The 2015 General Election Summit

On 5th March around forty BME, faith, community and business leaders from around the UK will converge at Operation Black Vote headquarters in London for a historic strategic planning meeting in the run up to the 2015 General Election. The main aim will be to ensure that tackling race inequality is firmly put back on the political agenda.

With no clear race equality plan from any of the political parties it is no surprise that in the last few years in areas such as employment, housing, health and criminal justice inequality gaps have widened for BME communities.

For example, Black youths are three times more likely to be unemployed than white youths, and just last week Trevor Phillips and his Green Park Leadership found that of 10,000 top leadership roles, only 10 were held by BME individuals. In general,  we at least have some positive debate about getting more women at top levels of business, but even this debate seems to be the preserve of white women.
 
Part of this General Election Summit meeting will focus on the political mobilization of BME communities across the UK, in particular those 168 marginal seats. Political seats  which OBV identified last year as areas  that the BME vote could decide who wins and who loses. Key to that success will be voter registration.  Also the planning stages for producing a Black political manifesto will also be discussed.
 
OBV’s Simon Woolley stated,

“Of course I’m very excited about the event with community leaders coming from Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and all around England. Together we’ll demonstrate to our  communities that we can effectively work together and give communities a strong voice, but it’s also a powerful message to the political parties that the Black vote is powerful, and is being mobilised.”

Staff Writer