There is a popular saying out there, expressed in many ways but always conveying the same message: ‘Black people don’t read’.
Before we criticise any individual political party in London, in my humble opinion we need to persuade black voters to adopt a different approach to elections. They should first find out who are the candidates; then vote for those they believe have a better understanding of their own issues
At the last election, too many black voters displayed total ignorance about the people whose names were on the ballot paper. They just went out and voted on purely national issues without paying attention to who they were actually voting for.
In most cases the literature was never read … It was ‘our family has always voted Labour so we will too’.
Our battle should not be in-party, but with the electorate. It is for us as Liberal Democrats to use the fact we are in a coalition that runs this country, and to now roll out policies that make us stand out as Liberal Democrats.
It is for us to use this parliament to replace Labour on our merits as the natural choice of BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) voters.
The argument that we should just install a black person in a safe seat to increase BAME numbers to look good is a foolish one. Even though we don’t need to do that in areas populated by black people, we would never accept a white person being parachuted in to satisfy a small minority of members elsewhere.
I believe we, as black citizens, have a duty ourselves to ensure we join these parties as members in our droves, be it nationally or locally, before passing the buck. It is also our duty as citizens to stand for elections as local councillors or for parliament or our regional assembly.
Political representation cannot and will not increase until we actively make movements to increase our numbers and, when we do, encourage fellow voters to support us.
Lewisham may have not been a target seat for this party but we found it hard to find a BAME candidate to stand as our PPC with enough credibility and able to muster the money and backup needed. On the contrary, of the 10 BAME candidates who stood for the council, only one was re-elected in a ward that had been known to be very difficult for a BAME candidate to win.
Operation Black Vote gave the impression its purpose was to increase BAME candidates everywhere for all political parties. My view is different. I now want the Liberal Democrat Party to appreciate us as black people who have a voice that has been earned and deserves equal value at the ballot box.
Invariably it has in the past been ignored under Labour, and allowing a large part of society to become disillusioned with the system and rebellious to authority.
It has now become necessary for our voices to be heard at the heart of government, both local and national, where that voice speaks for the community it represents. The state of the economy, the effects on housing, education, crime and immigration will touch us all in some way over these next painful years.
Liberal Democrats must lead the way by adopting the simple Lib Dem principle of building from the bottom up, not imposing from the top down. Of bringing black people into the party, and ensuring they absorb our culture, values and beliefs before becoming MPs. Just like white people. It may take a little longer, but it will lay firm foundations for a party truly and naturally representative of our nation’s fast-growing rich and colourful diversity.
* Duwayne Brooks is a Liberal Democrat councillor in Lewisham, and Deputy Chair of the LGA Safer Communities Board.
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27 Comments
The irony here is that many Lib Dems don’t care what colour you are, and hence don’t feel a need to pursue this – and it “feels wrong” to encourage tribal thinking along those lines.
If you want a fairly blunt answer to the question of why the distribution works out that way, it’s this: black people are more likely to be poor, for no reason other than that the children of poor people tend to be poor, and councillors and MPs are invariably middle class or wealthy. Solve the poverty problem (hah!) and it’ll probably go away.
It’s also pretty well-known that poor people tend to vote Labour (oddly, since Labour aren’t very friendly to them), when they vote at all, and that political prejudice in the UK tends to be linked to wealth.
That is, of course, not a solution. I’m just pointing out that it’s kinda the same thing as the “other” problem.
This is one reason why I feel that AV or any other preferential voting system would help – the focus will hopefully be put on the qualifications, ideals and views of each candidate, not just on which party they belong to
I hope the purpose of this piece was for starting a discussion, otherwise I fear for those who are even considering entering the political arena on any level.
I always take the route that if a message is not received and understood the issue lies with those delivering it or the method used – Not the receipients, using that as a reason for disengagement seems a remarkable simplistic way to look at the overall issue.
At the last election what did any party do to show they understood the views, opinions and concerns of the BAME audience, what did they do to show they represented or understood me, my background or for that matter my community? the term whitewash would not be an exaggeration!
