BAME Labour : Planning for the future

This weekend saw the Bi-annual BAME Labour Summer Conference which was organised by BAME Labour and was open to all ethnic minority members of the Labour Party, BAME Labour members, and all BAME Labour supporters. It was the first real opportunity for ethnic minority members and supports of the Party to come together since the new executive took their posts. So it was no surprise that the agenda for the day was packed. The day started with some Constitutional changes in a session that was open to only BAME Labour Members, at which the constitutional changes which tightened up the vague elements of it and included the formal co-option of the Young Labour BAME Officer were all unanimously agreed.

Kamaljeet Jandu, Chair of BAME Labour then opened conference by paying tribute to and holding a minutes silence for the victims of the shocking and horrific events in Norway. He went to say that the events there have an implication for all of us and this set the tone of the conference with Norway and the links that Breivik has to the English Defence League (EDL) a key theme which came out through the course of the day. Both the Chair and Vice-Chair, June Nelson then spoke about BAME Labour and how the new committee was putting the past behind them and looking forward to the new role that they can play. We all acknowledged that the race equality agenda in the last 20 years has moved on despite the constant attacks on multiculturalism – which is why as BAME communities we need to be in a position to engage with the debate because it’s not about ghettos, it’s about celebrating the diversity of our differences as because we are stronger when we are united.

Nelson, went on to highlight that whilst Labour has been the natural home of our Communities, there is very little the Party can show for this, she emphasised that the new executive was going to change this. Keith Vaz MP then spoke briefly about his experiences as one of the first BAME MPs and about the role of the Ethnic Minority Taskforce.

This then led into the panel session, with Vaz, Dawn Butler, Jennette Arnold AM, Cllr Mohammed Butt and Usman Ali, Vice President at the NUS. We were soon back to the topic of the events in Norway and the EDL and how we as the left respond to this new threat from the far right. There was a strong sense from the panel that the response has to be a community based one, Jennette Arnold AM, spoke about the way in which Waltham Forest had said No to the EDL. However, I feel that the panel missed the point; they kept suggesting that the EDL was a political party which clearly it isn’t. This in my opinion meant that the debate that BAME communities need to have about the EDL and far right weren’t fully explored. Interspersed with this, was the other key theme of the day, selections. Delegate after delegate spoke about how they been overlooked both at local and national government level. This meant that there wasn’t a really opportunity to ask members what they want to see from the BAME Executive or for a discussion around the structure of the organisation. This is something that came out during my Young Members networking session.

Over lunch the young members told me that they felt as though the issues which had been discussed weren’t a priority for them, because as one young member said to me, ‘both as a young person and from a BAME community we get overlooked’. They told me that they to talk about issues that are currently having a massive impact on BAME communities as a whole like crime, education and NHS.

Next came the workshops, which were looking at: making BAME Representation Count, Immigration and multiculturalism is this why Labour lost in 2010?, Increasing the representation of BAME Women, the Economy and another on Constituency campaigning. I went along to the session on women, which again was dominated by the issue of selections and how all too often BAME women had been overlooked.

Overall, I feel that the day has got to be the start of a conversation about how BAME Labour engages with our wider Labour BAME family. We need to start talking about the London elections, and how we ensure that our core voters do come out and vote Labour, and how best BAME Labour can make the voice of BAME communities heard again within the party.

Jyoti Bhojani