So it has started: the four million conversations that Labour activists will have on the doorstep between now and the election vs the long road to nowhere with the Conservatives.
Among these many conversations that members like myself will have with the British public, will include many with ethnic minorities. Having worked as much of the backbone of our country’s economic success and cultural evolution, ethnic minorities are, more than ever, crucial to a successful vote-winning coalition for a successful prospective party.
However, it seems that Labour cannot take the ethnic minority vote for granted any more. Recent polling data from the University of Manchester has suggested that the percentages of ethnic minorities self-consciously identifying as Labour has decreased: for Indian voters it has decreased from 77 per cent to 45 per cent; for Pakistani voters, the numbers are 79 per cent to 54 per cent; and for African voters, 79 per cent to 59 per cent. These statistics come five years following Labour securing the support of 68 per cent of Britain’s ethnic minority constituents.
While Labour has been grateful for the votes of confidence that ethnic minorities have placed in the party for generations, such certainty cannot be guaranteed in the future. According to a recent study by Demos, middle-class ethnic minorities could soon be fertile voters for the Conservative party as they move into affluent areas and have more choice and luxury in their lifestyles. If Labour does not address the aspirational diversity within the United Kingdom’s ethnic minority population, it risks a lethal exposure to our diverse range of supporters.
The increased affluence of many ethnic minorities, not to mention the increase in mixed-race relationships in the UK, shows how much the issue of ethnicity has changed. No longer can we talk about the ethnic minority population as a homogenous blob, in hoc to Labour in opposing Tory Powellism and absurd Tebbit cricket tests. While only 16 per cent of Britain’s ethnic population voted Conservative at the last election, there are uncomfortable words from the academic who conducted the research cited above, Maria Sobolewska: ‘The only thing now keeping minorities on side with Labour is the lack of [voting] alternatives’. This does not sound like the typical enthused voter base four months ahead of decision day.
For me one of the more revealing encounters on the doorstep was with black constituents in the affluent Croydon ward of Shirley where I was standing as a Labour candidate during the local elections last year was with one particular woman whose door I knocked on. She had not made her mind yet as to who to vote for yet, but she was seriously entertaining voting for Ukip – and this was a few months after Godfrey Bloom’s ‘Bongo Bongo land’ remark – on the basis of liking Nigel Farage’s apparent ‘straight-talking’ manner. If there was ever an example of why we should not assume the minority vote is in the bag, this was it.
As a One Nation party, Labour owes it to itself to strongly reflect the true nature of diversity and aspirational interests of the United Kingdom’s ethnic minority population. Tony Blair once said ‘The kaleidoscope has been shaken, the pieces are in flux, soon they will settle again.’ Like all other parts of the UK, shaken by the past five years, the voting intentions of Britain’s ethnic minorities are in flux, and in four months, they will settle. Let us reorder our approach to them before the settle is done.
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James Gill is a member of Progress. He tweets @JamesGill13
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Sand. Get your head out of it James
I think you are going to find that what is happening with ethnic minorities in America is happening here. The Democrats can no longer count on the minority vote. Also there is no BME community, no matter what some campaigners might claim. There isn’t even an Asian one as there are huge differences between, for instance, the Sikhs who have the highest percentage of home ownership in the country and Bangladeshis who have very high rates of unemployment.
How accurate are feed-back stats’ from door-knock-survey?
Some assume polls’ findings as believable whilst not factoring-in a bad-hair day.
(1) opinion from (one) Croydon lady does not a Summer make.
And kindly legislate to banish the word ‘Ethnic Origin’ from all offial forms, passports, DVLA etc.
“We-are-all-in-this-together” means just that -a person’s origins mean nothing in a society based on equality not ethnicity.
I thought ‘we’ were agreed on that?
Or have I come to the wrong club?
I think you could take the discussion a bit more seriously.
I am a deadly serious non-Academic who refers you to the Laws currently in place in 95% of African countries where asking for your ‘racial’ denomination is punishable by a jail sentence. Ever done any travelling?
I would-have-loved [past plu-perfect participle?..dunno, ran out o’ dosh, Guvner] to learn more about Classical history and the History of wo/Mankind — but the money wasn’t available to pay for Academics’ salaries and upkeep of their eloquent lodgings at Grade 1 listed Yooney[Oxcam].
Tristram-o’-Stoke [nee Chester] should be given the biggest budget come May 8th.
Education – Education – Education. It all starts there sweethearts…ker-nackered 4Life wi’out it.
You just can’t beat a [little] bit of education to keep the ball o’ Wax together.
Q1:[Why did UK’s baby-boomers generation stop free ‘varsity fees after using it themselves?]
Q2:[Why is it Uni’ free in Bonnie Alba but not in Albion? ‘we-are-all-in-it-together’?] hypocracy.
Start at the beginning [again] like most kids do, with A, B, C.
But make sure its free – not a free-4-all if you are well-heeled and wealthy.
Kids can’t speak for themselves. Don’t take advantage as they do grow up to be voting adults.
And they have a bad habit of remembering broken promises, senhor Clegg.
James Gill’s heart is in the right place. But the decline in loyalty to Labour among ethnic minorities is not due to some absolute or relative increase in average wealth. Second and third generations can be relatively or absolutely worse off today than their parents or grandparents.
The key issue is whether Labour is known to be addressing the issues that people are actually facing from their own perspectives. To be “known to be addressing the issues”. means year round engagement (not just a knock on the door at election time) by a range of Labour members with individuals from and organisations in ethnic minority groups. “A range of Labour members” means going beyond the devoted work of one party member from one ethnic group working within that one community.
