How Labour broke through the race barrier in politics

sunderkatwala Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 12:14:02 AM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

Trevor Phillips has backed away from his comments which suggested a specific problem of institutional racism in the Labour Party. The good news - shown by new Fabian research - is that BME candidates do have fair chances in Labour candidate selections, which was not the case 10 years ago. Labour is the only party in Britain - probably in Europe - to have achieved this breakthrough. This is therefore a very bad moment for the politics of "No We Can't"



What the new Fabian Society research shows:

In 1997, just 4 of Labour's 183 new MPs were black or Asian. (Just 2.2%). Labour's candidates were no more diverse than the 1992 parliamentary party. We had under a third of the new BME MPs and candidates than we would have wanted - (or it could be argued that it was three times as difficult for black and Asian citizens to be elected as Labour MPs).

But, by 2005, 7.5% of the new intake were non-white MPs, and there was a similar proportion among candidate selections. The chances of a Labour candidate or new MP being non-white had tripled since 1997, getting us to approximately proportionate selections.

Now, Labour is selecting BME candidates in 10.5% of new candidate selections (ie, where a sitting MP is not running again). This rises to over 15% in Labour held seats. This will accelerate the catch-up towards a PLP that is broadly representative of the UK's ethnic mix.

That shows that black and Asian citizens (who make up under 8% of the population) have had a fair shot in selections in this Parliament, and the last one. This is an important breakthrough. (We aren't selecting women in 50% of seats, despite All Women Shortlists).

The Tories are doing more than they have ever done before but they are still behind Labour on every indicator - current MPs; rate of candidate selections at every level. They are selecting BME candidates in 4.9% of new selections, and that rises to 9.4% in Tory held seats.

Whether Labour does very well or poorly at the next election, there are very likely to be at least five new black and Asian Labour MPs - Rushanara Ali will take back Bethnal Green, and in the Labour seats where BME candidates have been selected.

Bolton South East - Yasmin Qureshi (majority 32%)
Glasgow Central - Anas Sarwar (majority 30.4%)
Birmingham Ladywood - Shabana Mahmood (majority 20.4%)
Streatham - Chuka Umunna (17.8% majority)




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How Labour broke through the race barrier in politics | 16 comments (16 topical)

How Labour broke through the race barrier (#1)

by sunderkatwala on Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 12:16:51 AM GMT

More details on the figures here

http://fabians.org.uk/general-news/general-news/obama-uk-politics-ethnic-penalty


Re: How Labour broke through the race barrier (#15)

by snowflake5 on Tue Nov 11, 2008 at 04:57:19 PM GMT

Yes, Labour are definitely making a HUGE effort to be more inclusive. To give credit to the Tories, they too are trying (their two ethnic MPs were selected and elected under Howard, and Cameron is trying to get more selected).

Indeed the SNP and Plaid Cymru are trying hard too (the SNP have an ethnic MSP and Plaid have an ethnic Welsh Assembly member).

The only party making no effort at all is the LibDems - the only one of the five main parties to have no ethnic members in Westminster, the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly. I think Ming Campbell when leader tried to get more selected as candidates - but his local parties resisted him. Clegg doesn't seem interested.

IMO the LibDem exceptionalism is the big story - they remain an exclusive white middle-class male party and resistant to expanding the club (whether it is selecting working class candidates or women or ethnicities). And this is why they are going backwards in politics.


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Re: How Labour broke through the race barrier (#16)

by AngryVoter on Tue Nov 11, 2008 at 08:30:28 PM GMT

Well, snowflake, it's not like the LibDems have any kind of vaguely consistent ideology is it? They don't even seem to be able to vote one way or another in most of the "big issues". Despite Nick Clegg's move towards libertarianism [IMO a good idea, completing the 3 'main' ideologies in the Western World] there are still issues such as support for the EU [big government] which is basically causing them to limp home on most issues and places.


[ Parent ]

Re: How Labour broke through (#2)

by Andy Ray on Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 06:30:26 AM GMT

It's a pity, though, that despite the Left's obviously anti-racist policies, the rightwing parties seem to trump us in actually putting ethnic/minority people in high office. It's not only in our country with Disreli or Thatcher, but even the American Republicans managed to place Powell or Rice before the so-called progressives could manage to wake up to nominate Obama (and in a way paved the way for him).  