My experience of joining a party was somewhat kafkaesque and made all the worse if it is indicative of typical party membership – I asked the party a question on eight occasions regarding actions to engage BAME voters and no response was ever received. Taking this as a backdrop the major question of why bother arises in my mind.
The parties have to show they are listening, not talking at me and if the party i joined (I have since let my membership lapse) cannot show me even the respect of answering my questions as a fully paid up member. why should I have to consciously seek to find out why despite their name they appear more traditional in candidate selection processes than other parties the idea of increasing my support for them or spreading their word becomes an abhorence.
Politics used to be the meeting of great minds for the overall good of the nation, what we have now is a group of almost non-entities who seek a political career for all the wrong reasons. Irrespective of colour I want those who govern to have great ideas and principles that they adapt based on relevant information not a focus group.
You won’t get that through affirmative action, sound bites or assumptions about the electorate but by adopting wholly within any and all parties a firm understanding – not getting a message across, action from the electorate or people to join is the fault of the message being sent, subtle barriers to entry within the party and above all a complete distrust of those who enter politics without any life experience outside of the policy / research arena.
Anthony Ebanks is not involved in politics, he and no doubt others like him however have thoughts, ideas and valuable experience that he wishes the parties would start to listen to – He lives in Hope
Ahhhh, victim-blaming. I agree with the first commenter.
This is an excellent and very sensible article byDuwayne.
As he rightly says, if we build up support for our party among black people, it is likely that people willing to be candidates and who have what it takes to win will come forward just as they have from among white Lib Dem supporters.
As ever the simple but hard work strategy of going out and persuading more people to vote for us (more canvassing, more casework, etc) is the right one.
Much better than discriminatory shortlists and other undemocratic measures.
I might also ask where are the women. Only one of the coilition seems to have a voice – none seem to represent women who will be profoundly affected by the draconian cuts
“(oddly, since Labour aren’t very friendly to them)”
I think comments like this actually get to the heart of why the Lib Dems are a very unrepresentative party: you just don’t know this country. It is an unbelievably middle-class party, and one full of people divorced from the vast bulk of the rest of us (of all classes). This is why electoral reform and student finance seem like priorities to many Lib Dems, when naturally these are actually very small issues in real life.
You say Labour hasn’t done much for the poor. I suggest you actually go and meet someone on minimum wage, or better still, a basic pension or benefits (there are millions of households living on less than minimum wage you know – they are the poor) and compare what they could have had 13 years ago to now.
It is this callous disregard for people’s actual experience that leave you unable to comprehend what Labour achieved, and why you don’t blink about changing the uprating of benefits from RPI to CPI or cancelling Child Trust Funds for the poorest – when even the Tories saw their value!. And this is why many communities do not feel Lib Dems are people like them, or understand people like them.
You would become more representative as a party within a few years if you addressed these blinkers.
Duwayne – I agree with much of your article. Many political parties have little understanding of the issues affecting BAME people and communities. Many BAME people have for generations voted and been expected to vote for Labour. But that has now shifted, and particularly with the younger, second/ third generation BAME communities, there is a resentment, that their vote is being taken for granted. I think the focus of your argument is:
“Political representation cannot and will not increase until we actively make movements to increase our numbers and, when we do, encourage fellow voters to support us”
We all agree with this but we have a mountain to climb. We are not even in the foothills!
As with working for equal representation of women in Parliament, we know it will take more than a hundred years at the present pace using incremental strategies. We urgently need a ‘jump start’ or a breakthrough. We can’t wait for ‘cultural change from the grassroots’, alone. Of course these things should be happening anyway, but they will not alone make a difference. Creating a level playing field to help more BAME people, and women to get elected is positive action: something we are short of.
I also very much agree with your statement:
“It has now become necessary for our voices to be heard at the heart of government, both local and national, where that voice speaks for the community it represents. The state of the economy, the effects on housing, education, crime and immigration will touch us all in some way over these next painful years”
My question, is just how will ‘our voices be heard at the heart of governement’ if we are not there?
