In her first few weeks as Prime Minister, Theresa May has made clear her intention to win over traditional Labour voters.Her first speech in Downing Street focused on the need to improve the lives of ordinary working people, rather than the privileged few – a direct pitch to the kind of communities, particularly in the north and Midlands, that Labour used to take for granted.

Such a bold endeavour, for reasons of both principle and pragmatism, needs to be supplemented by a particular effort to reach out to the section of the population that has been historically most resistant to supporting the Conservatives: Britain’s diverse black and minority ethnic (BME) communities.

In fact, the Conservative Party has never succeeded in winning a significant proportion of Britain’s ethnic vote. For most immigrants and their families, the default position has been to vote Labour.

The Tories were seen, whether fairly or not, as being at best indifferent and at worst hostile. During the 1980s, it mattered less: most BME voters were heavily concentrated in inner city constituencies where the Tories had little chance of success.