Re: How Labour broke through (#3)

by MikeHobday on Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 09:05:57 AM GMT

"the rightwing parties seem to trump us in actually putting ethnic/minority people in high office"
How many black Tory MPs? How many have been in their shadow cabinet?


[ Parent ]

Re: How Labour broke through (#4)

by AngryVoter on Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 09:45:12 AM GMT

I think he's more referring to Disraeli and Thatcher, Mike.

There was also Bush's cabinet, while Right Winger actually had a number of African-Americans and women in it, unlike most cabinets before it.

Personally we have to stop and consider the "numbers game" here whenever we start talking about people from a different ethnic background, the UK is, from the 2001 figures: 92.1% white, 4.0% South Asian, 2.0% Black, 1.2% Mixed Race, 0.80% East Asian.

Even assuming the last 7 years of immigration, of which the largest bloc where white Poles we're looking at only 8%-9% of the population being of an ethnic background other than White, this makes the recruitment of numerous black or "other" MPs difficult.

Personally I wonder at the obsession of getting such a tiny sliver of the vote and overal people into the political system with such massive amounts of resources in the UK at the present time meaning the number of Black or Asian MPs is about "right" in a proportion of their minority bloc.

But why the obsession with getting people of a minority into the government and into office when it should be more about the competence of the candidate, regardless of his background?

We have to stop and compare this to the USA where 19% of the Population alone is black. Meaning that's a genuinely significant chunk of the vote to chase after in the United States.

In the UK however, you have to remember that most of the Afro-Carribean and Asian votes are spread between London, Birmingham, Leicester and Leeds and account for a tiny bit of the vote.

There's 54 million white people in this country, and 1.5 million black people. "Proportionally" if we could place these people into a bloc they count for just 1/60th of the population, which in order to be "represented" proportionally as a bloc in Parliment means we'd need 6 or so Black MPs.

Also, I find the "Equality Minister" a bit of a joke and unsure as to what he's saying on a day by day basis.

One week he's saying we should "positively discriminate" against White people again or they'll run off to the BNP, now he's saying the whole British Political system is institutionally racist...

Can he actually make sense first? It's not exactly the most positive view of an ethnic minority figure in government when his mind changes every week, makes him seem like he doesn't stand, or understand anything.


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Re: How Labour broke through (#5)

by johnpreid on Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 02:18:20 PM GMT

The Stephen Lawrence report said despite not being able to find any racism it was the way the investigation didnt look at the fact that racism seems to have been the motive and that there should have been a bigger investigation because of it as witnesses were to scared to come forward as they were scared of the suspects parents,,The report also saidf that no disapespect had been given to Stephens parents excspet not looking a the reason of his death  If say Lawrence had been killed for wearing a west ham t-shirt by a Leyton orient supporter then the police would have looked at that as a motive, but with the racist angle they failed to take into account, 

In 1999 Trevor Philips was right though when he said that Labour was institutionally racsit for automatically assuming that Black and Minority ethnic people vote labour,

Yesterday Dawn Butler M.P said on the T.V that Phillips was wrong to call Labour Institutuionally racist as that was what we labled the police for the Lawrence report, I find it strange Dawn Butler could quite openly decide to call teh police institutuionally racist because the one instance wqhen the police failed to take into account that Lawrence could have been killed because of his colour but when many labour activists automatically decide taht BME's are going ot vote labour it was wrong of Phillips to call Labour institutionally racist,

As for Phillips saying that the make up of labour would ever prevent us having a Ethnic P.M If you think of the fact that had Barbara Castle got through in place of Strife we might have had the first female p.m ,My local party has always encouraged anyone no matter what their make up to get involved and teh reason we had a lady of ethnic origin as our candidate in the gla election was simply because she was the best choice ,
I feel that too often we are afraid to criticse racism simply when it isn't there for fear of being called racist,or signal out minority groups such as some sharia law muslims own bigotry



Dawn Butler


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Re: How Labour broke through (#8)

by jkitleft on Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 05:47:05 PM GMT

I have no doubt that there was bound to be a female PM in the '70's, but I only wish it was someone like Shirley Williams or Barbara Castle.