A representative Parliament and a government (national and local) with BAME people and women sitting at the table where the decisions are being taken that affect their lives, is now urgent and makes for a better more equal democracy.
We agree with where we want to be, we just need to agree that the tried and tested status quo, and natural evolution, or grass roots approach in in how we get there will take decades. I for one would like to see equality and a more representative democracy in my lifetime.
Duwayne
Fascinating piece. Are you opposed to the London Party plan to discriminate in favour of BAME candidates by reserving one out of the top four places on the GLA list for them and two out of the top six?
Sorry, Mike 80 – I have studiously avoided being provoked by your previous comments. But to suggest that Lib Dems “do not understand” local communities etc when all the polling evidence shows Lib Dems to be “people like us” and “good for our local community” etc is crass and blinkered. Certainly in the David Butler analysis of the 2005 election Lib Dem candidates came from the most diverse set of backgrounds. As for your accusation of “incredibly middle class”, I am afraid ALL parties are now predominantly middle class. I am not proud of our 40% of MPs with independent school backgrounds, and have demanded action on this before. This would probably start to address Duwayne’s issue also.
Forgot to mention, I very much welcome London Region’s policy in favour of BAME candidates by reserving one out of the top four places on the GLA list for them and two out of the top six.
Duwayne expresses well what most of us want to see in the long-term. But as Meral says, we need a jump-start to put us in a position where black people can see other black people in elected positions, in council and assemblies, but most of all in Parliament. That needs the kind of action we in the London region erxecutive are proposing for the GLA elections, bravely ensuring a BAME name in the top four of the list — although we have only three GLA members, all elected through the list.
He also rightly says that more BAME people should be recruited and become active in the party. But the chicken and egg situation again comes into play. With few visible role models (Duwayne excepted, for he makes an excellent role model, given his persucution by a corrupt white police force) they don’t think the Lib Dems is for them. The party desperately needs the kind of measures that EMLD is proposing at conference. But those have a limited shelf life, as did the zipper tehniques that established so many superb women MEPs.
It is why we need a programme of positive action throughout the party to fast-track BAME members into positions where they can become trained and effective councillors and MPs.
And, no, positive action is not the same as positive discrimination. It is permitted under the law and thousands of progressive emplourers use its providsions to ensure their organisations benefit from the talents black employees have to offer, buit are too often not given a chance.
However, we shall soon hear the usual rubbish from the lobby who believe that by promoting BAME candidates whom we had previously ignored, we are somehow discriminating against white males.
A great article, Duwayne: I am glad I came down to campaign for you when you first got in (urged on by my old friend Marc Wadsworth).
There is, however, a persistent strand of xenophobia running through the LibDems that one needs to be on the alert for. When I suggested using literature in Turkish and Polish to retain my multi-ethnic ward this May, I was told it was a ” waste of time” and that the Haringey party “preferred the broad brush approach” -i.e. pumping out the same generalised, Westminster-orientated literature to semi-literate council-house tenants.
Labour used Turkish and Kurdish leaflets. Not surprisingly, we lost our two seats in the ward.
Actually I said they weren’t very friendly to the poor. Labour notably created an elaborate system for denying them benefits, and persecuted them with police and ASBOs. They took a benefits system designed to help people in trouble, and rebuilt it as a system to find ways those people weren’t meeting their standards and take away their benefits entirely, leaving them destitute.
And yes, I’ve been unemployed, and I’ve been told on more than one occasion that because my bus was delayed in traffic, I’d have to live on less money that week (what did they expect people to do, go without food?)
Labour like working class people in unions.
(But this is offtopic and I’m not going to continue it here)
John – I know what you mean. I don’t actually think it’s xenophobia – it’s just a form of intellectual laziness. Because for so long Campaigns Dept encouraged and allowed this type of thing, there becomes a lack of originality and care in our messaging. That’s not to say there are no racists in our party. I am afraid there are – as there are also homophobes. More care and effort in messaging can mean less leaflets, but more quality of message and hopefully more votes.
