I make no apologies for returning to my old hobby horse – the need for our Party to actively do more to actively win over the support of BAME communities.
Not only is this the right thing to do for a Party that projects itself as the Party that champions diversity and equality it is also the politically expedient thing to do.
According to research published by Operation Black Vote (OBV) the outcome of the election results in 168 parliamentary seats in the hands of Britain’s black (Asian and African / Caribbean) communities.
If findings of the Ashcroft report are to be believed these communities are least likely to vote Liberal Democrat.
The local election results in of our key London seats seems to bear this out. Our share of the vote has gone down in different proportions in many London constituencies including Southwark and Kingston All of these have high BME populations. The worrying thing for us is that these seats are held by some of our highest profile MPs, Simon Hughes and Ed Davey respectively.
And in Brent, where we would dearly love for Ibrahim Taguri to become the first Lib Dem BME MP to be elected in a General Election in over a hundred years, we lost 12 of our 13 council seats.
I know there are those within our Party who believe our electoral fortunes can be turned round simply by replacing Nick Clegg as Party leader As Tim Farron rightly says ditching Nick is like saying we want to distance ourselves from all the good work that the Party has done by being a coalition partner That will do the Party more harm than good because we will be giving up our right to run a campaign on the back of the 2010 manifesto pledges we have delivered
I think we can improve our electoral successes if can attract a higher proportion of the BAME vote. Conservatives and Labour recognised the power of the BAME vote in the run up to the 2010 General Election That is why both Parties embarked on BAME communities charm offensive, selected BAME candidates in key target seats. Both Parties also went out of their way to portray their respective Parties as more diverse than they really are, by giving their BAME activists high profile positions and constant media exposure.
Why can we not adopt a similar approach ? The common excuse I hear is that we do do not have BAME MPs. That is a lame excuse. We have a BAME peers, a significant number of BAME Councillors and now several BAME PPCs Any of them could be suitably trained and briefed to act as Lib Dem Spokespersons on a whole range of subjects Such a move is no longer just desirable but essential for the Party’s survival.
The Party needs to win over the support of BAME communities which it will not get if our public image remains that of an organisation that does not have any BAME representatives at its heart.
We need commitment and action from the Party leadership to change this image within the next three to six months
I also think the 2015 Manifesto needs to have a very clear commitment to tackle racial inequality because that continues to be the factor that influences how BAME communities feel about political Parties. That is the one thing that unites all BAME communities because they all experience the effects of racial inequality in their daily lives, albeit in different degrees
* Rabi Martins is a councillor and Deputy Lib Dem Group Leader on Watford Borough Council. He is a candidate for Lib Dem Vice President.
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And here’s me thinking wipeout is going to come thanks to Clegg and his orange book agenda. What is it with these clegg fanatics totally missing the point again and again
“ditching Nick is like saying we want to distance ourselves from all the good work that the Party has done by being a coalition partner That will do the Party more harm than good because we will be giving up our right to run a campaign on the back of the 2010 manifesto pledges we have delivered”
Such a campaign — which is, no doubt, what Nick Clegg has in mind for 2015 — has proved to be not merely a non-starter but a positive vote-loser. “Giving up our right” to run such a campaign is like giving up the right to repeatedly shoot oneself in both feet.
No Radical Liberal, the wipeout is due to the fact that we have had to make cuts (call that an “Orange Book” agenda if it makes you feel happier ) and Liberal Democrat supporters don’t like cuts. Voters have switched to Labour or stayed at home because Labour appears to offer the soft option of cuts that aren’t really cuts or don’t really happen until later, or even massive hidden public spending commitments that would have the deficit increasing again. Yet that is apparently what people want. People do not want reality as we portray it.
I don’t get it – why would BAME be any more inclined to trust or follow Nick Clegg than the rest of us? I just watched him on the news and leaving aside the fact that I don’t believe a word he says, he looks utterly broken.
I support any move to strengthen policy with regards to tackling racial inequality.
The party could do more to promote BME candidates. Unfortunately, the parliamentary party is not a good reflection of modern Britain but we all know that is a problem that must be addressed.
I would like to add that any success the party has achieved in the coalition government (and there are several) are the property of the entire party and not the office of the DPM.
@ RC,
Not so RC. WE all knew that there needed to be cuts, but was it too much to ask that they be fair and workable.
Iain Duncan Smith’s ‘reforms’ are neither and he has gone against the advice of his own advisors in pursuing them.
If every BAME voter in the country voted Lib Dem, you still wouldn’t recover to pre-2010 levels of support. Although it’s great that they’re a constituency all parties want a piece of, your lack of appeal to one specific group isn’t really the problem…
RC – The Lib Dems supported cuts which knocked back GDP growth – cut spending in infrastructure, housing, transport etc that are real long term assets which reduce costs long term. See the ever increasing housing benefit bill to £25 billion now as more and more paid to private landlords due to lack of housebuilding.
