Ilhan Omar meets Tan Dhesi: ‘We helped to break a glass ceiling'

The Democratic congresswoman and the Labour MP swap stories of challenging presidents and PMs, Bollywood, and formative childhoods

The wall outside Ilhan Omar's office is not like that of other members of Congress. In Washington DC, a blank corridor of congressional offices gives way, outside the door to the office of the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, to a collage of cards, notes and handwritten posters offering variations on the slogan "We stand with Ilhan". The 37-year-old, who was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and spent four years in a refugee camp before fleeing with her family to the US, has for the last year been the target of vicious rightwing attacks, not least by President Trump. In July this year, he suggested she and three other women of colour - members of the so-called Squad of progressives newly elected to Congress - should "go back" to the "places from which they came". In some ways, Omar is the most visible of the four: she is the first person ever to wear a hijab in Congress.

Tan Dhesi, Labour MP for Slough, understands the law of firsts: the 41-year-old is the first member of parliament to wear a turban and, like Omar, has a reputation for speaking out against anti-Muslim sentiment in government. In September, during prime minister's questions, Dhesi called on Boris Johnson to apologise for his remarks about Muslim women looking like "letterboxes" which, to cheers from the chamber, he called "derogatory and racist".