Four new BME faces for Parliament?

With the final selections being undertaken by the political parties OBV has been made aware of at least four new BME Candidates who could find their way to being Members of Parliament after June 8th.

Last night, the Conservatives selected Kemi Badenoch to fight one of safest Conservatives seats in the country - Saffron Walden - which marks a meteoric rise for Kemi, who recently became an London Assembly member. The Conservatives will also see this as a statement of intent, throwing down the gauntlet to the Labour party on race and diversity.

Labour has selected three BME candidates from their MPs who are resigning, that includes, Preet Gill who will contest Birmingham Edgbaston where there is a majority of 2500 votes.

OBV is particularly pleased that another one of our MP Shadowing alumni, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, will seek to protect a 7,000 majority in Slough. And if elected he'll be possibly the only Sikh MP in Parliament. And perhaps the toughest task of all is with trade unionist, Eleanor Smith, who will be fighting the Tories to protect an extremely slim 800 votes majority.

Whilst we wish all of these the best of luck, the number of candidates fighting winnable seats is not nearly enough, particularly given the HQs have had a chance to circumvent local party structures to address the lack of BME representation in Parliament.

To add to this, Labour's African and Caribbean male activists are furious with their party, that no new African or Caribbean male candidates have been selected to stand in a winnable seat this time round.

OBV has seen a letter written to Labour party chiefs asking for an explanation, not least why African and Caribbean male candidates were told they couldn’t stand for the Slough seat, only to find out that some other male minorities were allowed to stand.

It's easy to see why Labour viewed Slough as a way of ensuring Sikh representation in Parliament, but the way it was done seems clumsy.  Futhermore, with stronger political will they could have found space for one of the very talented African and Caribbean men such as Dr Floyd Millen or Patrick Vernon.

In the fight for the BME vote the Conservatives are trying to position themselves as a viable alternative to Labour, particularly targeting the African and Caribbean vote.  The Labour party must up its game not to be outshone.

Simon Woolley