When most people think of British politicians and the British political class, they think of white, middle-aged, middle-class men with a stronghold of support from Middle England. And broadly speaking, they’d be right. Although within contemporary history, there has been a shift and albeit limitedly, progress has been made in bringing further diversity to politics. Women have become a feature of British politics with a female former British Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher and a female First Minister of Scotland in Nicola Sturgeon. In 1997 when Labour were elected to power, 101 of their MPs were female which prompted the Daily Mail to coin the somewhat misogynistic label of ‘Blair’s Babes’.
For ethnic minority politicians in the UK, their increase has been less prolific but still visible. Where ethnic minority politicians have been most noticeable has been within the Labour Party, which is hardly surprising given their track record on promoting and legislating equality for all minority groups. That’s in contrast with the Conservative Party’s historically hostile reception towards immigrants and its resistance to equality for any minority group other than the ‘1%’ who comprise many within the party and bankroll them. As a result, and unsurprisingly, minorities have typically aligned themselves with the Labour Party or the left.
Firstly, let’s not pretend that the Labour Party and the broader left is, or always has been, void of prejudice or always promoted equality. The female sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant were initially not supported by their trade union in their 1968 strike for equal pay. Furthermore, while Labour and the trade unions have a long and proud history of supporting ethnic minorities, many post-war immigrants were met with hostility by many within the trade union movement. Factions echoing the irrational and unfounded fears of some of their members claimed that immigrants were taking the jobs of the indigenous white British. This was despite an acute labour shortage following the war. Such undertones could also be be felt within the Labour Party at a time when broader British society and politics was arguably subject to much institutional racism.
Nevertheless, it was Barbara Castle, a Labour MP and the then Secretary of State for Employment, who intervened in the the Ford machinists’ strike and a Labour government that was responsible for the Equal Pay Act 1970 that the strike action helped to bring about. It was also a Labour government that was responsible for the Race Relations Act 1965 which many Labour backbenchers actually argued didn’t go far enough. Indeed, while it hasn’t been without blemish, the Labour Party and the left has a long and celebrated history of promoting equality for all minorities, which can’t be said for the Conservative Party. Even as recently as 2013, the Conservative Party was split over same-sex marriage with 136 voting against it while only 127 were in favour. Historically, equality hasn’t really been their forte.
During the 1964 general election campaign, Conservative parliamentary candidate Peter Griffiths used the slogan “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.” He was subsequently elected. In 1968, Conservative MP Enoch Powell gave his infamous and inflammatory Rivers of Blood speech, harshly criticising immigration from the Commonwealth and race relations legislation. Despite not openly to the extent of Powell’s utterances, the Conservative Party retained undertones of prejudice that merely fanned rather than quelled the flames of institutional racism within British society at the time.
Conservative MP Oliver Letwin’s remarks and attitudes on the black community, recently released in a 1985 memo discussing the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham, show that racism within the Conservative Party was enduring. The lack of proportionate censure from today’s Conservative Party suggest that such comments might not go amiss now either, an assertion that Zac Goldsmith’s casual Islamophobia and dog whistling in his smear campaign against Sadiq Khan actually supports. And juxtaposed with the recent suspensions of Ken Livingstone and Naz Shah from the Labour Party, which David Cameron also called for, where was David Cameron’s reproach for Boris Johnson's racist and colonialist rhetoric on Barack Obama or much of Zac Goldsmith’s Islamophobic and divisive mayoral campaign?
The modern Conservative Party has sought to lose the tag of ‘the nasty party’ and reject the racist elements of its history. It can also boast a number of ethnic minority MPs such as frontbenchers Sajid Javid, Priti Patel and and Sam Gyimah. The Tories have undoubtedly progressed from the days when even an ethnic minority backbencher would be unthinkable and that should be lauded regardless of one’s political persuasion.
It’s also important to emphasise that not all Tories, regardless of ethnicity, are racist. Many are committed to equality and positive race relations even if their party’s history may suggest otherwise. Nonetheless, for many ethnic minorities, including me, the party’s still-raw history of racism towards our immigrant grandparents and parents and those of us that were born in the UK, along with its poor track record on race relations and equality in general, make it difficult to support them as a party. After all, some of those sentiments are apparent in today’s Conservative Party. Yet oddly, this isn’t the perception amongst all ethnic minorities.
For many immigrants, there is an experience and a narrative of arriving in a new country with very little but a can-do attitude and working hard to make a better life for yourself and your family. That narrative is fulfilled to varying extents but there are many diaspora communities who have shown admirable and impressive graft and business acumen that has resulted in successive generations steadily climbing the often greasy pole of social mobility.
Take the Gujarati community, many of whom were forced to leave East Africa to rebuild their lives in Britain. Many become proprietors of newsagents and convenience stores in the UK, working long hours with a stakhanovite work ethic while family would often comprise their staff. Though subsequent generations have moved away from small business retailers and into roles such as finance, medicine and dentistry. They aren’t the only ethnic minority group with a similarly story either. Regardless of race, it’s the very narrative that is celebrated and encouraged by the Conservative Party - work hard, create jobs, don’t rely on the state and you’ll be successful.