Dawn Butler has also spoken of how David Heathcote-Amery saw her on the member's terrace in the Commons and asked if she was an MP. She replied "Yes I am actually. Are you?". He said to his Tory colleagues "They're letting anyone in these days"


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Re: How Labour broke through (#10)

by swatantra on Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 07:51:12 PM GMT

Despite what the Fabians figures reveal, there will be no further continuous improvement until we have All BME Shortlists. We need only about another 30 reasonably 'safeLabour' Westminster seats to make all the difference, and change the composition of the House at a stroke.


[ Parent ]

Re: How Labour broke through (#6)

by sunderkatwala on Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 04:26:01 PM GMT

AngryVoter,

The analysis is based on statistical analysis. It is simply on the basis that 'fair chances and no unfair barriers' for the best candidates would over time see broadly similar proportions of women or members of ethnic minority groups in parliament as there are in the country.

But you have got your numbers muddled up, so those you give are misleading.
 
The census figures show there are 4.6 million (7.9%) non-white Britons - black, Asian, mixed race. If that was mirrored in Parliament, it would mean 58 to 60 MPs from minority ethnic backgrounds. 

If you were trying to refer specifically to the black British population, that is 2% of the population. There are 646 MPs and 2% of 646 would be 13 MPs (rather than 6, as you say).

The US black population is 13% (not 19%) with Hispanics about 15% and white Americans about 74%.


[ Parent ]

Re: How Labour broke through (#7)

by AngryVoter on Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 04:58:16 PM GMT

I said "about" not the exact figure. Sorry this is brief but I am about to sit down for dinner, will go over it better in a bit.


[ Parent ]

Re: How Labour broke through (#9)

by Beattie on Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 07:43:07 PM GMT

Trevor Phillips is talking sour grapes. He didn't make a 'breakthrough' as he was never really part of Labour. Was he ever elected to the GLA or just put there on the top up lists by the Party ?

Lots of quality BME people have got through our system - Dawn Butler is one, David Lammy another, Parmajit Dhanda, Oona King and so on.

Barack Obama is a class act and would have walked his way through many Labour selection meetings



Re: How Labour broke through (#11)

by Group51 on Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 12:27:46 AM GMT

I thought the point about Obama was that he is post-racial?  I'm generalising, but I don't see how a 'Muslim MP' can be post-racial.  The first link on Dawn Butler's page is about the slave trade.

All MPs should be interested in racial equality. BME MPs probably need to work extra hard not to appear pidgeon holed in a particular constituency.

Anyway, the thing about Barack, is that he is such a better politician and orator than the others.  I can't think of any current UK politician who makes me feel the same way.  


Re: How Labour broke through (#12)

by sunderkatwala on Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 06:15:20 AM GMT


swanatra

I think all black shortlists would be a mistake.

As Labour has 356 MPs, the Labour benches would broadly reflect the ethnic mix of the country if there were 27 or 28 BME MPs (rather than 12 at present). So Labour is 15 or 16, rather than 30, MPs short of having 8% of its MPs from non-white backgrounds.

If current rates of selections are maintained, there will be a good improvement without all minority lists, rather faster than in the past. (5% of new candidates and 7.5% of MPs were BME last time, compared to 2% in 1997, and 10.5% of candidates and 15.4% this time).

All black shortlists in say 5 or 6 cases per Parliament (which is what has been proposed) could well make relatively little difference to the numbers: they would probably lead to roughly the same number of selections overall. I think they would have a negative impact on the prospects for non-white politicians. 
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2008/03/minority-shortlists-british


[ Parent ]

Re: How did Labour select black PPCs in the 80s (#13)

by Peter Kenyon on Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 09:12:52 AM GMT

Dear Sundar

What about the selection of black Labour PPCs in the 1980s? All of them succeeded men and woman on their merits in open selections. I think you should tell us more about the circumstances of their winning members' support in the first instance.

Peter Kenyon
http://petergkenyon.typepad.com/peterkenyon/


Re: How did Labour select black PPCs in the 80s (#14)

by sunderkatwala on Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 10:25:34 PM GMT

Peter,

I am for open selections, and against all black shortlists. Am I missing your point?

The first four black MPs undoubtedly had to break down much higher barriers than are faced today; that took a particular black sections political mobilisation in specific inner city seats. 

The difference today (in large part thanks to their efforts) is candidates being selected in fair proportions in a range of different kinds of seats, ie both Brent South and Gloucester. 


[ Parent ]

How Labour broke through the race barrier in politics | 16 comments (16 topical)