BME candidates for 2015 Election far too low

It was interesting to hear Dr Jennifer van Heerde-Hudson from University College London's Parliamentary Candidate UK Project on BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour (4 January) assess the backgrounds of candidates chosen to stand in seats for the 2015 general election. The podcast is here.

At the moment, and there are several weeks to go, only eight per cent can be identified as BME, though as Dr Hudson admitted, the number might be higher as some candidates did not identify themselves as from a BME background.

Even so, this is disappointingly low considering that people from BME backgrounds now make up close to 15 per cent of the population of England and Wales. However, twelve per cent of Conservative candidates are BME, with five in safe seats who will, as Dr Hudson emphasised, considerably increase the small number of BME people on the benches of the House of Commons. The Labour and Lib-Dem percentages are lower, though were not given in detail during the interview. Below is a small sample of Asian Parliamentary candidates.

During the slow news period between Christmas and the New Year, there was also a report that some in the Labour Party were concerned at the lack of Labour BME candidates and the danger of ignoring the importance of the BME vote. We can only echo that the Labour leadership shouldn't overlook changes in the voting behaviour, and attitudes, of our BME population and should not count on their vote come the 7th of May.

The strangely unseen elephant standing big in the corridors of power is the large number of BME people who have yet to register to vote. These are the people OBV will be targeting in the run up to May, in particular with the eXpress campaign bus that we will be taking to those areas with the largest BME populations and in which are many marginal Parliamentary constituencies. Last year OBV published Power of the Black Vote in 2015 which listed the 167 marginal seats in which the winning candidate's majority was less than the number of BME voters.

The eXpress bus will increase the number of BME voters in these and other constituencies and, equally important, will encourage them to understand the power of their vote to ensure their issues are addressed by the main parties. It looks as if tactical voting will be more important than ever in the forthcoming election, and BME voters won't be slow to realise how best to support the candidate who takes most seriously the issues they face and reforms they demand.

Some Asian Parliamentary Candidates already selected:

Nusrat Ghani, Conservative, Wealdon
Ranil Jayawardena, Conservative, North East Hampshire
Chamali Fernando, Conservative, Cambridge
Rishi Sunak, Conservative, Richmond, Yorkshire
Aqila Choudhry, Lib Dem, Leeds North East
Uma Kumaran, Labour, Harrow East
Rupa Huq, Labour, Ealing Central and Acton
Tulip Siddiq, Labour, Hampstead and Kilburn
Anawar Miah, Labour, Welwyn Hatfield
Purna Sen, Labour, Brighton Pavilion

Paul Hensby