Could the Conservative party unlock Labour’s hold on the “ethnic vote”?

The spectre of a so-called “ethnic vote” stalked this month’s parliamentary by-election in Batley and Spen once again. That promiscuous opportunist George Galloway targeted Muslim voters in his attempt to undermine his former party, Labour. He assumed that they voted as a block and that Labour would lose if he could break it up. 

In the event, Galloway’s cunning plan to de-stabilise Sir Keir Starmer failed, even though he won more than one vote in five. Labour’s Kim Leadbeater narrowly held the seat, formerly represented for Labour by her murdered sister Jo Cox. The “Moslem vote” turned out not to be a biddable monolith. Like any other social category, its votes were split between parties. The Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat vote shares were all down compared to the General Election. This suggests Galloway scavenged his support across the board. His biggest boost this time may well have come from the absence of a convincing challenge from UKIP/Brexit candidates.

Nonetheless, analysis of the 2019 General Election found that ethnicity is still the single most determining factor in how we voted – more significant than gender, age or wealth. If black and brown Britons had voted in the same proportions as their white fellow citizens did, then Boris Johnson’s Conservatives would have won around sixty more seats. 

Ethnic background still matters a lot, but there is some evidence, both anecdotal and statistical, that it is beginning to matter less. Unlocking Labour’s hold on the majority of the “ethnic vote” could be an important and vital factor in Johnson’s levelling up drive to redraw the map of British politics.

The Tories have prioritised changes in their image and presentation. In 2001 there were no Conservative MPs with minority backgrounds. Twenty years later there are twenty-two. If Labour is doing better on the backbenches, with 41 MPs with ethnic minority backgrounds, the Conservatives are smashing records at Cabinet level. Gordon Brown’s Cabinet in 2010 was all white, today Rishi Sunak, Priti Patel, Sajid Javid, Kwasi Kwarteng and Alok Sharma occupy senior offices of state, outnumbering their Shadows in the opposition.

Things are changing in the boiler room too, with a new generation of aides epitomised by Munira Mirza, who is now perhaps Johnson’s top advisor. Sonia Khan was a special advisor to Liam Fox, Philip Hammond and Sajid Javid until she was brutally and unfairly expelled from Downing Street by Dominic Cummings. Khan grew up in the West Midlands and told me the reaction was “possibly even worse than if I had said I wanted to be a drug dealer or a bank robber,” when she suggested she might vote Conservative. 

Ten years ago, Khan felt like an exception. Today, she points out that Sandwell has elected six Conservative councillors. Khan says elections in years to come will become “very unpredictable” unless Labour can address the support it is losing and believes senior appointments by the Conservatives encourage young people and start to shatter the “glass ceiling” above ethnic minorities. 

Professor Maria Skoboleska studies voting patterns at the University of Manchester and finds evidence of complacency by Labour. She points out that, for example, “they have largely delegated attracting Muslim voters to Muslim community organisations and leaders and they don’t really campaign in areas where ethnic minorities live directly”. This was pertinent to the close shave in Batley and explains why Labour so often defer to the conventional wisdom of community leaders to secure the “ethnic vote”, rather than making the case for its policies to voters unmediated. Undoubtedly there is a hesitancy about treading on perceived sensibilities. 

The professor argues that the promotion of ethnic minority ministers and MPs has a broad appeal: “It is not really ethnic voters that they are there to attract…they are a kind of symbol of how the Conservative Party has been moving on with the times… the kind of recipients designed for these messages are in fact fellow white voters especially those who live in cities or affluent suburbs, those who have higher education.” Effectively the Tory policy may help to counter the growth of Labour’s new zones of appeal around the nation.

Labour remains the political groundbreaker. In 1987, despite losing the election, four minority ethnic MPs were elected for Labour: Bernie Grant, Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Keith Vaz. Diane Abbot became Britain’s first black woman MP. Why did she stand? “Oh to change the world! And yeah, in the 1980s the Labour Party was the party to join if you wanted to change the world – and I’ve not regretted it.”

Abbot says, “it’s quite extraordinary to see all those people in a Tory Cabinet who are black or brown, even under Jeremy we didn’t manage that record. And you wonder if that isn’t going to speak to Asians… to the fact that people who look like them are in the cabinet.” 

In spite of observing that “then there’s a lot more Asian merchant bankers these days”, she doubts that increasing numbers at the top will seriously impact the electorate. “The truth is they are not really doing anything for black or brown voters on mass. So, I think that the black or brown vote for the Tories has a natural point beyond which it doesn’t go, how are you gonna vote for people, that all the time, are rolling up policies which are directed against you?”

Priti Patel’s heritage may make crackdowns on immigration and asylum seekers more palatable to the general public, but not to those with close experience of the system. Similarly, the treatment of the Windrush generation has traumatised afro-Carribeans.

In practice, the giant iceberg of ethnic minority support for Labour is melting, but it is melting slowly. In 2010 it is estimated that 68 per cent voted Labour, in 2019 that had only dropped to 64 per cent. That is already enough to swing a close election. We know that party affiliations and loyalties are wearing thin. 

The so-called “ethnic vote” is made up of millions of individuals from different backgrounds, with different opinions and different concepts of identity. The Conservatives still face a massive task wooing those voters over. Labour, and for that matter George Galloway, need to stop treating them as mere components of a friendly ghost which can be bought with gesture politics.