Labour can’t afford complacency about the ethnic minority vote

Amid dissatisfaction over its handling of the war, the party lost five formerly safe seats to pro-Gaza independents. In what was one of the biggest shocks of the night, shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth lost his Leicester South seat. Shockat Adam declared “this is for Gaza” as he won the seat by 979 votes. The constituency, where around 30 percent of the electorate are Muslim, had been held by Ashworth for 13 years.

In nearby Leicester East, the Conservatives benefitted from independent candidates picking up several thousand votes. In Birmingham Perry Barr, Labour’s Khalid Mahmood lost to independent Ayoub Khan by 507 votes. Meanwhile, independent candidates who made the conflict in Gaza central to their campaign won in Dewsbury and Batley, as well as Blackburn, both of which had previously had healthy Labour majorities. Other senior Labour figures in areas with large Muslim populations only narrowly held their seats. Labour though, did manage to win back Rochdale from George Galloway after having lost the seat to the Workers Party leader in a byelection in February that was dominated by the Gaza war.

Ethnic minority voters move away from the Democrats

It’s not just the UK that is witnessing changing voter behaviour among non-whites. A similar trend is emerging in the US, where ethnic minority voters have been moving away from the Democrats.  In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, which has the largest Hispanic population in the US, many voters abandoned the Democrats in 2020, shifting sharply towards Donald Trump. This pattern was echoed among Vietnamese Americans in California and in predominantly Black neighbourhoods in Philadelphia.

But the Financial Times warns against over-interpreting these developments. It notes that while non-white voters in the UK and US still generally lean left, the trend of “countervailing results are becoming steadily less exceptional.” But what’s more important, according to the FT, is the realisation that ethnic minority voters are not an “homogenous bloc.”

The FT’s assessment is centred on the findings of the Minorities Report which show that the gap between the left performing well among ethnic minority voters and the right performing poorly is narrowing. In July, Labour, the Greens, and the Liberal Democrats collectively secured 66 percent of the ethnic minority vote, compared to 26 percent for the Conservatives and Reform UK. “Any discussion over Labour’s problems with minority voters and Conservative gains needs to be tempered by these facts,” the authors’ caution.

Demographic gulfs between white and non-white voters

The report also examines the demographic divides between white and non-white voters. While white voters are divided along educational lines, with graduates increasingly leaning left and non-graduates moving right, among non-white Britons, those with graduate-level education are more likely to vote Conservative.

The study suggests that the Conservatives will likely maintain a coalition of affluent minorities and non-graduate whites, a trend described as the “Rishi Sunak–Lee Anderson spectrum,” while Labour appeals to the opposite demographic.

This may explain why Lee Anderson’s defection to Reform UK was such a significant blow to Sunak and the Conservatives. As UnHerd’s Tom McTague noted in Why Rishi Sunak needs Lee Anderson, Anderson might have been an embarrassment, but Sunak understood that to retain power, he needed to also retain Boris Johnson’s 2019 coalition, which united working-class Conservatives and Shire Tories. Of course, what is really significant about Anderson’s journey from a Labour supporting miner, through Toryism, to the hard right, is that it mirrors one of the many challenges facing the Labour government, given the Anderson is not alone in making that journey.

The role of the state

The report also looks at disagreements among ethnic minorities on the role of the state. British Indians and British Chinese voters tend to be right-wing on economic issues, nationalism, and welfare, making them the most right-wing ethnic groups in the country. Other minority groups, such as those of Caribbean and Bangladeshi descent, sit more firmly on the economic left.

For example, 22 percent of ethnic minority Britons believe it’s important for the government to keep taxes low, a figure comparable to white Conservative voters and far higher than the 14 percent of white Labour voters who share this view. Similarly, while 37 percent of white university-educated Labour voters support strong government action on social justice issues, only 25 percent of ethnic minority voters agree, dropping to 21 percent among British Indians.

The authors argue that if politics shifts to focus primarily on economic issues, it could lead to even greater fragmentation of minority opinion. A similar situation is developing in the US, where the increasingly leftward stance of white liberal Democrats has led them to diverge from minority views on issues like immigration, patriotism, and meritocracy. Historically, the left has been the natural home for non-white Americans, but this is becoming less clear.

