Why don't more ethnic minorities vote?

By Tim Wigmore writing in The Telegraph

In 2010, ethnic minorities were three times less likely to be registered to vote than white Britons. Whether this gap is reduced will go a long way to determining the result of the next general election.

Seven per cent of white British people weren't registered to vote in 2010. For all other ethnic groups, the percentage not registered to vote was substantially higher – 28 per cent of black Africans weren’t registered. Ethnic minorities who are registered are almost as likely to vote as the rest of the electorate – but, because of the high numbers not registered, their electoral significance remains disproportionately low.

The difficulty persuading ethnic minorities to go to the ballot box is nothing new: 50 years ago, the Commission for Racial Equality drew attention to “ethnic marginals” to try and highlight the political importance of black and minority ethnic voters. But the registration gap between ethnic minorities and white voters has proved stubborn: an analysis of 1991 data suggested that 24 per cent of black people weren’t registered. Things have barely changed since.

Convincing ethnic minorities their votes count is a big part of the problem. They have historically tended to be concentrated in safe Labour seats, which have lower turnouts: only 59 per cent voted in the 100 safest Labour seats in 2010. Simon Woolley, the director of Operation Black Vote, believes that many people

are so afraid that giving details of your status might result in loss of benefit, raising of debt problems people might face, immigration questions”.

He sees stop and search as driving the disenfranchisement of young black voters by encouraging them to "instinctively rail against authorities".

To Mr Woolley, black disengagement is rooted in fundamental issues:

With Parliament neither looking representative or sounding inclusive, there seems little incentive to register.”

The historical paucity of ethnic minorities in the House of Commons is slowly abating – the number of BME MPs rose from 14 to 27 in 2010 – but, as Mr Woolley puts it, “gross disconnect” with the political system remains.

This is why ethnic minorities feel neglected by politicians: only 29 per cent were canvassed by any political party in 2010, compared with 54 per cent of white British people. White people had three times more chance of being canvassed by the Conservatives than ethnic minorities; it was the same where the Lib Dems were concerned.

This goes to the core of why ethnic minorities don’t vote: Prof Anthony Heath shows that all people are significantly more likely to vote when canvassed. It’s not that parties deliberately ignore economic minorities, but that their lack of canvassing reflects their wider failure to engage the most socially deprived people, especially those in private rented accommodation.

It's also about age: ethnic minorities tend to be younger, and all young people are far less likely to vote. Only 44 per cent of 18-24 year-olds voted in 2010.

The obstacles to increasing BME turnout are considerable. Recent changes to voter registration, which move it to individuals and away from households, could also have a "devastating effect" on turnout, fears Simon Woolley: only 48 per cent of BME voters were aware of these changes in a recent Electoral Commission poll, significantly fewer than the number of white people who were.

Operation Black Vote have plans for a voter registration day, perhaps named after Nelson Mandela, to try and maximise the political clout of the BME community. TickIT, an independent voter registration organisation, launched in Birmingham last month, and registered 41 new voters. The location was no coincidence: the Midlands is a pivotal Conservative-Labour battleground and numerous seats could be swung by the ethnic minority vote.

Political parties have been slow to recognise the electoral consequences of Britain's demographic changes. Labour has historically been the natural home for ethnic minorities – it got 68 per cent of the BME vote in 2010. But the party was still almost twice as likely to canvass white Britons than ethnic minorities at the last election.

Blithely assuming that newly registered BME voters will automatically become loyal Labour supporters amounts to unduly fatalistic Conservative thinking: they are increasingly middle-class. African voters "look like a good prospect for the Tories" according to Maria Sobolewska of the University of Manchester, who notes that they are often quite wealthy. She suggests that there could be mileage in the Conservatives running an information campaign among African people to encourage them to vote.

The rising ethnic minority population means that the BME vote has never been more significant: in 2015, there will be 50 Conservatives seats where Labour is second and the BME vote is larger than the Tory majority. Through their inertia on stop and search reform and endless tub-thumping on immigration, the Conservatives are leaving themselves vulnerable to defeat by demographics.

If groups like Operation Black Vote and TickIT are successful in increasing voter registration, the political effect will be to accelerate the demographic transformation of the electorate. They could yet be critical in making Ed Miliband the next Prime Minister.

By Tim Wigmore

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timwigmore/100263554/why-dont-more-ethnic-minorities-vote/