Many second and third generation ethnic minorities from immigrant families share less of the experiences of the generations before them. Racism is less overt than it once was and class has superseded race as a social determinant of how we identify ourselves and with whom we identify with. Take a British doctor of Gujarati descent. His parents may have faced racism upon coming to Britain in the 1960s where they may have worked in an unskilled sector. As working class ethnic minorities, they would have been typical Labour supporters. Whereas his experiences are acutely different to that of his parents with less required graft and subtle and less barriers to social mobility, he will likely see himself as middle class with a life that is more aligned to the Tories.
Capitalism and social mobility often has a way of making an ethnic minority metaphorically lighten the hue of their skin tone in how they perceive themselves. That’s reflected in how they might vote too. I’ve seen ethnic minorities deem a decent job and a good socio-economic status to equate to needing to vote Conservative because it’s who they feel the type of person they now identify with should vote. They no longer feel aligned to the tales of the parents but instead that of Middle England and the political class. Perhaps such perception is valid. After all, I can’t dictate how someone identifies themselves. What I can be sure of, is that Middle England certainly don’t identify with them and they’re barking up the wrong tree if they think differently. No amount of money and well-spoken delivery will change that either.
Ignorance too has played a role in the growth of ethnic minority support for the Tories. During the previous general election campaign, a middle class Asian female Tory voter that I know foolishly claimed that they were voting Conservative because “Labour had ruined the economy” and proceeded to attribute the global financial crisis to Labour. Was that the same Labour Party that hadn’t been in power for five whole years? The Conservative Party’s ploy of blaming everything under the sun on the previous Labour government must have had some effect as some voters were clearly stupid enough to recycle the same trite argument for the coalition government’s failures. Said individual also works in finance which compounds her ignorance. Even sadder is that as a woman and an ethnic minority, she would have personally benefited throughout her life from legislation introduced under previous Labour governments.
It’s lamentable that some ethnic minorities have such short memories when it comes to the Conservative Party, their values and how they treated our grandparents and parents when they arrived in the UK. A generation later and with a bit of money and a decent job, some ethnic minorities are voting Conservative but can’t even articulate why other than an underlying belief that Conservative policies might make them a bit more cash while trodding on the less fortunate in society - the same people their parents may once have been only a few generations ago.
The Conservative Party might be deemed the party of business and enterprise which ties into the immigrant narrative for many. But we need to ask ourselves, are they the party of ethnic minorities? Alas, while those features needn’t and shouldn't be mutually exclusive, for some factions within the Conservative Party they probably are and would-be ethnic minority Conservative voters need to remember that.
I need to emphasis that I’m not suggesting ethnic minorities can’t or shouldn’t vote for the Conservatives if that’s where their values lie. Democracy affords us the opportunity to support and vote for whoever we desire and that can’t ever be criticised or restricted. Moreover, it isn’t right to hold today’s Tories to the ills of their history and it would be unfair to imply that as a party they haven’t made any progress in representing the ethnic minority electorate. Though we need to ask ourselves how far and how meaningful that progress has been. We also need to consider how representative ethnic minority Tory MPs are of the broader ethnic minority experience and the party’s failure to robustly tackle the institutionally racism that is still present in today’s Conservative Party. Consequently, while ethnic minority Tory voters represent some progress for the party, there is still something quite paradoxical about them. Fortunately for the Conservative Party, they don’t seem to see it for themselves.
For ethnic minority politicians in the UK, their increase has been less prolific but still visible. Where ethnic minority politicians have been most noticeable has been within the Labour Party, which is hardly surprising given their track record on promoting and legislating equality for all minority groups. That’s in contrast with the Conservative Party’s historically hostile reception towards immigrants and its resistance to equality for any minority group other than the ‘1%’ who comprise many within the party and bankroll them. As a result, and unsurprisingly, minorities have typically aligned themselves with the Labour Party or the left.
Firstly, let’s not pretend that the Labour Party and the broader left is, or always has been, void of prejudice or always promoted equality. The female sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant were initially not supported by their trade union in their 1968 strike for equal pay. Furthermore, while Labour and the trade unions have a long and proud history of supporting ethnic minorities, many post-war immigrants were met with hostility by many within the trade union movement. Factions echoing the irrational and unfounded fears of some of their members claimed that immigrants were taking the jobs of the indigenous white British. This was despite an acute labour shortage following the war. Such undertones could also be be felt within the Labour Party at a time when broader British society and politics was arguably subject to much institutional racism.
Nevertheless, it was Barbara Castle, a Labour MP and the then Secretary of State for Employment, who intervened in the the Ford machinists’ strike and a Labour government that was responsible for the Equal Pay Act 1970 that the strike action helped to bring about. It was also a Labour government that was responsible for the Race Relations Act 1965 which many Labour backbenchers actually argued didn’t go far enough. Indeed, while it hasn’t been without blemish, the Labour Party and the left has a long and celebrated history of promoting equality for all minorities, which can’t be said for the Conservative Party. Even as recently as 2013, the Conservative Party was split over same-sex marriage with 136 voting against it while only 127 were in favour. Historically, equality hasn’t really been their forte.