Ethnic minorities and class 

It’s also important to note that while political and media discussions often centre around the “white working class,” in Britain, ethnic minority communities are disproportionately working-class. A report in the House of Commons Library shows that people from Bangladeshi and Pakistani ethnic groups are around twice as likely to be in the bottom fifth of incomes than average, and have the lowest median household incomes, closely followed by people from a Black ethnic group.

In its Facing the Facts: Ethnicity and Disadvantage in Britain report in 2020, the Centre of Social Justice (CJS) urges policymakers to work to understand better and tackle these disparities more effectively. “They can only begin to do so with a more sophisticated conversation that acknowledges that socioeconomic disadvantage – and advantage – manifests very differently across Britain’s ethnic groups,” it states.

Labour must find a voice on race

Warnings that Labour cannot take ethnic minority voters for granted were surfacing before the 2024 general election. Writing for Labour List in 2023. Sunder Katwala, director of identity and integration at the think tank British Future and former general secretary of the Fabian Society, argued that Labour must find its voice on race. He noted that Labour no longer holds a near monopoly on Black and Asian political representation, as it did from 1987 to the David Cameron era, and observed that Rishi Sunak’s government had more diversity at the very top, “giving the right more confidence in contesting public arguments about race.”  He noted how race is much more salient in our society and politics, with one in 20 people having been from visible minority backgrounds in the 1990s, compared to one in six today. 

Katwala concluded that if Labour wants to maintain its support among non-white groups, it must navigate the increasing complexity of race in Britain and integrate its ambitions for racial equality into the party’s overall vision for the future.

The 2024 general election and the research that has followed undermine assumptions that the non-white vote is guaranteed for Labour. At present, Labour is hoping that economic growth will resolve all its political challenges and return “white working class” (a conception that tends to ignore significant ethnic minority working-class communities) and ethnic minority voters alike to the Labour fold. However, the evidence from the US, where the Biden presidency has done rather well economically, is that it takes a long, long time for a sense of well-being to seep into people’s consciousness to the point that it influences their voting behaviour. In the meantime, the continuing tragedy of the Middle East will continue to sap support for Starmer unless and until his policies become braver and more decisive.

Right-Wing Media Watch – Pro-Brexit media rattled by Robert Jenrick’s anti-Brexit past

Robert Jenrick’s Remain vote in the EU referendum has come back to haunt him. The MP for Newark is seen as the most right-wing candidate left in the Tory leadership race, having promised to deport one million illegal immigrants, reintroduce the Rwanda scheme, and force firms to employ British workers. He is also the only contender who has said he would withdraw the country from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Despite being considered more hard-right than his rival Kemi Badenoch, the anti-EU press had a bit of a wobble this week about the leadership favourite. GB News initiated the panic, claiming to have ‘unearthed’ a pro-European comment the MP had made ahead of the EU referendum in 2016.

In an article entitled ‘’He sided with Strasbourg!’ Jenrick’s pitch came under fire as the right-wing ‘news’ channel claimed Jenrick was “forced to reassure Tory MPs about his right-wing credentials amid speculation about a pivot to the centre.”

The article informs how despite being far from enthusiastic about remaining in the EU, Jenrick “echoed pro-EU doomsters when it came to expressing concerns about backing Brexit.” During a Prime Minister’s Questions in 2016, Jenrick said: “Today, British manufacturers—particularly small businesses are worried because if we leave the European Union, they will continue to make their products to common European standards because they value the single market’’, adding, ‘’they are aware that the United Kingdom will have no say whatsoever in the formulation of those standards, and their competitive advantage will be destroyed.”

Writing in March 2016, Jenrick took things further saying: “I am concerned about the short-term risks of leaving in terms of job losses, delays in investment coming to the UK and risks to small businesses as well as the larger ones. If we vote to leave there would, no doubt, be risks for several years and there would be considerable uncertainty, but I am sure as a country we would pull through it.”