Mike80, when you write that the Liberal Democrats are an “unbelievably middle-class party, and one full of people divorced from the vast bulk of the rest of us (of all classes)” and “this is why electoral reform and student finance seem like priorities to many Lib Dems, when naturally these are actually very small issues in real life” you insult me deeply.
The prime reason I joined the Liberal Party in the 1970s, and have remained it in and its successor since is my experience growing up in a poor working class family on a council estate in supposedly “true blue” southern England. We had no voice, no-one to speak for us, because the electoral system meant every MP for 50 miles around was a Tory. This was the Tory-Labour deal – the Tories had the south, Labour had the north. Do you suppose those northern Labour MPs ever spoke for poor southern people? No, they didn’t give a shit for us, they hardly knew we existed thanks to the electoral system, and they couldn’t be bothered to try and win our votes because the electoral system meant they wouldn’t be enough to win them the seat. That is why I came to see passionately that electoral refrom was the KEY issue to get proper working class representation, and I saw only the Liberals offering it. Don’t you DARE tell me it’s a “small middle-class issue”.
I also was one of that lucky generation which went to university on a full grant. Had there been no such grant, I may well not have gone to university – as my father and mother did not, though both were talented (my mother got a good degree much later in life as a mature student) because there were no grants when they were young and the culture was against them even thinking of university and the like. I now work as a university lecturer, and have seen just how much students from poor backgrounds are damaged by the way their studies are financed – so many of them are worn out and get poor degrees because they feel forced to spend much of their spare time in part-time jobs. So don’t you DARE tell me that student finance is not an issue for working class people such as I and my family were back then.
I don’t believe the black community were displayed more ‘ignorance’ than any other community at the last election about who the candidates were. The issue of party loyalties is in many ways an entirely separate question.
To claim that black families blindly vote Labour lacks historical analysis. Labour were the largely the only party other than the Tories of Enoch Powell on offer during the 1960s and 70s when the first generations of Commonwealth immigrants settled in Britain. To understand why they have remained loyal to Labour you have to apply an historical glance back at the Liberals failure to see winning this section of society as a priority. We cannot just snap our fingers now and expect the black population to switch loyalties en mass, it’s a process that is already happening but needs to be accelerated.
Operation Black Vote studies has shown that having black representation is one of the most important factors in encouraging black people to change their vote. Policies matter, but appearance seals the deal. The trouble is the pace of change in our party has been painfully slow, and I don’t believe this is due entirely to way we attract (or otherwise) BAME members. It is also about what happens at candidate selections. There are many old hands in the party who, with wisdom of experience, will testify to two things:
1. That demands for us to be a more inclusive party have been around for a great many years;
2. That problems have persisted in getting selected in winnable seats.
I am not convinced that the present-day call for grassroots-up evolution is any different, in substance or tone, to what has gone on previously in the last decade, a decade in which we have failed on Black representation.
I have absolutely no doubt that some members will be comforted by the article, but the trouble is we have had good intentions and warm words for too long, from every level of the party. Change will not come about by wishing that the black community join our party in droves, we have to prove we are changing, and that means action to bring about results in the make-up of our elected representatives.
Andrew Suffield
It’s also pretty well-known that poor people tend to vote Labour (oddly, since Labour aren’t very friendly to them), when they vote at all, and that political prejudice in the UK tends to be linked to wealth.
It isn’t nearly as much like that as it used to be. My experience canvassing, it was very marked in the latest election, was that strong Labour support tended to come from middle class trendy or public service types. Amongst poor white people, the old line which one used to hear “We vote Labour because we always do – we are Labour people” was hardly ever heard. New Labour managed to destroy the idea that the Labour Party was a party whose main interest as for poorer people. I find, particularly amongst the young in poorer areas, they don’t even realise that the Labour Party used to be like that – they really don’t, they are quite surprised if you tell them that’s how it was once-upon-a-time. They have been led to believe that all politicians are an alien class, interested only in themselves and in the rich, Labour no different than the Tories.
