The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Fiji met at Westminster on Wednesday afternoon against a backdrop that gave the gathering particular resonance: Fiji’s National Rugby Championships are being held in the United Kingdom for the first time, and the meeting was called in part to mark that moment and to ask what it means for the broader relationship between the two nations.

Sureena Brackenridge MP, chair of the APPG, opened proceedings and introduced the principal guest, John Sanday, Chair of Fiji Rugby (Union).

The room included Lord Harlech and Clive Betts MP, both officers of the APPG, Lord Carwyn Jones, former first minister of Wales, Lord Addington, captain of the Lords Rugby team and Lord Hayward, a former referee and founder of Kings Cross Steelers. Also present were Jane West of Fiji Tourism, Paulini Cakacaka, First Secretary at the Fiji High Commission, Ajay Chhabra – Fiji Society, Manish Tiwari – founder of Here and Now, Josh Taubale of Kaviti 7s, 8th Man rep and Avaneesh Raman, a Chevening Scholar.

“Some of the most important work happens not in formal negotiations but on a rugby pitch,” said Brackenridge. “This is how relationships are actually built — through shared passion and mutual respect.”

A thread running through the afternoon was the concept of sporting diplomacy, the idea that sport can do things that formal government channels cannot. Where official bilateral relations operate through trade frameworks and diplomatic protocol, sport moves differently: it builds identity, generates goodwill, and creates lasting connections.

John Sanday, Chair of Fiji Rugby (Union), welcomed the Championships’ arrival in Britain in the same spirit. “Sport does what politics sometimes cannot, it brings people together around something they love, and from that, real relationships are built. The Fijian community here is a bridge between our two nations, and when they come out to watch these matches, they are connecting two countries.”

Investment and community has deep roots in Fiji’s rugby story. Chhabra’s great-grandfather, Lali Maharaj, arrived in Fiji in 1904 as an indentured labourer. After completing his indenture he stayed, built a life, and contributed to Fiji’s economic development in the pre-war years. Land his family owned in Flagstaff, Suva, was later donated to the Marist Brothers School and became a rugby pitch that helped produce players who went on to represent Fiji internationally. It is one example of the ecosystem that built Fijian rugby — assembled not by institutions alone but through individual acts of contribution, rarely made with any expectation of recognition. More than a century on, that thread runs to a committee room at Westminster.

As Ajay Chhabra noted: “When we invest in these connection,  through sport, through education, through community, we are investing in something that lasts.”

The presence of a Chevening Scholar in the room was a further reminder that the relationship extends well beyond sport, into education, future leadership, and long-term partnership.

The bonds between the UK and Fiji are maintained not only through government but by the range of people in that room parliamentarians, diplomats, community organisers, scholars, and rugby administrators, each playing their part. The ecosystem of success, in sport as in diplomacy, depends on all of them.

Watch the Flying Fijians in the UK — 2026 Nations Championship

Saturday 4 July 2026 — Fiji v Wales | Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff
Saturday 11 July 2026 — Fiji v England | Hill Dickinson Stadium, Liverpool
Saturday 18 July 2026 — Fiji v Scotland | Scottish Gas Murrayfield, Edinburgh

Tickets and full information: www.fijirugby.com