The right-wing press have now jumped on the comments, questioning the sincerity of Jenrick’s hard-line stance. Critics claim his past as a Remainer conflicts with his current policies.  In an article in the Express, a Tory Brexit supporter commented: “There’s no shame in Rob being a staunch Remainer back in 2016. But it does make me worry about what he really believes in. We had the same with Truss. I want to trust that he’s now someone who cares about immigration numbers and will fight the European Courts on deportation, but his history shows he’s always sided with Strasbourg.”

The Eurosceptic newspaper also cited a Reform source, who said: “Robert Jenrick can’t escape the reality that he voted Remain, he tried to keep us in the European Union with open borders and in government, he sat around the cabinet table supporting decisions that left us with the highest immigration figures on record.

“The reality is, Robert Jenrick wants us to believe he has had a Damascus-like conversion but his recent record paints a very different picture.’’

Jenrick hit back, insisting his right-wing approach is genuine, and tried to demonstrate this by accusing French president Emmanuel Macron of wanting to punish the UK with the Channel crossing crisis.

“I have come to the firm conclusion that we will not secure our borders, we won’t get foreign criminals out of our country, we won’t tackle terrorism unless we leave the European Convention on Human Rights,” he told GB News.

Dear oh dear, the right-wing news outlets seem really rattled by the idea of a former Remainer possibly leading the opposition. Will they throw their support behind Kemi Badenoch, despite her being seen as the more centrist candidate, (yes really!) simply because she’s a genuine Brexiteer? It just shows how deep their hostility to the European Union runs and how it still differentiates the politically acceptable from the political pariah for the right-wing twitterati.

Smear of the week – ‘Taylorgate’ – Right-wing journalism at an all-time low

The US presidential election, one of the most important elections of our lifetime, the war in Ukraine, the escalating conflict in the Middle East, immigration, the NHS, prisons, the right to die, workers’ rights, and so on – there’s so much going on, yet the right-wing media continues its strange obsession with Keir Starmer and Taylor Swift.

‘Taylorgate’ is becoming about as ridiculous as the ‘Beergate’ scandal, all hype and no substance, a desperate attempt to smear Labour while distracting from actual news.

Determined to publish sensationalising clickbait at the expense of real news, this week, the Daily Mail ran with the headline: ‘Taylorgate – the scandal deepens: Keir Starmer and his family not only attended Taylor Swift concert AFTER she got blue-light escort – but were granted a private audience.’

You would have thought that it was common sense to supply Taylor Swift with heavy security after her concerts had to be cancelled in Vienna in August because of terrorist threats. 

Naturally, the likes of the Mail sidestepped such rational explanation. The beleaguered Sue Gray was even dragged into the Mail’s article, which claims that just days after Starmer was granted a private audience at the concert, after receiving £2,800 of tickets and hospitality from Taylor Swift’s record company, the ‘“now-sacked” chief of staff Sue Gray took part in negotiations with Ms Swift’s mother and manager, Andrea, which led to Scotland Yard agreeing to provide a ‘VVIP’ escort.’

The report proceeds to quote a series of Tory sources, including shadow paymaster general John Glen, who told the Mail: ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the prime minister was transparent with the public about his freebies and which pop stars he spends time with? He said he wanted a new era of clean government – this doesn’t feel like it.’

Tory MP Louie French chimed in claiming Starmer’s government “tore up the protocols so they could provide a police escort to a billionaire celebrity.”

The story even features a video of Boris Johnson promoting his predictably outraged column, rhetorically asking: “What is it about Taylor Swift that meant Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper received ‘blue light motorcycle escorts when she came to the UK?”

I’m finding this right-wing obsession with Taylor Swift a bit creepy. Earlier this year, influential MAGA media personalities decided that the pop star’s romance with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce was a plot to get President Joe Biden re-elected.

The attacks on Swift have been building for months, so it’s not surprising that our right-wing media have been determined to keep a pathetic non-scandal alive involving the pop star and the prime minister in the public realm for as long as they can.

Journalism at an all-time low, I’d say.