This did reduce the deficit in the first 18 months. Since then it has barely moved – the UK deficit is now double the level of France – £107 billion a year v £50 billion in France. Germany has eliminated there’s completely, and the UK is now above those seen as being in big trouble like Spain & Germany.
It’s a very poor legacy.
@Jayne Mansfield
“Not so RC. WE all knew that there needed to be cuts, but was it too much to ask that they be fair and workable.”
Oh, come on.
“Fair and workable” in almost every case really means “cut something I don’t care about, a benefit I don’t receive or a service I don’t use”.
How can cuts be “fair”? By definition, government services and benefits are almost all directed more at the less well-off sections of society, so cutting them is almost impossible without affecting less affluent people.
What would you have cut instead of the cuts that had been made by this government?
@Ed Giggs
“The Lib Dems supported cuts which knocked back GDP growth – cut spending in infrastructure, ”
So you wanted more current spending cuts instead then, presumably? Or you’d rather we had had an even bigger deficit then? As for attributing the whole performance of the UK economy to public spending, this is inaccurate because it ignores other contributors to real aggregate demand like exports (affected by the Eurozone crisis), consumer spending (hit by high food and energy prices) and business investment (also affected by Eurozone problems and the knowledge that UK consumers were flat on their backs under a pile of pre-2008 debt).
“Since then it has barely moved – the UK deficit is now double the level of France – £107 billion a year v £50 billion in France.”
You know full well that the deficit we started with was massively higher compared to both of those countries and yes, it IS now coming down rapidly, so I think you should try checking your facts first.
@g
“Although it’s great that they’re a constituency all parties want a piece of, your lack of appeal to one specific group isn’t really the problem…”
I have to agree with you there, for once.
“Clegg and his orange book agenda”
Broken record.
@ RC
How about cutting the loopholes in the tax system that benefit the wealthiest instead of paltry benefits that barely permit an existence of subsistence?
Excellent article . We must tackle these issues head on, for the reasons you give, and I hope your constructive suggestions are taken forward.
“a very clear commitment to tackle racial inequality”
How should the government go about this?
Whoever is leader of the party, this needs to be tackled. I think London is the warning. A rapidly growing BAME population is overwhelmingly voting Labour, ironically in the most prosperous part of the country which you would think would be more Tory compared to the rest of the country.
Yeah, so the nation rejected the. Lib Dems last night, cause it didn’t have enough ethnic candidates? Rabbi, heard the stuff about Lib dems being ‘out of touch?
Your manipulative self advancement through the party and political structure has come to an end.
@ RC,
You might find this surprising, but I don’t receive any free benefits apart from a bus pass that I don’t use, a pension increase I didn’t ask for, and a heating allowance that my husband and I divert to a charity for the homeless because there is no option but to receive it.
Are you really so cynical that you do not believe that people might sometimes be driven by something other than narrow self -interest? Are you saying that I should not expect something to be ‘fair and workable’, but instead vote for a party that ‘sends a message’ whilst being not unfair and unworkable.
If you want to know what I would have done for starters. I would not have embarked on a costly top down reorganisation and plunged it into its current chaos. You can blame the bureaucrats in the NHS all you like, but when sick old people are discharged in the middle of the night because there are no beds, what are the hospital managers and doctors supposed to do, offer their own?
I would not embark on a free school programme where there was no strategic planning to ensure that schools were created where there was need and there was no democratic oversight to make sure that they were properly run.
I would not introduce a ‘bedroom tax’ when there were not enough homes with less rooms for people to move to.
I would not pay exorbitant sums to private firms to force sick and dying people back to work.
I would not have put someone who is clearly incompetent like Iain Duncan Smith in charge of the Work and Pensions department. Are you a supporter of his Universal Credit scheme?
What more do you want from me before the admission that I will not be voting Lib Dem at the next election?
It’s insulting to suggest that targetting BME voters will save your shipwreck !
RC – “You know full well that the deficit we started with was massively higher compared to both of those countries and yes, it IS now coming down rapidly, so I think you should try checking your facts first.”
Nonsense. Look at the stats. Rapid drops? Small drops in 3 years. £120 billion, then £115 billion, and then £107 billion. Osbourne’s plan, backed by Lib Dems, was it to be eliminated by 2015. Now it will be £100 billion. Yes it is going down but extremely slowly, and far worse than similar developed nations.
The first 2 years saw large drops, but year 1 saw good GDP growth, then year 2 saw large cuts in investment spending which saved in the first two years but costs after – lack of housing, transport infrastructure etc.
@RC – “What would you have cut instead of the cuts that had been made by this government?”
Well there is the small matter of the circa £1 billion the government has spent on HS2… A good illustration that the coalition didn’t actually have it’s eye on the ball with respect to spending cuts.
“You know full well that the deficit we started with was massively higher compared to both of those countries and yes, it IS now coming down rapidly, so I think you should try checking your facts first.”
