug off the significance of his ethnicity. Mak told Post Magazine he has "bigger and more important things" to worry about than his identity and dismissed the idea that he was elected to represent the interests of Britain's half a million ethnically Chinese citizens.

"I certainly have no interest in what people in Hong Kong or China think of me," Mak added, "because I am not representing them. I am representing the people of Havant... This is modern Britain. Having a Chinese-looking person stand for parliament and becoming an MP is not a story. It's no big deal."

Ten other candidates with Chinese backgrounds stood in the election but Mak was the only one to emerge victorious. Outside of the House of Commons, Anna Manwah Lo won a Northern Ireland Assembly seat in 2007 and Nathanael Wei Ming-yan sits in the House of Lords.

[Image via SCMP]