I was pleased to address the Lib Dems London regional conference on Saturday in Docklands, talking about ‘changing demographics’ in the capital.
The session was chaired by my EMLD colleague Merlene Emerson and included a presentation by the party’s research guru Tom Smithard who revealed a new study that showed the gap in support between Black and Asian voters and white voters. My role was to flesh out how the party can practically go about bridging this gap.
The first things is to go out an recruit new members from BAME communities, welcome them in, audit their skills to bring out the best in them, and find out what they are interested in contributing to the party rather than just giving them wodge’s of Focus leaflets to deliver. And be open to new ideas they bring about how to do things.
The second thing is to find out what issues they are most concerned about and design messages and policies that address these concerns. Of course everyone wants to be treated equally, and BAME voters are just as interested in and affected by ‘mainsteam’ issues such as housing, transport and the economy. However there are many issues that disproportionately affect BAME communities and we must speak to them as well as allowing BAME members to speak for themselves.
It is not hard to outflank Labour on the issues; Labour has brought into the colour-blind agenda yet continues to reap the benefits of a time when they did have something to say on these issues. While ‘race’ remains off the political agenda there is a unique window of opportunity for the Lib Dems to talk about the modern-day Sus Laws – section 60 of the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act which allows police to racially profile youth and search them without reasonable suspicion – and come up with solutions.
We must also design policies around eliminating disproportionate black unemployment. Currently 56% of black youth in London are unemployed, the same level as youth unemployment in Spain and Greece. This is one of the greatest scandals of our time and to tackle it we need a revival of the radical Liberalism of the past that challenged injustice no matter how unfashionable the issues were at the time.
As a party we need to speak to everyone in society, but if we want Black and Asian communities in London to consider the Lib Dems we must also specifically addresses the conditions they face. To not do so would be to do the same thing and expect different results, the classic definition of madness.
If we haven’t got anything to say, or don’t have the inclination to say it, then we have no right to expect support from those communities at the ballot box. To ignore specific concerns – particularly over endemic racial discrimination and unfair outcomes – is the equivalent of talking to them while looking at their feet. Yes, they’ll hear us but they won’t feel like you’re connecting with them. They won’t feel we understand them. And these perceptions are at least as valuable as anything we’ve got to say on the ‘mainstream’ London issues that affect everyone.
To put into context the question of London’s ‘Changing’ demographics; it’s wise to look at London’s ‘Changed’ demographics. Just a short five-minute walk from the Docklands conference center was the Museum of London which evidence of Black presence in London almost since London came into existence. By the 1800’s London’s African population – including many former American slaves – was estimated at around 2%, similar to the total African-Caribbean population of Britain in the 2001 census.
Since the SS Empire Windrush landed at Tilbury Docks in 1948 and heralded the start of significant Caribbean immigration London has been enriched by the culture this generation and subsequent British-born generations. The early 1970s saw mass migration from the Indian sub-continent.
While we welcome immigrant communities as part of the fabric of London today part of the reason these communities don’t vote Liberal Democrat is because we were not standing beside them during times of strife. Granted we were a small party in the 1950s and 60s, but still big enough to say something about Enoch Powell and racial attacks. By the 1980s we had grown in size and there was no excuse whatsoever not to talk about the Sus Laws and the inner city riots. By the 1990s there was even less excuse not to talk about Stephen Lawrence’s murder. 50 years of missed opportunities. No surprise, then, that the majority of these communities have traditionally voted Labour.
So before we talk about ‘Changing’ demographic we should pause and reflect how to make up lost ground with London’s ‘Changed’ demographics, settled immigrant communities, their children and their children’s children.
Southwark have shown that having BAME councillors makes a difference to the credibility of the party among BAME communities, a subject that Simon Hughes MP touched upon during his keynote speech to the conference. But elsewhere in London we’ve run inner city councils yet haven’t done so well when it comes to BAME representation.
As a party we need to put roots down into those communities; go out and identify people – especially those with credibility in the community – who would make great councillors and recruit them. Simon Hughes suggested that every council seat should have one woman and one member of a BAME community, meaning that every ward the party wins will lead to increased diversity.
We need to factor in new immigrant communities too. Eastern Europeans, Russians, Somalis, but must never write off established BAME communities and the 2nd, 3rd and 4th generations, no matter how dire the results of the latest study are for the party.
We’ve got a long way to go, but there are people here who can help. Not least Cllr Michael Bukola, the regional party’s excellent Race Champion. Local parties should invite him to address them.
We must reinvigorate the way we do pavement politics, and reinvigorate how we appeal to BAME communities. One of the ways forward is to take our practice of encouraging people from across London to head to local byelections and adapt it to target multicultural areas of London which have hitherto been a ‘black hole’ for the party. Recruiting new members in such areas could potentially plant new seeds that lead to more activism in those areas.
The Lib Dems need to do things differently. Be more proactive in recruiting members from BAME communities, more willing to change the way we operate in order to get the best out of them, and more willing to embrace the need to address issues that disproportionately affect those communities.
By Lester Holloway @brolezholloway