Interesting use of the term “coming down rapidly” when the forecast is for the deficit to be £1.5 trillion when it leaves office in 2015; significantly higher than when it took office in 2010… Yes it might not be as big as it could of been if another approach had been adopted, but then another approacg might also have made it even smaller…
I fully agree with the main point of your article Rabi. The broader message of the Farage surge in my opinion is not about Europe or even about immigration but authenticity. Even if people know on some level that Farage is a rich city boy, he talks like the kind of politician they want to see. And his party is stuffed full of people who say whatever they like.
It’s no good having the right policies, even with the right messages, if the messenger isn’t credible. And I’m not making a point about Clegg here – this is about the party. People – not just BAME people either – look at our party and our representatives in the media, and they just don’t think that we know what they’re going through. And for all the empathy and hard work and intelligence of our MPs, they’re right. Unless we become a more diverse party we won’t appeal to large sections of the country who want politicians to look and sound like the society they live in.
So I fully support your call to get more minority members in public. Not as ‘token blacks’. We have plenty of very, very good minority members – we ought to be consciously making much, much more use of them.
I apologise for being a dampener but I can’t see a compelling reason for any ethnic minority to vote liberal democrat. I speak as someone in slight shock at hearing about kids i used to know who are now active for UKIP or the Conservatives. I don’t really get why but I think hand-in-hand with getting lib dem BME candidates into the fray needs to be a heartfelt injection to the grassroots.
My suspicion right now is tha there a big roadblack to returning the party to its local grassroots
@ sfk,
I think that this constant referral to black and ethnic minority ‘communities’ is really patronising and restrictive. I am aware of the reality of racial discrimination that exists in our society and I want political parties to do more to combat it, but the suggestion that the best way to do this is to lump all the individuals together as some sort of homogeneous ‘community’ doesn’t seem to me to be the best way to do it.
Why is it shocking that someone who is black or from an ethnic minority supports the conservatives or Ukip. Individuals have the right to choose whatever political party they think most represents their views.
Sutton has a BAME population of 20%, which might not be in the top third of diversity in London but is still double the national average, and we did extremely well there in the local elections. 20% BAME used to be at the top end of racial demographics when I was growing up, so I think we need to reflect that a large BAME population does not automatically mean a low vote for the Lib Dems. The trend over many elections is for Labour to lose its hold on voters of colour. They used to take around 90% share, but this had fell consistently down to 68% in 2010. While that is still double the national Labour vote, I think the trend will continue even if the actual BAME Labour vote goes up in 2015 I don’t think we should assume too much into it; an increasing share is up for grabs we just have to grab it! The ‘Degrees of Separation’ Ashcroft report Rabi sites measured ‘identification’ with parties, and that rightly showed how little traction we have in BAME communities which presents an extra onus on us to work harder to counter the identification gap which has historical roots that I won’t go into here. Runnymede’s research on the 2010 election was perhaps a more accurate guide to actual voting patterns and that showed a slightly higher (but not by much) Lib Dem vote, and better distinction between different BAME communities than Ashcroft.
As the author of the Operation Black Vote report the conclusion I’d draw is that BAME votes are so significant in so many marginal that it makes sense for every party to appeal to specific concerns of these communities in the key marginals as every party does for, say pensioners and working parents. Labour have already made the first move, with a bold speech by Sadiq Khan recently proposing specific policy ideas. If we had any awareness, we’d have already either responded with a Liberal critique or sent one of our ministers out to float a set of Liberal ideas for combatting racism this generation. I’m not sure what we’re waiting for. I’m sorry to disagree with Rabi, but waiting for the manifesto is too late. The ‘real’ election is fought and won or lost before they are published.
@Jayne Mansfield says “I think that this constant referral to black and ethnic minority ‘communities’ is really patronising and restrictive. I am aware of the reality of racial discrimination that exists in our society and I want political parties to do more to combat it, but the suggestion that the best way to do this is to lump all the individuals together as some sort of homogeneous ‘community’ doesn’t seem to me to be the best way to do it.”
Jayne, we ‘lump’ individuals together all the time – young people, older people, women etc. Most of the time these generalisations actually ignore specific dynamics of BAME unequal outcomes and a whole range of other subtleties. Yet while we need to be careful and mindful when taking in generalities, to have the ‘big conversations’ (especially when conducted in a small number of words) sometimes it is necessary to do in order to get over the basic ideas that concern most people in the group or community to which you refer. For example, issues of prejudice based on colour affect the vast majority of people of colour, so this is something that unites them in wanting policy proposals to combat it. We know there are major issues because a NatCen Social Policy report, splashed on yesterday’s Guardian front page, highlighted it.
So while there are of course different and varying outcomes and levels of discrimination suffered by different BAME communities, the worst thing possible is to ignore it all for fear of being “patronising”. Let us talk about it first and refine the conversation as we go on.