Duwayne is quite right to note that the “our family has always voted Labour so we will too’” mentality seems to have persisted amongst many BAME people and remains quite strong even now, when it has gone away amongst white people, at least in the places where he and I work politically. There are cultural and social reason for this, I hesitate to say more as last time I tried I was more or less accused of being racist, though that was not at all my intent. However, Duwayne seems to be agreeing with the point I have long been making, that merely pushing forward BAME candidates for their colour without looking more deeply for what the real issue are for our low BAME membership and support, will treat only the symptoms. Sometimes treating the symptoms but ignoring the disease is just about the worst thing you can do.
I wholeheartedly agree with Lester Holloway & Meral. Of course grass roots have to encourage more BAME members & candidates and Lewisham worked very hard to do that – but at some point you just have to look at the outcomes and when it comes to results, we are poorly lacking in good ones.
Other countries have done it, they have achieved a good gender and BAME balance in their parliaments (look at New Zealand for example, with a Maori Party that regularly takes part in government and increasing representation of pacific islanders, whilst at one point the PM, the Head of the Supreme Court and the Governor General were all women) and they have done it by using positive action not leaving it to grass roots cultural change. Real cultural change is only ever achieved when it comes from the top, as well as from the grass roots.
@ Matthew Huntbach – you say: “merely pushing forward BAME candidates for their colour without looking more deeply for what the real issue are for our low BAME membership and support, will treat only the symptoms.”
One of the key reasons for low BAME support is precisely the absence of BAME candidates. It is both cause and effect. Separating the two factors will take us further away from solutions.
In an ideal world we should not be pushing BAME candidates forward, but if we accept that BAME members are just as capable (as we should) then the past record suggests we’ve been missing out on some excellent MPs. This proves we are not living in an ideal world, and wishing things were better is frankly not enough.
BAME candidate’ colour will make the party look and feel reflective of modern society, but what they have to contribute to the party transcends colour.
Prior to 1997 Labour had earned the right to the loyalty BAME communities had shown them, largely thanks to socially progressive members and past battles fought by BAME activists against non-progressive elements in their party.
Post-2003 that loyalty has been slowly falling away, but we as Lib Dems would now be in a much better position if we had similarly earned the right. We haven’t. Mostly we have only talked about the need to be more diverse without ever putting our money where our mouth is. The time has come to take a bold step forward now.
You say: “Sometimes treating the symptoms but ignoring the disease is just about the worst thing you can do.”
This analogy doesn’t apply; success breeds success in that BAME elected representatives will inevitably attract more BAME support and help our message reach communities we are not communicating with well-enough. In that sense, treating the symptom is the cure.
Don’t take my word for it, look how far the Tories have come in such a short space of time. Their grassroots membership is becoming as diverse as their new MPs. They didn’t wish upon a star, they decided on the treatment and single-mindedly applied it.
I agree with Duwayne but only on one point – BAME communities have been slow to get involved in politics . And even that statement is not universally true.
Up and down the country there are many local councils with signinicant numbers of BAME (mainly Asian) councillors.
And of course over the years there are a number of examples of BAME MPs coming up to the mark. Sadly within Liberal Democrats this was limited to Dadabhai Noaraji in the 1890s and Parmjit Gill in 2003
This may have something to do with the fact that as the third Party we have not attracted the same numbers of people from the BAME communities but I think when you examine membership numbers you will find that there is not that wide a variation of percenatge of BAME members that the Parties have
Of course when it comes to voting patterns the picture is quite different with the majority voting Labour. This is a because Labour drew its support from working class union members to which many BAME individuals belong.And Duwayne is right that there is still a tendency for many BAME families continue to vote Labour out of a sense of blind loyalty. However it is evident that these loyalties are breaking down. Certainly the Iraq War saw thousands of Asian voters change the allegiance to Libereal Democrats in 2005 and a significant proportion of those will not just drift back. But that is not to say they have permanently switiched their allegiance to Liberal Democrats. My evidence is that these individuals have for become discerning floating voters whose support has to be won over. And it is from amongst this group that I often get quizzed about the why the Liberal Democrats appear to lag so far behind the Tories and Labour when it comes to representation in high office within councils and in Parliament
Andrew Suffield suggests “Libdems dont care what colour you are” And there in lies the problem. We need the Party – at the local and national level to care very much what colour the people at the heart of the Party are. As Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes have both rightly said “To gain respect from the people you serve you first need to look like the people you serve” In other words the make up of the Party must include people from all sections of the community at every level – but particularly in positions of influence – i.e. local and national government for starters.