During the 1964 general election campaign, Conservative parliamentary candidate Peter Griffiths used the slogan “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.” He was subsequently elected. In 1968, Conservative MP Enoch Powell gave his infamous and inflammatory Rivers of Blood speech, harshly criticising immigration from the Commonwealth and race relations legislation. Despite not openly to the extent of Powell’s utterances, the Conservative Party retained undertones of prejudice that merely fanned rather than quelled the flames of institutional racism within British society at the time.
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It’s also important to emphasise that not all Tories, regardless of ethnicity, are racist. Many are committed to equality and positive race relations even if their party’s history may suggest otherwise. Nonetheless, for many ethnic minorities, including me, the party’s still-raw history of racism towards our immigrant grandparents and parents and those of us that were born in the UK, along with its poor track record on race relations and equality in general, make it difficult to support them as a party. After all, some of those sentiments are apparent in today’s Conservative Party. Yet oddly, this isn’t the perception amongst all ethnic minorities.
For many immigrants, there is an experience and a narrative of arriving in a new country with very little but a can-do attitude and working hard to make a better life for yourself and your family. That narrative is fulfilled to varying extents but there are many diaspora communities who have shown admirable and impressive graft and business acumen that has resulted in successive generations steadily climbing the often greasy pole of social mobility.
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| Ugandan Indians refugees arriving in the UK |
Many second and third generation ethnic minorities from immigrant families share less of the experiences of the generations before them. Racism is less overt than it once was and class has superseded race as a social determinant of how we identify ourselves and with whom we identify with. Take a British doctor of Gujarati descent. His parents may have faced racism upon coming to Britain in the 1960s where they may have worked in an unskilled sector. As working class ethnic minorities, they would have been typical Labour supporters. Whereas his experiences are acutely different to that of his parents with less required graft and subtle and less barriers to social mobility, he will likely see himself as middle class with a life that is more aligned to the Tories.
Capitalism and social mobility often has a way of making an ethnic minority metaphorically lighten the hue of their skin tone in how they perceive themselves. That’s reflected in how they might vote too. I’ve seen ethnic minorities deem a decent job and a good socio-economic status to equate to needing to vote Conservative because it’s who they feel the type of person they now identify with should vote. They no longer feel aligned to the tales of the parents but instead that of Middle England and the political class. Perhaps such perception is valid. After all, I can’t dictate how someone identifies themselves. What I can be sure of, is that Middle England certainly don’t identify with them and they’re barking up the wrong tree if they think differently. No amount of money and well-spoken delivery will change that either.
Ignorance too has played a role in the growth of ethnic minority support for the Tories. During the previous general election campaign, a middle class Asian female Tory voter that I know foolishly claimed that they were voting Conservative because “Labour had ruined the economy” and proceeded to attribute the global financial crisis to Labour. Was that the same Labour Party that hadn’t been in power for five whole years? The Conservative Party’s ploy of blaming everything under the sun on the previous Labour government must have had some effect as some voters were clearly stupid enough to recycle the same trite argument for the coalition government’s failures. Said individual also works in finance which compounds her ignorance. Even sadder is that as a woman and an ethnic minority, she would have personally benefited throughout her life from legislation introduced under previous Labour governments.
It’s lamentable that some ethnic minorities have such short memories when it comes to the Conservative Party, their values and how they treated our grandparents and parents when they arrived in the UK. A generation later and with a bit of money and a decent job, some ethnic minorities are voting Conservative but can’t even articulate why other than an underlying belief that Conservative policies might make them a bit more cash while trodding on the less fortunate in society - the same people their parents may once have been only a few generations ago.
The Conservative Party might be deemed the party of business and enterprise which ties into the immigrant narrative for many. But we need to ask ourselves, are they the party of ethnic minorities? Alas, while those features needn’t and shouldn't be mutually exclusive, for some factions within the Conservative Party they probably are and would-be ethnic minority Conservative voters need to remember that.
I need to emphasis that I’m not suggesting ethnic minorities can’t or shouldn’t vote for the Conservatives if that’s where their values lie. Democracy affords us the opportunity to support and vote for whoever we desire and that can’t ever be criticised or restricted. Moreover, it isn’t right to hold today’s Tories to the ills of their history and it would be unfair to imply that as a party they haven’t made any progress in representing the ethnic minority electorate. Though we need to ask ourselves how far and how meaningful that progress has been. We also need to consider how representative ethnic minority Tory MPs are of the broader ethnic minority experience and the party’s failure to robustly tackle the institutionally racism that is still present in today’s Conservative Party. Consequently, while ethnic minority Tory voters represent some progress for the party, there is still something quite paradoxical about them. Fortunately for the Conservative Party, they don’t seem to see it for themselves.