Even that is not enough today. People with recent ancestry outside the UK are now much more scattered around the UK. Their ancestry is much more diverse: it’s not just the “New Commonwealth” as the old euphemism went for people who endure racism / xenophobia. Their sense of belonging to the culture of their parents and grandparents is diminished (for most – for some it is stronger than ever).
The minority is becoming the majority over time: those who consider themselves indigenous are becoming a minority.
All these issues need to be unpicked and described. Winning ethnic minority votes is a long-term project that needs to engage every active member of the party.
It needs organisation and resources. But, if there is one thing we could do straight away, then that would be to ban use of the phrase “BAME members” or “BAME voters”.
You’ve got a real problem if you don’t understand why.
Also read “BAME Labour is useless” – Uncut/Atal Hatwal 3/1/11
Your penultimate para’, ‘..needs organisation and resources.’
Labour is organised. Be sure of that one. If by resources you mean ready-cash? then that is quite simple: anyone earning more than,say, £45k pa, and who wishes to remain in a Labour Party Govt as a ublic or civil servant should be requested to donate 10% of all nett earnings after tax. I have done it without being asked all my working life.
Deadly serious, me buckos!
Some good points especially about BAME members or voters. It’s patronising and the group simply doesn’t exist. Where do the Eastern European groups fit in here. They are white Europeans, are increasing in numbers, are outstripping some previous groups notably West Indians and Pakistanis economically and will eventually become a major force in politics.
What exactly you mean about the indigenous majority becoming a minority I don’t know. are you saying white people will be outnumbered by non whites which was the line peddled for years by the CRE? Tale Tower Hamlets. Over the last five years the Bangladeshi population has declined and the white one increased. Not my figures, the council’s own.
The terms: “White” and “non-White”, I contend, are just not PC and bring back some horrendous memories for the likes of me and a few others, mentioning no names, hon Peter Hain MP. [He’s quiet these days?]. Never have been one to mince words, moi, fact is Racism still lives in UK [viz UKIP/BNP/ & other so-called Nats in Holland and Germany – no surprise there then!] in the form of subtle reminders of our [UK] Colonial past, viz, your use of the terms White and non-White, or as Vorster crumby lot would have it plastered on Park Benches and Public Toilets in Loop Street outside Parliament ” Blankes Allen” – Whites Only. That petty -apartheid thinking went long ago and was top of my hate list. These racist terms are still on the statute books in UK, every UK official form you fill in, firstly asks “What is your Racial/Ehnic Group?” This should be consigned to the bin stat and forever. Still can’t see it?.. ask Peter Hain.
The concept of all being equal is just that – no need to split us up into sub-groups as we are all Earthlings and all bleed the same colour blood. Keep the cute and quaint cultural identities, sure. The odd Sporran or Zulu bead necklaces are harmless. A few men prancing around on May Day in skirts never hurt anyone.
I told the late RSA PM, JB Vorster in c1969 to his face that these terms were demonic and evil: and was thrown in a prison cell for a very long 4-day week-end from hell; and have a fractured, now bent finger to prove it.
Think the big picture and get out more is my advice.
The demography of the US has changed and the UK is likely to follow suit. The change is that WASPs no longer are in the majority. The UKs major cities are leading the way in realising a similar change. That’s what I mean by the “indigenous” majority becoming a minority.
Of course the word “indigenous” is not satisfactory since all ethnic groups populating the British Isles come from somewhere else.
Perhaps the ‘first nation’ were the Celts who have old links to the Iberian Peninsula, the Rhine valley, the Danube valley to the Black Sea where Romania meets Bulgaria and the near Middle East.
That said, a major issue faces the party. At its birth it was perhaps inevitable that it should seek primarily to address just one group of citizens (largely male) that was called – and called itself – the industrial working class. But today there is a plurality of groups of citizens where those groups exist with identities they define for themselves but also exist with names that “others” call them. Those “others” also live with multiple definitions of what they are thought to be.
For the party, the need is to support any group in its search for progress of its individuals and of its group interests. If the party needs to focus its resources, then it must form a view on allocating those resources to address what it hears and sees are the most important issues specific to one or more groups and which it judges have greatest impact on our society.
In my book, when it comes to people with recent ancestry outside the UK, the issue of institutional racism is right up there. It impedes the economic and social advance of numerous groups. It forces some groups into retreat. It poisons democracy as whole. But that’s in my book – in the comment pages of the Progress website.
In my book, it was wrong to lump together all the “inequalities” in the last Labour government. It simply set one group against another: it showed no true respect to any group. And it hid the supreme inequality around income and wealth that underpinned today’s Great Recession and that is now exacerbating what I may call indigenous xenophobic tendencies.
It’s time to unpick all that.
What is Institutional racism? We have a had a race relations industry for forty years, more and more equalities legislation passed and sections of Asian communities doing better than white ones so were is this racism that holds people back economically?
I looked up aspirational. To achieve a higher standard of goals, goals could mean equality, but them to define BAME people as equal among each other is different to equal to white people, religious views may stop equality, being accepted, and BAME people who are british like white people who are, are different electorally than British born ones
Aspirational to a better standard of living via money, again religion can affect, not believing in borrowing, or giving to a church, wealth again can be divided into how much is needed in a later life, or traveling expenses based on home location,
Aspiration to be free, freedom, from fear of societies pressures, pressures to concede too fit in, or fear of the state and wanting the freedom to be able to speak ones mind
I read the labour -uncut article from 4 years ago, very good.
Labour was byer a socially liberal party pre 1974 to assume that BAME people are socially liberal, is a mistake, the quote about in,y foru g for ys as there’s no alternative was right, but Boris pretending to be socially left wing, is a mistake,a abAME person has voted Abour due to the working class trade Nion movement, and in London labour reflected the social views BAME aspired