Anthony Hook “People must be willing to be candidates” People are. In 1997 Libdems had the largest number of BME candidates of all the three major Parties – in 2005 we had 34 BME candidates in an 2010 46 candidates.
Trouble was none of them were in key target seats (although in 2010 3 were treated as though they were target seats) Granted 2010 was a bad year for us – but even so we could have returned at least one BME MP if the Party had put its mind to doing so early in the process
I will never buy the argument that candidates from BAME background are less able.
The evidence is that BAME MPs perform well (We just need to look at the record of the late Bernie Grant . Incidentally Labour would not have succeeeded in electing BME MPs if they had not implemented All Black Lists. It was the catalyst that was needed.
And that is what we need. A catalyst to propel a small number of BAMEs into Parliament. The EMLD motion if passed and acted upon will be that catalyst.
Without consorted action we could could be waiting for organic change to produce a truly diverse Liberal Democrats Parliamentary Party for a long long time. I have waited twenty years and more. I honestly am not prepared to wait much longerr
When did BME become BAME, or is this just more progressive rebranding to give an impression of action?
Lester Holloway
Don’t take my word for it, look how far the Tories have come in such a short space of time. Their grassroots membership is becoming as diverse as their new MPs.
Really? Or is it that the press, much of which is happy to print Conservative Party propanda as “news”, decided to report it that way? It’s my impression that Conservative Party membership remains largely doddery old white people. But if we had newspapers on our side, maybe they would print our press releases as “news”, and we could I think find enough camera-pleasing BAME members to give that impression as well. However, we don’t have any newspapers really on our side, and we have plenty who hate us, hate everything we do, and report on us only when they can do so in a way that makes us look bad.
Cameron’s initiative seemed to be all about imposing London-based priviliged elite type candidates on local parties, and, sorry, if some business shark yuppy happens to have a non-white skin, to me s/he’s still a business shark yuppy first, and I think we have enough of that type ruling over us. Also, the Conservatives do have the advantage of having plenty of seats where anyone with the party label will get elected regardless of effort. There is quite an attraction in this for business shark yuppies, unfortunately we can’t offer the same.
Look – here’s my problem, if you’re going to offer easy-access candidature to people on the basis of surface attributes, you are going to get unprincipled types trying to use it. That’s how the world works, people will use whatever they can to push ahead, particularly business shark yuppy types. If we said we were going to offer fast-track access to Parliamentary candidature to people with ginger hair, no doubt we’d get a rush of ginger-haired applicants, but would they be people who are really Liberal Democrats or people who like the idea of being fast-tracked to power just because they have an attribute that gives them the ticket?
Ever since I’ve been a member of our party, this has been an issue. Since my youth I’ve heard within our party “Look we’ve got all these good policies for BAME (or whatever was that year’s fashionable term for the same) people, so why do so few of them vote for us and hardly any join us?”. I really don’t think there is any internal discrimination in our party, on the contrary it seems to me we are always very happy when we do get non-white members to encourage them and push them forward.
Rabi Martins notes “Up and down the country there are many local councils with signinicant numbers of BAME (mainly Asian) councillors”, which is interesting. Why not similar numbers of black councillors? Do we discriminate against black people more than Asian people? No, there are cultural and social explanations for this which are nothing to do with loads of black people wanting to be councillors and us turning them down.
Now, here’s my point – we need to be able to talk about these cultural and social issues, they are the real deep reason for the problems we are observing of lack of visible BAME members. They might also explain the shocking lack of audibly working class members as well, but no-one seems to think that’s any issue worth bothering about.
Fascinating to see how many Lib Dems see no problem with racial discrimination which is what the London Party are proposing.
@ Merel Ece. You say you favour this policy. In the last GLA selection you withdrew having come 9th because as you said on LDV
‘I did make the list at no. 9, but pulled out as I couldn’t see the point.
If you’re not from South London and white, you are wasting your time under the present system. ‘
So basically having failed to persuade the Liberal electorate you want to change the rules. Do you really believe that LDs did not vote for you because you are not white? If so why on earth do you stay in the party?
Indeed my comment was to stimulate discussion. Without open discussion on a subject like this one which can be emotive, we have no real idea how other members or potential members may feel about the lack of BAME councillors/MP’s and how we intend to deal with it.
Are you opposed to the London Party plan to discriminate in favour of BAME candidates by reserving one out of the top four places on the GLA list for them and two out of the top six?
I am not for or against as I can provide credible arguments for both. But in the light of support for a more representative party – would a ‘leg up’ actually hurt the party or improve its appearance ?
I accept many words have been said on this subject with action lagging way behind. I believe that has and was the past. Today we are in a coalition where we will be judged by those who voted for us and those who we want to vote for us in the future on the policies we bring forward and implement.
It is now time for us to prove to those who once supported Labour that we are the party to restore civil liberties, to scrap polices that have clearly affected BAME communities in a disproportionate way and to continue to seek to balance the fundamental values of equality and community.
I thank all for your comments.
Duwayne.
Duwayne, if we had someone BAME and credible standing for our GLA list, would not LibDem members vote for such a person? I know I certainly would make the fact that someone is BAME a very big reason why I would want to put that person high up in my preference list. It is for the obvious reasons that, yes, I agree – we need a prominent BAME presence in those we have in public elected positions. I would far rather any such person got there through this reason rather than through some mechanical forcing of the issue by reserved places. I remain concerned that reserved places opens the door to opportunists and does not tackle the real problem of why a relatively low proportion of the BAME population sees us as their political choice, and even fewer actually join us as members.
I also have no problem with a little effort being made by party organisers to try and encourage existing BAME members to put themselves forward as potential candidates. We need to do more of this anyway. There’s a lot of it at borough level where we often have to ask people whether they would consider standing as council candidates, but beyond that we are perhaps over-reliant on people putting themselves forward. The consequence is that with our Parliamentary candidates we tend to have an overbalance of people who have a certain glib pushy manner and the sort of social background that gives one that over-confident manner. Politics is the worse for it.
The timings for these actions create a peculiar unease, the selection processes for candidates was engaged months if not years ago but BME or differing candidature held no importance, it feels and sounds awfully like bolting the stable after the horse has gone.
I look at the opinion polls and see the core support dropping for the ìLiberal democrats and wonder if this set of actions is a cynical ploy to gather grass roots support for a party that despite it’s liberal name outwardly appears more of a closed shop than any other party.
If the party is serious about wanting to get BME or for that matter anyone who has the right characteristics into the political fold, consider the following:
Issue: Politics has a bad reputation
Just one suggestion: Encourage a dialogue and be frank that those seeking political careers are not what you seek
Issue: Those who engage with parties are often made to feel that grass roots activities (Leafletting / canvassing etc) are all they can do
Just one suggestion: Engage and support those you seek through the community work they are already doing and utilise their skills/ experience to greater effect than traditional grass roots activities
Issue: Assumptive conversations about the reason for lack of candititure
Just one suggestion: Provide an easy route for people to feedback not the individual issues but the larger ones that they want answers for (this is not having a token facebook page / twitter feed but actually using social media for a purpose)
In short don’t expect the way parties have behaved traditionally to encourage anyone except those who traditionally came forward to do so.
New audiences require different thinking and I mean anyone new to the arena not specific to any group.
It’s meant to be a new way for politics, so why has selection remained the same?